Read+Reflection+Marking+Period+2

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The past week the class started the horror novel “Christine” written by author Stephen King. The novel is about a boy’s bond with his decrepit vintage 1958 Plymouth Fury that has been apparently possessed by supernatural powers. Presently I’m on page fifty of the book, and being a fan of his work I have some pretty good predictions of what will happen in the book. Stephen King loves to make main characters the out-casts of society who are abused and ridiculed. Theirs a misconception that they’re weak beings but secretly they actually have a dark secret that ends up being the death of their abusers. In __Carrie__ she slaughters her entire senior class who abused her, in the __Fire Starter__ the young girl burns the government officials who have been hounding her and her father, and the list goes on. Already this book is being set up to end the same way, the bullied nerd at school who also has abusive parents but has a possessed car that will kill his abusers.======

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The theme of this novel is, “Are machines alive or do humans just give them human characteristics?” Stephen King implies that machines are alive, it’s curious that the car’s name is Christine, the name Christine is derived from the work Christ. This name almost makes it seem as if the car is god like. Why do humans have the need to name machines? Treat them as if they were human beings? Arnie is instantly attached to his car, when he is struggling to get it started he strokes the dashboard and calls it honey, his kindness seems to be what starts the car. I’m guilty of befriending machines to the point if their broken I wouldn’t throw them out. Would someone just throw out a friend as if they were garbage? That’s the same way Leboy felt when he sold his car to Arnie.======

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In Czechoslovakia during WW I, my family had bout two rabbits and geese, the children loved the animals and named them. During a holiday everyone was surprised to see the table full of meat dishes. When they became aware it was their friends everyone became hysterical while eating their friends, since then the Lada family has an old saying, “don’t name the animals you’re going to eat.” This relates to how the men in this feel towards their Christine, it’s not jalopy rather their baby that needs protecting from disgusted neighbors, friends and family.======

__Week #2__

New information is revealed regarding the history of Christine. With the news of Lebay’s death Arnie insists that him and Denis go to his funeral despite only knowing Lebay for a few hours. At the funeral Denis wants to know more about Christine’s past, without Arnie knowing he confronts Lebay’s brother and talks about the grim car’s history. It turns out that Lebay’s daughter has choked to death in the back seat on a hamburger and his wife had suffocated to death by carbon monoxide. Despite the horrific memories the car conjures up Lebay refused to get rid of the car.

I don’t understand Arnie’s thinking behind wanting to go to Lebay’s funeral. Lebay was no way nice to Arnie, he had over charged him for Christine, and during the transaction was rude to both himself and his friend. But despite having treated Arnie badly he insisted on missing work and go to his funeral. I also think it’s odd that Lebay died almost immediately after he sold Christine to Arnie, it makes it seem as if he had become so attached to his car that he wasn’t able to survive parting with it. In a way Christine did kill him, he had damaged his back as a result of working on Christine. With the information from Lebay’s brother, it seems as if Christine is a jealous child feels as if she is competing for Lebay’s love and the only way to get it is eliminate the competition. Lebay obviously hadn’t been giving Christine that much attention judging by the car’s present state. Angry at being neglected Christine strikes back at her abusive owner.

When some one is lonely, inanimate objects often take on human characteristics to fill the void the owner is feeling. In Lebay’s case Christine takes the place of his lost child and wife. Arnie has nothing to love in his life, his parents are cold, his only friend Denis has little time for him. Christine is a hobby in which he looks forward to being with and gives him a reason to look forward to living. I think it’s great that Arnie has a passion and has something to get his mind off his troubles but his car is no substitute for human contact.

__Week #3__

Working on the car has proven to be a good decision for Arnie’s health, his complexion is clearing up he’s dressing nicer and has gained a new self confidence that has won him the most beautiful girl in school. It just proves that when a hobby takes one’s mind of their struggling and pain they gain a new look on life and that can often be seen by their physical appearance. But as the book goes on it seems that the car becomes less of a hobby and more of an obsession.

On a date with Leigh, Leigh chokes almost chokes to death on a hamburger, similarly to how Lebay’s own daughter had died. Arnie at the time was outside of the car and unable to get inside to help her because the car doors had mysteriously locked themselves. A hitchhiker is able to save Leigh by administering the Heimlich maneuver. After the incident Leigh explains her feelings towards Christine. She explains how Arnie is spending more time with the car than her. Arnie explains that she shouldn’t be jealous, that he isn’t, “messing around with other girls.” But Leigh responds that, “Cars are girls.”

Up until this point in the book I had thought that Christine wasn’t possessed rather Denis was just jealous that Arnie was spending more time with the car than him. But the incident with Leigh choking is too similar to how Lebay’s own daughter died. I do believe in ghosts and I do believe that ghosts often times possess objects that they were close to in their human life. I think that the ghost possessing Christine is jealous of those trying to get between her and Arnie and believes that the only way they can live happily together is with no interferences.

During a football game Denis gets critically injured which leaves him bed ridden in the hospital. The weeks he was in the hospital Arnie only briefly visits him once. I think that this is disgusting; Denis was by his side during a lot of difficult points in his life. Without Denis, Arnie would not have survived school. Arnie had never been able to repay Denis for his kindness, here he has a chance and he blows it.

Arnie is increasingly becoming like Lebay, he’s on the path towards losing everyone in his life who cares about him. There’s a good and bad side with having Christine. On one side he has a no found confidence but on the other this new confidence is destroying his life.

