Author: Millie

Reflection on Candide

Candide was an intriguing book that had me thinking about the best of all possible worlds. Candide travels all over the world throughout the book, in search of his true love. Along the way he sees learns about the world in ways that he could have only imagined. Pangloss had told him that this is the best of all possible worlds. But how can it be, when people are killed for doing nothing wrong, or some people can be given everything even if they don’t deserve it. How can there be a best possible world when you need to rely on humanity to make it possible. Could humans possibly agree to treat everyone equally, and just be kind? Candide was determined to find the best of all possible worlds, or else prove that it didn’t exist.

I enjoyed the exaggerated comedy in Candide, it made the heavy topic easier to digest. The book was easy to read at the beginning but closer to the end I found that too much was happening and it became confusing. There were too many things going on. At the end it calmed down again to allow a peaceful ending. The ending, “but we must cultivate our gardens.” made the story feel finished and secure.

Let Evening Come Reflections

After going through my essay with the notes on it, I realized that my errors were mostly careless errors. The errors I would like to fix most are 26, saying the same thing twice. 3, assertions, and careless spelling mistakes.

I seem to have a difficult time with making assertions in my paragraphs. I either made too many or none at all. I am going to work at fixing this through writing out assertion examples, and reading other peoples’ assertions. The errors that I was making in my earlier essays have been fixed, but there are new errors that now need to be fixed. To fix my careless spelling errors I am going to leave myself more time to proof read, and edit.

Millie – Reflection on Antigone

The story of Antigone was filled with a lot of death and feelings of loss. Closer to the end of the story almost all of the main characters were dead. I found that the characters were killing themselves because someone else had died and it seemed as though it started a cycle of death caused by a previous death. I know personally I have experienced family members and loved ones dying. My whole family was sad and hurt, not to the point of killing themselves, but it is hard to lose someone and I feel bad for Creon. He stays alive, but all of his family has died, other than Ismene who will also live with the despair of all her family being dead.

Antigone was an interesting character. In the story she is very strong minded and will do anything to follow the law of the gods, even if it meant risking her own life. In the book she was engaged to her cousin Haemon and it seems as though they must’ve loved each other, because when Haemon finds Antigone dead he also kills himself. Antigone fell fighting for what she believed in. She only wanted her brother to have a proper burial and instead more people died. Creon had a difficult situation in the story, he has very strong morals that he wishes to keep, and doesn’t want to make exceptions for family. If he had buried Polynices when he died along with Eteocles, he wouldn’t have lost so much of his family. Creon makes many of the same mistakes that Oedipus did in his story. Even when it came to Tiresias’ warnings both Oedipus and Creon didn’t pay any attention, and both paid the price. I think it is safe to say that if approached by a profit named Tiresias, you should believe them it may spare a lot of pain.

Millie – Reflection on Oedipus the King

The story of Oedipus holds the idea that a person, believed to be good, could have terrible things happen to them. I find the story interesting and relatable, in the sense that some events seem to have a greater power to be controlling our decisions. Weather it be a god or fate, some decisions seem to be out of our hands. When Oedipus realizes what he had done, he feels angry at Apollo and disappointed in himself. He blames Apollo for everything except his own choice to stab his eyes out. I would assume that Oedipus feels guilty and doesn’t want to take full responsibility. But since Apollo is the god of prophecy and it had been foreseen that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother,  he was okay with blaming Apollo. He gouged his eyes out because he couldn’t bare to live without consequence, possibly deep down he did believe he held part of the blame.

Oedipus, unknowingly made many mistakes, he didn’t realize that he was causing problems for himself. Oedipus’ behavior, connects with the reader by telling them, that even if you have the best intentions you may be on the path to a darker future. The author understands the connection between character and reader, so he makes Oedipus as relatable as possible. Jocasta nd Oedipus have an interesting relationship in the story. For the time the story was written, I would expect Oedipus to disregard Jocasta, but instead he holds respect for her. Oedipus seems to care about what Jocasta has to say, he confides in her and listens to her suggestions, until it has to do with learning about his past.

At the end of the story, before Oedipus is Exiled. Creon shows Oedipus mercy and lets him say goodbye to his daughters. His daughters only hesitated at the sight of him for a moment, before trusting their father. After Oedipus hugs his daughters, Creon seems to regret his decision of mercy and sends Oedipus’ daughters back into the palace. At that moment it seems as though Creon had been expecting The two girls to be scared of Oedipus and not want to see him, but when they ignored his appearance he got angry and sent them away. It seems as though Creon was still holding a grudge against Oedipus for blaming him for Tiresias’ words.

The story of Oedipus shows us how strong fate is, and even with all the attempts to trick fate, what was said in a prophecy will come true. Even though we feel bad for Oedipus’ fate it had been foreseen and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

Millie – Introduction

Hello, my name is Millie. I am 15 years old, and am in my first year at Brookes. I left my parents and three younger sisters in my home town, Creston (pop. 5500 people).

Some things I like to do include: Playing piano, (or any other instrument,) writing songs, reading, doing crafts, and listening to music. This year in English I hope to read as many books as possible, and learn more about ancient civilizations. I am excited too see how much information I will gain over the school year.