We will use this blog to share information and have discussions outside of class time. I will also post any class announcements here so you should check this blog at least once a day!
Each day you will answer a question posted here.
Also, please read your fellow students posts and interact with them – for example, if someone says something, which you think perfectly explains how you would have answered the question please explain why you think this is the perfect answer.
Finally – don’t forget that you always need to post a quote that is related to your answer and a discussion question you have generated about one of the readings. [If this question is to generate any good discussion, then it cannot be answered with yes or no]
Please post your thoughts below:
We have begun or class by looking at three stories in the section of our book entitled “Roots and Rebellions.” I would like you to briefly note how these three stories relate the title of this section. Also, please read your fellow students posts and interact with them – for example, if someone says something, which you think perfectly explains how these stories relate to the title of the section explain why you think this is the perfect answer.
Contemporary World Literature 
Hi Lindsey:
Just looking for the question related to the reading. Am i in the right place?
you are in the right place 🙂
KETELIN THELEMAQUE
Very often people never loose the theing that beloing to them. It will be found, even in the most difficult situation. Those artircles simualate the same manor of identification. Man do not hesitate to make sacrafice, for his extraordinary goal. As Elie Wiesel, (54) state “But by groping around in the dark i risk stumbling and waking the people sleeping in the house”. For me that means he was not afraid, to reached his goal; Eventhough his life was in danger. What is it about sacrafice?
Ivan Levine
I feel these three stories potray and support the meaning of “Roots and Rebellion”. Especialy In the first story, “The Watch”. In a time and place where acts of defiance were needed to save pieces of herritage. Finally after 20 yrs he retieves his childhood gift ,A gold watch. he reflects and states ” Once more I am the bar mitzvah child” (53). He also says ” this nameless, lifeless thing had survived to provide an epilogue to my childhood”(54). He goes on to describe his defiance by wanting to leave the watch for other children to find and describees his actions as ” an instrument of delayed vengeance”(55).My question is, would you have returned for the watch knowing what he knew ,which is that the watch carrys with it the torment of the holocaust? In the second story “Powder” Defiance is portrayed by the soon to be x-husband He first ignores the policemans warnings of dander and the closed roads. He removes the barriers and puts his sons life at risk. Also fearfull of his wifes rules and warning cant seem to do the right thing. Hes write they should have left earlier. I am reminded of my childhood. My parents divorsed when I was young and my father and I got together on weekends for crazy adventures. Finally in the story “Father and I” The entire story I feel is one giant rememderence of his fathers and his surroundings as he describes in great detail. You could even say the boy even though frightened was rebelling against the night.
In all three readings the boys describe the struggles of their youth and the painful and sometimes sweet memories of childhood. In “The Watch” we see a boy who must leave everything behind. Tobias Wolf’s character seems to rebel against his father’s irresponsibility by being careful and overly responsible. On page 58 he acknowledges that it’s true that he always thinks ahead and states “I was a boy who kept his clothes on numbered hangers to ensure proper rotation. The boy in “Father and I” describes the anguish when he discovers that his father could not protect him could not protect him from everything in life. There is rebellion when life doesn’t go as it should.
I see the rebellion part in all three of the texts. I also see how their rebellious actions bring consequences, in “Father and I” the author says: “We walked along the railway line, where people were not allowed to go as a rule, but Father worked on the railway and so he had a right to” (Pg. 49). The consequence to that action was for him being scared of God because he believes that every noise in the dark is him. In “The Watch,” Wiesel describes how digging the watch out of the garden would have consequences around his mind, generating guilt, therefore he returned it. In the second text “Powder,” the author clearly mentions how he was aware of the outcome of breaking the law: “I thought ahead and that was why I knew that there would be other troopers waiting for us at the end of our ride, if we got there” (Pg. 58). However he decided to make the best of it since he was spending time with his father, who was clearly going through a hard time.
Is there a consequence for every one of our actions?
