Parcours de Santé

by Jean-Paul Jody

     One of the main characters in this novel is named Joseph. He has been in prison in Paris (the prison is called Santé, hence the title of book) for six years. It's not really clear exactly why Joseph has been in prison all that time but that's not really the point of the story. He is a criminal and that's all the author wants us to know. 

     Right at the beginning of the novel, Joseph has been given permission to leave prison for just one weekend. He is planning to escape so he can meet up with his penpal, Mariette. He has a very clever way of going about it. Although I disagree personally with trying to escape from prison, I do think that Joseph is clever and ingenious, which is just another way of saying that he has bright ideas. 

     An object which represents this personality trait is, obviously, a light bulb! Why, may you ask? A lightbulb lights up a room, making it bright. It feels like you feel when you have a bright and creative ideas. When you have a bright idea or a solution to something, generally you are happy. In the same way, light in a gloomy or obscure room makes you happy too! Another reason I chose to represent Joseph with a lightbulb is because in cartoons, a lightbulb always appears above a character's head when they come up with an idea. Of course, sometimes the ideas are not always good in cartoons, but that's the same for Joseph! His idea is a bad one, but it certainly shows his imagination. 

Froggy

Trapped in the Present?

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
page 55

"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. When you are nine years old, you think you have always been nine. When you are thirty, you think the same thing. And when you are seventy, you think you have always been seventy. You are in the present. You are trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen." 



     I know this is a strange quotation which doesn't seem to make much sense, so I will explain the context of it. The novel Dandelion Wine takes place in a small town called Green Town, Illinois, in the summer of 1928. Some children in the town have been teasing an old lady named Mrs. Bentley; they know she is seventy years old and can not believe that she was ever a child like they are now. Mrs. Bentley insists that she was indeed once a child like they are; she even shows them some things she had when she was little (pictures, books, clothing), but the kids just don't want to believe it. 
     This makes her upset and she starts thinking about the way that time works. Mrs. Bentley realizes that people have a hard time remembering what they were like when they were a different age from what they are now. In other words, when somebody is nine years old, he/she can't remember being any younger than that. It seems to Mrs. Bentley that she is trapped in the present time at the age of seventy. 
     At the end of this chapter, she gives away all the stuff that she had when she was young and just accepts that she is old. She feels as though she was never ever a young girl! It's kind of a sad turning point for her; however, she decides that she can accept herself the way she is, wrinkles and all! 

Fear on a Train

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

An interesting scene in this novel takes place on a very old train crossing Morocco. One of the main characters, Kit, is riding the train and decides to go see the fourth-class wagon. The wagon contains a multitude of people squashed together. Many of them appear to be destitute. There are people everywhere standing, lying down, sitting, and squatting. They do not appear to be very clean and they are eating very strange food that Kit has never seen before. People are talking to each other very loudly which creates a buzz of voices. Kit feels very frightened in this part of the train. She ends up shivering with fright and running back to her first-class compartment where her friends are waiting for her. 

This event is important in the novel because it shows Kit's personality. As a rich American traveling in Morocco, she was curious see how the fourth-class passengers travel. However, she is not used to seeing such utter poverty. Later on, she can't stop thinking about the people she saw. For this reason, I think this event is a conflict. 

Photo by Omer Simkha