Friday 11/11
The Soloist by Steve Lopez
102-160
30 minutes
Saturday 11/12
The Soloist by Steve Lopez
161-200
30 minutes
Sunday 11/13
The Soloist by Steve Lopez
201-260
30 minutes
Monday 11/14
The Last Song by Nicolas Sparks
1-22
30 minutes
The ongoing factor of racism affected Nathaniel's behavior immensely. Though I have no on-hand textual proof, through out the novel when Nathaniel's schizophrenic behavior peaked he often went on rants about how his race was disgraced by smoking African Americans. Also, Nathaniel's experience in all-white Julliard left a very bad taste in his mouth being one of the only African Americans in the school.
Nathaniel's progress in his mental abilities greatly changes through out the story. In his early childhood, Nathaniel was a very strong and stable man. After he went through some traumatic childhood experiences, he quickly set out to pursue his dream in Julliard. There, he broke down. His schizophrenia reached a peak there and he became a homeless, distrusting man on the streets. However, when Mr. Lopez coaxed Nathaniel out of his closed mind Nathaniel greatly progressed. As time passed, Nathaniel returned to his former glory.
In Nathaniel's point of view, Steve can be pushy and doesn't know what is best for himself.
In the story, a major point of controversy is the way to care for mentally ill people. The two huge standpoints are A. To not impose medication, to let them gain your trust and then talk through their problems, and B. To use medication and force to slowly heal their problems. Personally, I believe that each medical case is different. With Nathaniel, whom has gained a distrust of medicine and others, I believe that a strong relationship is first needed.
In the story Scars, Kendra's father imposes some very important rules in order to keep her in line. Though I do not have access to direct quotes right now, her father repeated one line ominously: "I will kill you if you tell anyone." Also, her father imposes the rule to cut herself when ever things got hard, when ever the memories would come back and haunt her, and when ever she needed to shut herself up. I believe that Kendra's father/molester made these rules to make sure he never got caught by creating these big rules at an early age.
In the story April in Paris, Mr. Sedaris is extremely in love with his spiders, and especially April the spider. Though Mr. Sedaris may have just loved spiders, I believe he was influenced by events around him to stimulate his interest. In the beginning, the story mentions "The eyes of the stranded grandmother, I noted, were not half as piercing. There she was clinging to a chimney with her bra strap showing, and all anyone did was wonder if she had a dog." In the end, "The TV was on, the grandmother signaled from her rooftop, and I found myself wondering, with something akin to panic, if there were any spiders in her house." Because his own point of view changed from beginning to end, though he may not realize it himself his innate human desire to fit in led him to change his own original interest to something greater to also have something to worry about when grandmothers signal from houses.