__Week #4__

Arnie finishes restoring Christine and believes that he’ll now be able to store her at his house but his parents still refuse so he parks her at the local airport. Buddy Repperton, the vicious bully that had gotten suspended earlier in the book for harassing Arnie with a knife destroys Christine with his gang of thugs. When Arnie discovers what had happened to his car he becomes so infuriated which results in the end of his relationship with Leigh. Mysterious murders start occurring in Libertyville, one by one those who attacked Christine are killed. Leigh and Denis become close and share their information regarding Arnie and his car. The common consensus is that it’s not Arnie that is committing the murders, rather Christine.

The only reason that Denis and Leigh are convinced that it’s Christine that’s committing the murders and not Arnie is because they’re in denial. They desperately want to believe that it’s not their friend who is killing of their classmates but his possessed car. Personally I believe it’s haunted but they have no solid proof. Again their jealous feelings regarding Arnie and his car are clouding their judgment. They know that the car fixes itself, but if they know they can’t physically destroy Christine then what are they going to do to stop her? If I was them I would stay away from both Christine and Arnie, he obviously doesn’t want to be with them and being friends with him jeopardizes their own lives. They need to face it, they’ve lost the old Arnie and he isn’t coming back.

In most of Stephen King’s movies and books music plays a huge role in setting the mood of his story. At the beginning of our book Stephen King dedicates several pages acknowledgments of all references used. Each chapter has a section of a song, are 1950’s-60’s era songs in which the singer sings about how important their car is to them. I’ve not known any other author to incorporate songs into their writing in such a way but I think it’s an excellent way of taking the reader back in time. The baby boomer generation now for example loves listening to the golden oldie station on the radio, those songs bring them back to their “glory days” when they were young.

__Week #5__

As I’m reading there are a couple of choices Stephen King made while he was writing that are bothering me. Up until the middle of the book Denis is the narrator of the story, presently he’s middle aged and writing his memoir about his high school experience with his friends possessed car. Denis refrains from narrating for a while because he’s out of the picture as a result of his football injury so an outside person narrates the story. It was confusing because in his life memoir how is a third person all of a sudden chiming in. The music additionally is a great touch but kind of confusing at first, to me it sounds as if Stephen King had wrote the music purposely this was so it would transfer easier into a movie version.

In addition to me it seems as if Arnie and Denis’s relationship is very unreal. In real life both could be friends at a younger age but as both kids grew up and develop more of their own personalities they’d drift apart. It doesn’t seem as if Arnie or Denis have much in common which makes their friendship awkward. Denis has taken the role of a protective older brother towards Arnie and I don’t know why. It seems that being Arnie’s friend has caused a lot of unneeded trouble and agita for Denis. Denis risks his life protecting him from his abusers, Arnie’s parents treat him poorly and Arnie takes advantage of Denis. In real life no one would take such abuse, Denis would have left Arnie in Middle School.

Meanwhile in the book both Leigh and Denis confront Christine in Darnell’s garage and are able to destroy Christine by using a large septic tank truck named petunia. The police reassured Denis and Leigh that Christine’s remains were fed to a crusher in the back of Darnells. One of the police officers who were disposing of Christine’s pieces was so deeply scratched he needed stitches. The officer explained that, “it bit him.” I had guessed that Christine was going to be destroyed in a show down against Denis and Leigh but I really love the comment that the officer added. It’s like the large question marks that end horror films, “yes it’s the end of the creature…or is it?” Destroying physically had proven useless before when Buddy and his gang bashed it. It’s also funny how the book ended the way it was predicted in class. As a joke one of the students had said another car bigger that Christine is the only thing that would be able to destroy her. It ended up being exactly that, a truck that too was given a girls name.

__Week #6__

Science fiction stories are cautionary tales of what are possible fates of the human race if they are not careful. Issac Asminov’s cult classic novel __I Robot__ is a story about how the robot rise to power and how the humans made this possible. This story is one that can be applied to the world’s current state today. On the path the world is currently on, it'll only a short amount of time before robots completely replace the human race. Evolution is defined as the development in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage. In the evolution chain robots are the next stage.. Scientists are always striving to make a smarter, and stronger, it's only a matter of time before the robots human's produce posse’s greater abilities than the humans than made it. Scientists believe that they’re moving forward but in actuality currently humans are digging their own grave.  The robots in I ‘Robot are superior in every way to humans, robot QT-1 summed up robot's superiority very well. Humans are unable to with stand harsh elements, they’re flabby, lack reason, and they need maintenance (eating, breathing…) it only makes sense that a better race will replace this one.   The robots rise to power has already started, crude robots started replacing humans since the 1800’s starting with the cotton gin. Over time the process of replacing humans with machines has become only more apparent, with the advances made in technology, a where 250 workers used to be employed have been replaced with large machines only needing to maintenance workers. In the last decade robots aren’t merely replacing factory workers but replacing play mates, artists and even teachers. When QT-1 explains his defiant feelings toward Donovan and Powell he’s considered to be a joke. In present day humans are in disbelief. As a reader I see that this is only the beginning, as soon as one robot doesn’t take humans as a threat what prevents other robots from believing the same. If I was Donovan and Powell, I’d destroy QT-1 and keep a close eye on all other robots to watch for such behavior. I don’t know why humans in Issac Asminov’s book see how the robots are taking over. Even in president day not enough humans realize what’s going on. I think I Robot is an excellent book, this book should be taught in school forever, it has a deep meaning that needs no be spread. The immediate affects of technology might be beneficial but in the long run technology has permanent damaging effects on society and the human race as a whole.