Reading Diary A: Beowulf

The stories I want to focus on are The Wonderer’s Song and Beowulf’s Resolve from the Beowulf Unit.  These stories are both about the Wonderer’s song; it is like a call and response relationship. The Wonderer first told the story of Grendel, which the author went into some pretty awesome detail about. After the wonderer finished singing and talking, the author described how Beowulf responded to it all. It was pretty cool to read that. The author showed how Beowulf was feeling, the need to prove himself to others and most importantly him. I liked these two stories the most because it pumped me up to what is about to come… ALL THE FIGHTS! I am going to be really eager to finish this unit later today for sure! Beowulf is such a cool story and I haven’t read it in a while. I know this post is a bit shorter, but I am saving all my thoughts for the second half, which in my opinion is the juicier part of the unit! I also was distracted ready this after, because of the anticipation of Grendel!

(Image from TeleRead)

Essay; Heroism

The story Atarssuaq is solely about heroism in my opinion. Atarssuaq’s father was the first hero. Many men tried to kill him, and they were never able to. He was determined to survive, and never gave up the fight. Now someone can argue that him wanting to survive is not a hero trait, but I think he kept fighting for his family. That intention is a great intention and holds heroism values in it. When Atarssuaq was born, his father put all of his efforts into preparing his son for life’s troubles (putting someone before oneself is a prime example of a hero). I like how the author showed the father’s sensitivity towards his son. He was always scared when Atarssuaq would dive into the water. Showing one’s feelings is important for a hero. I hate the stigma that a hero has to be tough and a brute almost. A hero can be courageous strong and caring/loving at the same time.

Atarssuaq was the other hero in the story. He was brave, courageous, compassionate, clever, and determined. He sought to please his father and be the best he could when he was tasked with being a swimmer. He even pushed passed his father’s expectation of his ability to swim. When his father was finally killed, he prepared to defend his mother. He knew he had to step up to the plate, and he ended up exceeding what was expected. He ended up killing everybody that came to attack him, except one. He did what was necessary to protect his mother and himself. He was clever and compassionate when he let the one man go. He spared him, which was compassionate. He also warned/threatened him so they would never come back again.  Great story for an example of heroism for other to learn from.

(Image from FeaturePics)

Reading Diary B: Eskimo Unit

The stories that I found most intriguing from the Eskimo unit were Atarssuaq and Tungujuluk and Saunikoq.  Atarssuaq was my favorite story from the whole unit, Tungujuluk and Saunikoq, for some reason, caught my attention.

Atarssuaq was a pretty awesome. I loved how the father and the son interacted.  I loved the tough love the father showed to the son. He knew the boy needed to be strong and skilled. At first I didn’t really think the father had too much compassion until he started to cry each time his son took too long to reappear. I also liked how his father chose to teach the boy to be a great swimmer. I wouldn’t really think that would serve somebody well in fighting, and I was so wrong. I loved how the son cleverly lured and picked the men off.  He didn’t use brute strength, just brain. Going off this story, brains is definitely better than bronze. I was sad that the father was eventually killed, and I also would have liked to know why the men wanted to kill him and his family; however, I am sure this story was supposed to teach others and they would not need that info to learn whatever it was.

Tungujuluk and Saunikoq was just too different for me not to talk about.  I was pretty confused why Saunikoq got jealous in the first place. Did he have a man crush on Tungujuluk, or what it just the fact that he could not have children? I was also intrigued with the fact that he did not try again to kill the son. I also liked how Tungujuluk embarrassed him. He fought fire with fire.

(Image from Sanibel Sea School)

Reading Diary A: Eskimo Folk-Tales

The story that I found most interesting was Makite in the Eskimo Folk-Tales unit. I like the concept of a lone wolf story. He just up and left his village to be alone. Now, I do not understand why he originally wanted to live alone in the first place. He was did say she would leave him, but I think he responded to extremely to it. I thought it was interesting that the men chased after him. Even though his why did not care for him, it seemed like her brothers like and cared for him. I did like the scene with him and the first lone dweller. I loved how he threatened to kill the guy and then shared a meal with him afterward. How awkward would that be? I like he imagery the author used in the story. I like how he described the fight and battle scenes. The whole dwarf part was extremely confusing to me. I did not understand how that fit into the story at all; however, I thought the battle and using the water to drown their enemies was pretty cool. The character Makite was very interesting to me, which is why I found this story the most interesting. I stated early that I felt he reacted to extreme; however, he did seem to thrive living on his own. He ended up killing the other guy without even looking! How bad ass is that? The story as a whole did not make sense to me, but I just really enjoyed all the different little section it had.

(Image from DeviantArt)

Reading Diary B: Blackfoot Stories

The story that stuck out to me the most from the latter half of Blackfoot unit was the Bobcat and the Birch.  Judging off the name of the title, I did not expect that type of plot. It focused on a man that made the bobcat and the birch look the way they do now. I did not like the Old Man character one bit. The Old Man seemed so crewel, and deceitful. He first tricked the prairie dogs and ate them after they were so kind and considerate to him. Than he hurts the bobcat just because it ate his food, which he wrongly got in the first place. The guy seems like a grade A douche. Then he burns his own nose, when it was his fault he didn’t wake up. The nose tried and tried so it was not its fault. I just was not expecting this story to be about a man who did these weird and mean things. I was also kind of mad karma did not catch up with him in the end. With the wind almost bowing him away, I thought he was about to get. Than the birch tree saved him, which was pretty frustrating.  The title did not got with the plot really, only with the fact that the man rearranged both the bobcat and birch’s images.

(Image from Wikipedia)