Dover Beach

             The two women left Montag's house in a hurry. Mrs. Phelps, tears drying on her face, struggled to keep up with Mrs. Bowles, her shoes furiously stomping on the ground. "I am going to turn that fool in! What a load of nonsense! Oh, where ignorant armies clash by night-- what does that even mean? And will you hurry up?" She looked back at Mrs. Phelps, who to her surprise was sitting on the sidewalk, her hands covering her face. She was crying, but she didn't know why. "Clara,"said Mrs. Bowles, "Clara, why are you crying? It's a stupid poem that has no meaning." "How do you know that?" Mrs. Phelps snapped, " It's just words to us, but we both will never know what it truly means. And that's why I am crying." "Oh, Clara, cheer up! Come to my home and we'll have a Parlor marathon!" "No!" Mrs. Phelps shouted. She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry," she whispered, " But maybe I'll just walk here alone for a little bit. For a little fresh air." "Ok," said Mrs. Bowles reluctantly," You be careful now. I''ll see you in the morning" And Mrs. Bowles left.

           Mrs. Phelps walked slowly, hands in her pockets. She wasn't crying now but it was pain that she felt. She thought of the poem that Montag had read, called Dover Beach. "Begin and cease, and then begin again, With tremendous cadence slow, and bring the eternal sadness in," she spoke again and again to herself. What does that mean? She was furious. The words don't make sense. Why do these simple words seem so complicated? Eternal Sadness. Eternal. Sadness. She looked at her own life and saw eternal sadness. No job,  no kids, a husband who wasn't even with her. The Parlor on every day, every minute of her life. She slumped back onto the sidewalk and started bawling. She wept and wept until she didn't have any more tears to cry out. She got up and found herself walking to Montag and Mildred's house. She rang the doorbell fast, three, four, five times. Montag answered the door, looking shocked, "Hello Clara, what are you doing here?" "Could I take a book?" she asked. He looked stunned. He hesitated but went back into the house and returned with the small book of poetry that he had read Dover Beach out of. "Thank you," she said as she smiled and walked in the direction of her house, slipping the book into her purse. When she walked into her house, The Family was going on. She took a long look at the characters and turned the walls off. She had never seen it off, the spaces completely black. She sat down on the couch and got the poetry book out. She flipped to Dover Beach and began reading.

Insurgent

            From my last blog post, I haven't read as far as I would have liked to, but I did read some more interesting stuff about Jeanine/Erudite's motives and the society. From the reading, I found out that along with Tris, Tobias, and Uriah, Marcus (Tobias's abusive father) is also divergent. Also Jack Kang (leader of Candor) wants to negotiate with one of Jeanine's representatives. Tris, Tobias, and a few of their friends think it would be a good idea to follow and spy on them. But before the meeting, a fight between Tobias and Marcus breaks out. People had been making fun of Tobias and calling him a coward since he was trying to run away from his father, and that he didn't stand up to his father, Marcus. So in front of everybody in the cafeteria, Tobias beats up his father and whips him with his belt. Tris wonders why Tobias did what he did and she remembers that Tobias's mom, Evelyn, told him to prove himself to Dauntless and become a leader, so that Dauntless will join forces with the factionless and rebel against Erudite. Afterward everyone gets in their position to spy on the meeting. Max, another leader from Dauntless was Jeanine's representative. He told Jack that Erudite will keep him and his faction unharmed if: 1) They return Eric, unharmed. 2)Let them search the compounds for Divergents and 3) Tell them everyone who wasn't injected with the simulation serum. Lynn, one of Tris's friends, shoots Max. Tris realizes that Jeanine must be close by because she knows that Jeanine was telling Max what to say through an earpiece. Tris runs toward a glass building and she was right. She sees Jeanine and Peter, who is a Dauntless traitor, fleeing. Tris is about to chase after them but hears a scream. She runs to see what happens and sees that Shauna, Lynn's sister had been shot. They went back to Candor headquarters and while Shauna was getting treated, Tobias was angry with Tris because she is always putting herself in dangerous situations. He tells her that if she does it again, they can not stay together. Angry and shocked, she goes and talks to Tori. She asks Tori if she found anything interesting while being a spy. Tori admits that she was trying to get close to Jeanine so that she could kill her. (She wants to do that because her brother was killed for being a divergent). 

           Insurgent has been reminding me about our current novel that we are reading in class, Fahrenheit 451. They are both about future societies where the government is trying to control the peoples' minds and lives. It makes me really fearful about what might happen in our future society if the government gets too greedy with power. From Fahrenheit 451, people were basically given an opinion, just so that they wouldn't form their own. The government brainwashed them with forbidding books and other laws, while in Insurgent, Erudite is almost brainwashing people too with all their simulations and serums.