Eleanor & Park

      Themes are always important aspects in books. Themes can be written to describe someone's experiences or be a main idea of a book/story. In Eleanor and Park, there is a variety of themes such as bullying, sexual harassment, poverty, body image, domestic abuse, and of course love. I focused on 3 themes; bullying, poverty, and sexual harassment.
    
     Bullying is a very clear theme from the beginning of Eleanor & Park. Eleanor is harassed from the day she steps foot on the school bus and into her school. She is bullied for her body image, choice of style, and looks in general. "Watch it, Raghead." Tina pushed roughly past Eleanor and climbed onto the bus. She had everybody else in their gym class calling Eleanor Bozo, but Tina had already moved onto Raghead and Bloody Mary. "Cuz it looks like your whole head is a on the rag," she'd explained today in the locker room. "...Eleanor opened up her locker. It was empty. She tried the one above it. Nothing. And nothing below. No... Eleanor looked down at the toilet. Even though she knew what she was going to see there, it still felt like a wet slap in the face. Her new jeans and her cowboy shirt were in a dark pile in the bowl, and her shoes were crammed under the lip. Somebody had flushed the toilet, and there was water still spilling over the edge." There are many other scenes in the book where Eleanor is bullied. I see bullying as one of the main themes in Eleanor & Park.

     Poverty is a theme in Eleanor & Park as well because Eleanor's family is struggling with fitting 7 family members in a small home. Eleanor's family also has little money to depend on when trying to shop for food; They have to buy their clothes at thrift shops as well. "There were only five rooms in the house, and the bathroom just barely counted. It was attached to the kitchen - like literally attached, without a door. Somebody, probably her mom, had hung a flowered sheet between the refrigerator and the toilet. When she woke up in the middle of the night, all three of her brothers were asleep on the floor... There wasn't even room in the dresser for Eleanor's clothes." Eleanor's family clearly struggles with not having enough money to live an easy going life, and during holidays, their special dinners aren't really special. Money is a big problem in the story as well.

    Sexual harassment is a theme that I thought was clear in the book. I thought sexual harassment was a theme because someone kept writing horrible things in Eleanor's school book and it is brought up repeatedly. Eleanor's step-dad wrote the notes. "Do you think you can make a fool of me? This is my house do you think you can hore around my neighborhood right under my nose? I know what you are and it's over." As well as, "Suck me off. Pop that cherry. Do I make you..?"  The notes are inappropriate and I think they are considered as an act of sexual harassment towards Eleanor.

Baseline Argument Essay

       According to, "Insult or Honor?" Indian mascots are being portrayed as racist to fans, Native American groups, and law makers. It's causing controversy because the NFL teams are being stubborn and won't change the team's name or realize that it's causing trouble. The article discusses how many people have a problem with the Washington Redskins team name and other situations that have occurred with other teams that were also offensive. I think that the Indian mascots can be racist and offensive. The controversy being caused would easily go away if the team just changed their name.
   
    Some may not find the Indian mascots racist or offensive because a tribe let a university use their tribe name. "...The Seminole Tribe granted permission to Florida State University to keep using its Seminoles name- and its popular Chief Osceola mascot, who rides triumphantly onto the field on the spotted Appaloosa horse before every home football game in Tallahasse." The Seminoles tribe chairmen says, "We Seminoles embrace the mascot. They honor us." These could be prime examples as to why people would think the mascots are okay, but not all tribes and everyone think that the mascots are honorable or respectful. "In June, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office agreed: It stripped the Redskins of its trademark registration, saying that "this racial designation based on skin color is disparaging to the Native Americans." While one team and some tribes may be okay with the teams using their name but others are severely bothered by it and just want change.
    
   The Indian mascots are racist and offensive, "Many Native American groups, law makers, and fans are pressuring the NFL team to change it;s name and mascot. They say it's offensive, even racist, and have targeted the team with lawsuits, letters, a prime-time TV commercial, and a Twitter campaign." The problems people are having with the teams makes you see that they're taking action, and will do anything to make the team change their name. They're taking a stand for something they believe is wrong, and that really shows how much of an issue this is.
   
   There is controversy being caused because the NFL team's are too stubborn to change the name and realize that it's wrong and troubling. "...After decades of lobbying by Native American groups, the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) identified 19 universities whose team names it deemed hostile or abusive to American Indians. The NCAA ordered teams to change their names or get permission from tribes to continue using them." Permission is something that would have made everything go easier from the start.
    
     In conclusion, the Indian mascots are racist towards some and cause controversy. Permission is definitely something that the NFL teams should have asked for because you never know who's going to take it into serious offense and get upset about it. 

Faithful Elephants Reading Response

           

              "Faithful Elephants," by Yukio Tsuchiya is a story about zoo keepers that are forced to kill their animals before the war happening in Japan, gets to them.Three of the characters the story is focused on are John, Tonky, and Wanly; Elephants that are destined to die even if it's the war that gets to them - or the forced death caused by the zoo keepers. There are many themes and messages in the story such as death/loss,peer pressure, and war being some of the themes.

              Death/loss is a theme in the story because John, Tonky, and Wanly are killed and so are the other animals as well. These tragic events lead to loss. Loss is a theme because the employees really cared about the animals; killing the animals was clearly a big and hurtful choice to make and watching them suffer affected them personally. One example of death/loss would be, "Therefore by command of the Army, all the lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and big snakes were poisoned to death." Another example would be, "...the keepers reluctantly decided to starve him to death. Poor John died seventeen days later." Reluctantly means to show doubt about doing something and not being eager to do something, the employees were clearly not eager or willing to kill their animals.

          Peer pressure is a theme in the story because the employees were pressured into killing and making the animals suffer. The employees cared for the animals and they didn't want them to be harmed. The only choice was to make the elephants go through pain was because the war would have gotten to them as well and severely hurt them. An example of peer pressure in the story would be the line, "All this while, the elephants' trainer loved them as if they were his own children. " You poor, poor, pitiful elephants!" Peer pressure is when you're forced to do something or when you're influenced by someone else to do something. The employees were pressured into killing their animals and this connects with the reluctantly.

           War is also a theme in the story because it is what causing the conflict. War is one of tghe main themes I guess I could say because if the war wasn't mentioned, then the plot wouldn't make any sense." At the time Japan was at war. Gradually, the war had become more and more severe. Bombs were dropped on Tokoyo every day and night, like falling rain." This line explains that the war was happening and later on in the story the author explains that the animals have to be killed before the war does.

         In conclusion, I think that the themes expressed throughout the story are very clear and very well supported. You do have to think more deeper for some things expressed in the story but overall the story is tragic yet touching.