I feel that all three of them go as well but i can tell you when i first saw the Title Powder by Tobias Wolff i thought it was the movie Powder lol :(. Father and I hits home for me, me and my dad have a great realtionship but at times we fight. At the end of page 50 the son is scared because he sees a light at the end of the tunnel and the father grabs his hand and makes everything ok. I feel that the author was trying to say that the boy died and he was afraid to go to the light and the father that held his hand was a angel to make everything ok. Page. 52 a line hits me hard made me really think. Wolff writes,”But my whole body was shaking, it was for me for my sake i sensed what it meant : it was the anguish that was to come,the unknown all that father knew nothing about, that he wouldn’t be able to protect me against.
After reading the stories, I can say that each one relates to the title “Roots and Rebelions”. For example, the first story, “Father and I” is about a child who enjoys time with his father in the woods, but later begins to feel afraid of the darkness of the night. I believe this relates to rebellion, due to the fact in which his thoughts rebel against his fathers. “Father, why is it so horrible when it’s dark? ‘No, my boy, it’s not horrible,’he said, taking me by the hand. ‘Yes, Father, it is.’ ‘No, my child, you mustn’t think that. Not when we know there is a God.’ I felt so lonely, forsaken. It was so strange that only I was afraid, not Father, that we didn’t think the same (page 51)”. The other story was “The Watch”. I can compare this to roots, where the golden watch was of high value to him, like it was a part of him. “here it is, in the palm of my hand: the last relic, the only remaining symbol of everything I had loved, of everything I had been (page 54)”. As for the last story, “Powder”, I would say it is compared to rebellion, mostly from the writer’s father. “I knew we’d get caught; I was resigned to it. And maybe for this reason I stopped moping and began to enjoy myself” (page 58)”. In the story “Father and I”, when the black train was approaching, it was very different from the one the boy’s father recognized. How did the boy react to this? Do you think he is less dependent on his father for protection? Or does he realize that he must learn to protect himself after experiencing that night?
Raidel Martinez
I enjoyed reading the three stories. I feel like all three stories relate. The stories “Powder” and “Father and I” . In the two stories. The kids are doing something with their dad. For example, in the story “Powder” the kid is spending time with his dad and they have dinner together. In the story “Father and I” the kid is spending time with his dad by taking a walk with him. ” The watch” and “The powder” were alike in a way because there was a part in the story “the powder” when the little boy sound like he was afraid to get caught by the troopers “where do you think that policeman went to” (58). He was too worry about where the policeman went to like if he was afraid to get caught. Similar to the story “The watch” when the guy goes back to his old garden 20 years later to find his old watch. by reading this part in the book “halfway down the street I am overcome by violent remorse: I have just committed my first theft (55). Makes it clear to me that he was afraid to get caught by someone. he felt guilty and he felt like a theft so before he gets caught he felt like the right thing to do was to return the watch.
I think that all three stories does relate in the section Roots and Rebellion. By reading The Watch the author Elie Wisel says that It was the customary gift for the occasion, and was mean to remind each boy that henceforth he would be held responsible for his acts before the Torah and its timeless laws. (page 52) I suspected that the boy had to sacrfice or leave his prize possesion behind.
Raul Vazquez
These three stories all realte in some sort of way. They show both roots and rebellion. In the story, “Father and I”, the boy remembers the Sundays he and his father spent together. He describes it in full detail. He also learns that he can’t always depend on his father at times. He knows that one day he is going to have to find protection within himself. This is proven when the author writes, “But my whole body was shaking. It was for me , for my sake. I sensed what it meant: it was the anguish that was to come, the unknown, all that Father knew nothing about, that he wouldn’t be able to protect me against” (pg. 51 & 52). In the story “The Watch”, roots is more evident since the whole story is basically about a tradition that is done in the Jewish religion. The story states, “For my bar mitzvah, I remember, I had received a magnificent gold watch. It was the customary gift for the occasion, and was meant to remind each boy that henceforth he would be held responsible for his acts before the Torah and its timeless laws” (pg. 52). The story, “Powder” has both roots and rebellions. Roots are represented by the father and his son going out skiing and having dinner and running into a snow storm that stops them from going home on time. It is somewhat of an adventure that can later be told to your grandchildren. The rebellious part is when the author quotes, “I knew we’d get caught; I was resigned to it. And maybe for this reason I stopped moping and began to enjoy myself. Why not? this was one for the books” (pg. 58). The boy knows he and his father were going to get in trouble but refused to worry about it and went about his own way of feeling like this. Like saying , What the heck, might as well enjoy it while it lasts knowing he is wrong anyways.
