the road questions parallel and contrast to 31

why does he not give the characters names yet?
why is the boy scared to enter his father's childhood house?

on page18 he says, "the right dreams for a man in peril were dreas of peril" then at the bottom of the page there is a contrast because "he could remember everything of her save scent. seated in a theatre with hher besidehim leaning forward listening to the music..." he believes that to dream of his dead wife is wrong because he will never have that again, not in this world and he thinks he needs to forget that life.
a parallel i can think of is near the beggining when he stops at the gas station and collects oil to read a story to his son. then on page 23 they are searching the super market for food and they find the coke and the father gives it to the son. there is a common theme that if theu search long enough the will find a reward. Also the rewards seem to be for the boy. a bedtime story and the coke that the man lets the boy have.

noir words

red
midnight
blackjack
slug
crooked
bruiser
liquor
pistol
informants
sacked
tossed
swig
slant
dead
two-timing
night
crank
sharp
wink
vamp
john
mud
graveyard
broken

L.A. Confidential vs. Double Indemnity

This is the photo from L.A. Confidential that I will compare to a photo from Double Indemnity. The photo features two characters from the movie, Bud White and Pierce Morehouse Patchett. I think the fact that we see a low angle shot of Pierce and Bud here it represents the distribution of power. Pierce seems really big in this photo and they are at his house. he also does not stop hitting golf balls when Bud arrives. Although Bud is all the way at the top of the screen over pierce he appears very small and simple compared to the rich man that pierce is.

This shot of of walter and keys reminds of the previous shot from L.A. Confidential because Keys although smaller than walter and in a seated position seems to be in a position of power as suggested by the fact that he is sitting behind a desk and his name is on the door. the shot we see is also a low angle 2 shot. Walter although taller than Keyes and lighting Keyes cigar seems to be in a position of lesser power. he also knows that Keyes is the man that could tear his plan down if he investigated it. I think the fact that Keyes does;t seem all powerful over Walter refers to the fact that Keyes does;t actually figure out it was Walter. he is eventually told by Walter himself but Keyes never suspects his own coworker and friend so Walter Neff and Keyes are at some sort of stalemate. But ultimately these two pictures remind me of the other because they are both low angle 2 shots that represent a man in power and a man with little or no power.

the quitter journal post II

a visual parallel in the second section is close to the beginning when his dad starts to quiz him on his hebrew there are sitting across from each other at the kitchen table and his dad scolds him for not knowing that much. then he has his bar mitzvah and at the end it is almost the exact same image and harvey is sad because his dad doesn't pay much attention to him. I written parallel is when harvey is talking about playing football and is benched because the coach "doesn't like him" and the player above him is really bad. he chooses to quit that year. Then again a year later he is mad at the coach again for playing a worse player ahead of him... He quits again.
I am choosing to write about images in this journal post. specifically the combined picture of harvey in school being complemented for his fight against Schultz. although it is two frames i think it should be read as one of harvey. in the left frame harvey is in a classroom and in the right frame he is walking in the hallway. his face is split right in the middle. on the left his face is lit up and he is squinting a little bit with a straight line for his mouth, i mean he seems not be happy or sad about what he has done. i the right frae his face is almost all black except for his eye which is wide open and looking to the right as it is in the left frame. the shot is an upper body shot including his shoulders and he is light on the left and dark on the right. I think the fact that he has no smile on his face is because he is not happy about what he has done but he has just done it because it is what he needed to do to feel the way he wants. his gaze is pointed to the right I think signaling that he plans to continue beating up kids in order to feel the way he wants as he does in the rest of the section.

the quitter journal post I

one visual contrast that I found is when Harvey is excited about his little brother so they show a picture of harvey with his brother and a couple of toys but then Harvey talks about a boxing match and it shows the two boxers and a shot of the end of the fight. at the bottom of the page it shows harvey with his brother again dissapointed that he is not a companion yet.
I am choosing to write about the frames in the book. specifically the 6 images on page 11. there are 6 frames placed evenly on the page all with equal sizes. I think the frames being all the same size represents a personal conflict inside harvey because he is arguing with himself about his mother's ways and his own ways. there is a good contrast between dark harvey with a light background and light harvey with a dark background. they are all the same size to say that each point is equal to the other and they are both equal in terms of getting from point A to point B, so to speak. this arrangement of images encourages me to red it at a slower speed and consider each image and point he makes. on the page there is a zig zag in harvey's movements. in the first frame his fists are up and again in the 4th frame and  5th frame. in 2 and 3 he is examining his fingers.

Minority Report image review

The very first thing I notice about the Picture is the bright light that shines on the characters from the main part of the mall. I think that because there aren't any people around that the phot also suggests they are off in a back room or a closed part of the mall. The man facing Agatha and Anderton seems a little scared but also humbled because he views Agatha as a higher power. In addition to Agatha being able to see the future, this is suggested by him being very short in comparison to Anderton and Agatha. The man's face is in shadow in this picture but his arm is in the light. Because John has come to this man for a helping hand, the man's hand in light may be a representation of the man's willingness to help but the fact that the man's other arm and face are in shadow suggests that his help only extends so far.

Summer Reading Answers

1. I think that although Oedipus' may play a part in his fate he is not the main contributor. For example, his parents lied to him by not telling him that his father was Laius. As he tells Jocasta what happened he shows guilt for what happened. The old man almost killed him and he defended himself even though he threw the first blow to the driver. Even though the blame is not Oedipus' alone he is still the one that almost went crazy trying to exonerate himself. he accused Creon of trying to steal his throne in order to avoid accepting what he did.
2. It is pretty clear that Oedipus' excelled as a king and leader of the people of Thebes because the people look up to him and display great respect for him. His people are thankful to him for liberating them and he is concerned for their well being as well. I think that when the procession of priests comes to pray to him in the first scene is a testament to the admiration his people hold for him. I think he excels at knowing what his people need to survive and finding out how to give them that because he sent Creon to find a "cure" for this plague that is sweeping the city.
3. I think his tragic mistake is knowing what he did and even though he sees the signs he still does not accept that it was him that must leave and accept his fate of exile earlier. if he had done that much of this could have been avoided. However, it is not as easy as it sounds, after all he worked for to get to where he is; he would have to give all that up.
4. John Anderton supports Oedipus' notion of destiny because it is that destiny can be changed which John does in the scene where he stops that man from killing his wife who is having an affair with another man. When he receives his own name, much like Oedipus' he tries to exonerate himself instead of accepting his destiny.
5. the act of seeing for the Precogs is relatively obvious; the goal is to see the future and prevent that future. the Precogs are merely a device for seeing that future. John Anderton uses the act of seeing to relive a life where he had a family and he uses drugs and a 3D projector to relive those times to the best of his ability. Because he sees his family he avoids letting go and holds on to the idea that he still has a family. The act of seeing or not seeing is used and referenced throughout the film starting with the husband that forgets his glasses at home and goes back for them only to find that what he saw was not what he wanted to see. Then with the drug dealer who is blind but says that in a world of blind people the one-eyed man is king; however it is not necessarily great to be king.
6. I think one thing that reflects in American culture today is the need to control things. the Precog program represents the ultimate control, to see future events and stop them from happening. I think eventually the need to control things will ultimately consume us and lead to our downfall. if we look back to the Vietnam war the reason for fighting it was to prevent the country from becoming communist and we fought it to control the country and prevent them from becoming communist and the war was a great example of the downfall of trying to control things beyond our means. I think the contingencies that we prepare for ultimately become reality because we cannot prepare for them without ultimately causing them in the end.