In this story, an important character that we did not discuss in class was Ellie Oscar. The strange and quiet man in the gold car with the radio glued to his ear. There are serious issues discussed in this story such as rape, society's view on growing up, and the devil. Even though none of these topics are directly mentioned, they are all there. The main reason I mention Ellie as being important is because he represents us, as society as a whole. His actions, or lack thereof, show that he knows what is happening inside of the house, yet he does nothing to stop Arnold Friend from raping this young teenage girl. He just listens to his radio and mumbles crazy talk. I think society is guilty of watching horrendous acts, comparable to rape happen daily, yet we are all guilty of being an Ellie. We see starvation in Africa, children sent to fight for their countries forced to kill their parents, poverty in our own countries, and yet all we seem to focus on is a call made by replacement NFL referees. I don't know if it's just me, but I think that our culture has a skewed view on the importance of certain issues. Ellie represents so much more than what the eye meets, he represents us, me, how we watch these things happen, yet remain mute to respond to them or do anything to stop them. Ellie should open up our eyes and bring attention to how we all take a backseat to what is hard to deal with, but needs our attention the most.
For some reason this got deleted from last weeks blog post, but here is my blog from September 27th.
I think that our society in general is aware of the problems going on the world be we think that we don't have any power to change them or our own lives and our small problems take over those larger problems. I like the reference to the NFL because that just happened and took over the headlines instead of issues of greater importance.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree on your stance of what Ellie represents in our culture, but considering the fact that we know Arnold was supposed to be a symbol for the devil, is there anything else that Ellie could represent from that religious standpoint? (Just a question to get you thinking because I wasn't sure either.) I agree with Morgan, the reference to the NFL referees was excellent! I really think you took into consideration what Mr. Mullins said about reflection and personalizing. It also made it a lot less boring ;)
ReplyDeleteI think you have a point. I'd guess the typical American knows more about the Kardashians or Dancing with the Stars than what's happening in Syria.
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