Is the boy necessarily wrong for feeling this way? Or is his’ feelings justified?
i liked all the storis because they talk about the father and son relaion ship and how they like ech others company. they loved to be with an around each other.i realy like the watch because he was in love with his pride possesion. but it as said though because the very first day he go it he had to let it go and flee from the town in which he lived. .
“what time is it? how long have i been here? five mintues, five hours? twenty years. this night was defying time. i was lboring to exhume not an object but time iitself, the soul and memory of that time. nothing could be more urgent,more vital”(54). he never forgot about is love i think he didnt matter how long it took to see it again he had to do it because thats a part of him he had to leave behind and he was so curious to see if it was still there and if it would it would some what bring him o peice.
was there every something or someoe you had to leave behind, and if you had a chance go and find it or see that person again would you take hat oppertunity o search to your hearts content?
I think all three stories relate well to the title of the section. In ” The Watch”, the narrator was all about his roots, his culture, and reminising about an important memory in his childhood. Trespassing in the yard of the new owners of his childhood home was the rebellious part. In “Powder”, the child realizing that it’s okay to relax and have fun like his rebelious father was when he came to the root of his punctual ways. Also, in “Father and I”, the narrator came to the root of life when he realized that life won’t as peaceful and perfect his father tried to make it seem. The narrator mentioned this when he said, “It wasn’t a real world, a real life (52).”
@Ana I can anawer your question with a quote from Newton. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
My question is are all consequensecesa negative result of our actions?
Marta Almora
Tai i agree with you! But not all consequences from our actions are negative.. Sometimes we get tons of positive outcome in our actions we just need to figure out how to think before we act! 🙂
Roots & Rebellion. I feel in all three of the stories there roots would be there connection to their father and how it effected them in long run. In “Father & I” I see his son rebelling in the sense that he does not think the way his father does he is starting to build his own preceptions of the world. In “Powder” the son rebels by being the complete opposite of his father. In “The Watch” I would consider his rebellion sneaking onto private property.
My questions is why would the father in “Powder” drive threw the barricades with his son in the car and then tell him not to do something like that?
All of these stories are very touching in different ways. “The Father and I” was a heart warmer it really touch me only because to hear how much a son wants to have a great relationship with his father that honestly touches me. In this story the son thinks there is no god while the father tries to convince his son he should not talk or think that way that there is a God and he is real. Through that journey that become close and they form a great relationship. In the story “Powder” the son gravitates away from his father and causes problems between them. “The Watch” was another good story about despite. I did not fully get the concept of this story but it was okay.
These passages bring upon a sense of a relationship between a father and son. In “Powder” the son loses faith in his father, while in “The Watch” it shows that a good father figurw leaves an imprint on a childs life. The rebellion in these passages, would be the lack of faith shown by the son in “Powder”. Meanwhile, in the passage of “Father and I” it is shown by the son being of completely different mindframes. The father figure of this passage is wild and reckless while the son exhibits more of an conservitive attitude.
Marta Almora
The stores relate well to the title ” Roots and Rebellion. In the story “The Watch” the son returns 20 years later trying to find the watch he hide in the yard. Like he said on page 54 “There is a shovel in the barn; its door is never looked. But by groping around in the dark i risk stumbling and waking the people in the house. They would take me for a marauder, a thief, and hand me over to the police. They might even kill me. Never mind, i’ll have to manage without a shovel” he was going to do it no matter what the risk was, to me thats an act of rebellion. In the story “Powder” the son had no trust for his father, on page 56 the son says “we returned the skies and my father put chains on the Austin-Healy while i swayed from foot to foot, clapping my mittens ans whising i were home” he wanst pleasant with his dad. And on the last story “Father and I” how thw son is so much different fron the dad. On paga 51 he says ” I felt so lonely, forsaken. It was so strange that only i was afraid, not Father, that we didnt think the same”.
On the story “Father and I” why would the son feel that way compare to his dad?