1st response

Jaehak
English 11-1
September 8, 2008

Messenger

Response#1, pp.1-55
Response type #1: Reaction and Evaluation


‘Messenger’ by Lois Lowry is a story about Matty is only a person who is able to communicate with other communities. The reason why he is only a communicator in his village is he never gets incidents from wild animals which live dangerous forest where outside boundaries of his village, unlike other his neighbors do. I like this book because of several reasons.

One of the reasons why I favor this book is because of the relationship between people in the story. The author conveys the personality of characters indirectly by how each character deal with others. Because of the story’s condition, there are many people meetings which make my feeling interested and focused on how the story flows. Especially, I like the relationship between matty, a massager, and seer, a blind man. Matty said “I like reading to you, seer” (page 20) because the blind man is not able to read book, and the blind man informs “No. It’s all an illusion” (pg5) for feared Matty who do not contact dangerous forest yet. Both support each of their weakness very well. I like this part because this part attracts my heart to be choked. The reason is egoism is expanding quickly in modern society.

Another reason why I relish this book is because of the special ability of matty. In this summer, many kinds of the movies come out to the theaters, and most of those are about the hero such as incredible Hulk, dark knight, Super hero, and etc. I realize that the trend of the movie story is about hero, and the movies become popular because only one reason that they are fun. This is why I start to focus on the story easily by matty’s kind of special ability that “The vines had never reached out for him. The trees seemed, sometimes, almost to part and usher him through,” (pg 9) even though others experience that “Forest closed in and entangled people who had tried to travel beyond.” (pg 9) As look at this situation, I feel that I want to have a special ability that nobody has. The reason is it sounds like everyone needs me.

I have read this book one third part of the book. I think the story is taking on rising action. Matty is planning to attend the trade market, even though he does not have anything to trade. So, I predict that the conflicts are coming out soon when Matty attends to the trade market with climax, and because of that, he is going to hide in the forest where nobody is able to come.

2nd Independent reading response

Jaehak
English 11-1
2008-09-14

Messenger

Response #2, pp.56-107
Response type #2: Connections through experiences, memories, or issues


In the story Messenger the main character, Matty, received a puppy from Jean. However, he had a terrible history that “the other little, the one who had been his childhood companion for years, had lived a happy, active life, died in his sleep, and had been buried with ceremony and sadness beyond the garden.” (pg 67) This Matty’s history reminded me of when I breed my puppy in elementary school period.

It was about nine years ago, when I was 2nd grade in elementary school, I moved to my parents’ house from my grandparents’ house because my grandparents brought up me and my brother for one years. As I started to live with my parents, my father made something to put on empty garden. Also, I helped my father to plant some tree. Even though I planted some tree and made something, the ground seemed empty place still.

Few days later, my father brought a little puppy which was Korean tradition one. As I was the elementary student, and it was the first time to see the puppy for me, I was interested in that. So, I played with the puppy a lot because at that time, I even didn’t admission to new school. This was why the puppy was the one who was my friend. A little kinds of memory I made with it such as when I ordered it “Sit” or “stand”, sometimes it understood what I said.

I have a similar circumstance with Matty in the story. I was fun to play with the puppy as every children and Matty do. I could understand why the puppy or dog is the most familiar animals to people. However, the puppy was seemed to be sick because all the time it coughed, and didn’t eat as much as it ate before. One day, when I went to the puppy’s house to meet it, it didn’t come out from its house. After that, even though I slap it many times, it didn’t move. Finally, I realized that it was dead. I felt fear because it was first time to see dead people, and even yesterday, it moved and looked at me with smiling. After that, my father took it to mountain in order to bury it. When I read the part that Matty had a terrible scene with his puppy, I was able to understand how he felt.