The Conch

In the novel, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the conch shell symbolizes leadership and civilization. Throughout the novel the boys have used the conch to gather everyone together for meetings. If you hold the conch, then you have the right to speak. When Ralph first finds the shell he  says, “That’s what the shell is called. I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he is speaking”(33). This quote demonstrates civilization as the boys take turns speaking with the conch.  The boys  begin to learn organization traits that help them come together as a unit.The conch also represents leadership; when Ralph blows the conch all of the boys gather for a meeting around him. When they first find the conch Piggy says ” We can use this to call the others . Have a meeting. They  will come when they hear us”(16). Ever Since he first time the found the conch it has been a symbol for leadership and civilization because when he blew the conch, the boys went to Ralph.

Towards the end of the book the conch was destroyed; therefore, the boys had no object for civilization and leadership. At this point  of the book the boys began to have chaos because there was no symbol of leadership.

John Green’s “Looking for Alaska:”

Will the Search Ever End

Reviewed by Josh Hanna

The complex journey of a young adult growing up after hopelessly falling for the love of his life is what “Looking for Alaska” leads us through. Innocence is lost, as responsibility and hardship with our own emotion comes to light in this romantic drama in one boy’s coming of age.

Looking for Alaska tells the tale of a teenage Miles Halter through a year of boarding school in Alabama. Excited, yet nervous from his new surrounding, Miles meets Chip “Colonel“ Martin and they become best friends. Colonel is daring and adventurous, but invokes heavy drinking and drug use into his lifestyle. Following the Colonel’s footsteps, Miles quickly loses himself to the intoxicating lifestyle as he lets go and learns how to drink, smoke and escape punishment. Soon in, Miles is introduced to the intelligent and equally gorgeous and gifted Alaska, eventually falling for her. Yet, his conscience is broken along with his heart after Alaska dies driving home after drinking with Colonel and him.

I thought this book was a very good read, given the circumstances of the romantic genre. While I am not one to read books in this genre, I found “Looking for Alaska” set aside from the unoriginal, cheesy, and lame teen romance novel plaguing the market today. While it heavily contains the descriptive nature romance novels seem to invoke, the book also spoke about the hardships of growing up. I personally felt like this spoke to me, and I felt that John Green wrote the book and truly understood and effectively conveyed not only Mile’s falling in love and inevitable heartbreak, but the desire and consequences to his rebellion. The personal depth Green puts into Mile’s character, I found to be very real, as he writes, “People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to” (100). The initial denial of Alaska’s death, to the boy’s grieving, to their search for evidence of suicide, followed by the process of Miles losing his innocence, is the depth and emotion Green so greatly revolves the story around.

Also, what I thought was most interesting was the poetic language of the book. “So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” (88); similes “like a North Carolina tobacco field in a wildfire” (56) exemplify the beautiful language of John Green. Both not only captured the thoughts and emotion I valued so much in the book, but they were worded in a way which I felt was intelligent and lyrical even. Additionally, there was the pre accident and post accident structure of the book, which constantly kept me reading on to fill in the blanks. I felt this was an elegant way to structure the story, and broke it off from just another boring book.

While the novel is linguistically beautiful and the story was far from the typical cheesy romance novels, I still found certain parts of it to be a bit too much for me. With all of John Green’s powerful ways with words, and the story told, sometimes, ideas presented in the story was simply too abstract, and I felt like I was missing something. Finally, I found myself frustrated at certain times in the book from the characters being a bit too melodramatic about the mundane.

Overall, I found this book to be a great read and spoke to me in many different ways. I enjoyed following the life of Miles and truly heard his love and pain in the story. It was a great story of growing up and never losing hope no matter the situation, and that sometimes us being imperfect is okay.  

Malcolm Gladwell

Today, society preaches to condemn bias and judgment, yet in Gladwell's paper, he proves that everybody has a subconscious bias. What was most interesting in this chapter, was how Gladwell was able to prove his point of unconscious bias by performing simple test throughout his essay. With simple name recognition, he was able to prove how gender has been taught to us with the fast paced test provoking the taker to have to thing as stereotypes become less vague and seemingly contradicting. I personally feel that I am apart of this bias, but these actions are not what they should be. Gladwell hopes to help realize this so that we can be aware and choose leaders appropriately and not solely based on appearance.

Leader's ideally reflect what the majority of the people want to resemble their ideals. Beyond ideals, they hold the weight of what others by themselves cannot. I feel that personal appearance is  strongly correlated to our choice of leader. People was a whole tend to lean toward leaders who hold a physical appearance of what is the social ideal of popular. Gladwell tied the election of Harding into senate to his strong 'roman' physical characteristic, which made people feel like he was a leader. However, instead of choosing leaders by their appearance, people should be more aware of their subconscious bias, and choose leaders for their attitudes, ideals, acceptance to criticism, and willingness to help others.

The IAT test proved that I was indeed bias much like Gladwell proved in his essay. The race test attempted to show that one was either biased towards whites or blacks. I feel that this test accurately proved his point. While it is the social stigma not to judge a book by its cover, Gladwell and the IAT test proved that subconsciously, I did have a personal bias.