At the beginning of this semester, I was nervous. Partly because grade 10 would be my last year at this school. My goals for this year were to work extremely hard. My English goal was to become a better writer and I’m very happy I was able to achieve that goal. I pushed myself to become a better writer and read more books. I went through some rough learning curves in this course but I am so thankful to have overcome them and become a better person. One memorable thing about this class was reading Lord Of The Flies. It has to be one of my favorite novels now. I watched the entire show “Lost” because of the book. This course was amazing. I loved and had so much fun. If I could change one thing, it would be to have more oral speaking aspects. I love presenting and speaking in front of the class so I wish we would have done more assignments like those. Over all, grade 10 English was a course that taught me many life lessons and helped me prepare for grade 11 & 12.
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We have long been taught that the truth will set us free and that seeking it is a worthy goal. But what if there is no absolute truth? What if there are just certain degrees of the truth that we tell ourselves? This relates back to my ISU novel, the incredible book by Liane Moriarty called The Husbands Truth. For my secondary source, I chose to connect my novel with one of the world’s most famous Greek myth, Pandora’s box. It’s considered to be one of the most descriptive myths of human behaviour in Greek mythology. Ancient Greeks used this myth not only to instruct themselves about the weaknesses of humans but also to explain several misfortunes of the human race.
My book, The Husband's Truth, and the myth are connected in many ways. In both texts, curiosity plays a major role with the mind of the different characters. Curious people always ask questions and search for answers, and both Pandora and Cecilia have to face the consequences of their interested minds. But Cecilia now has to live with the largest secret of her life that isn’t only affecting her health but everyone around her. Pandora has to face the aftermath of opening the box as well. My texts are also similar in the way they both relate to my driving question, 'Does finding the truth out really set us free?' Both characters find the truth that lay beneath their concerns but the question really is if they were satisfied at the end. After Cecilia opened that letter did she feel better or worse? And the same goes for Pandora, did she feel better after opening the box, or worse? In Pandora’s case, the truth didn’t set her mind free. After finding out what was inside the box, her mind was far away from any sort of freedom. The most fascinating part of this myth is what was left inside the jar. Hope. Perhaps hope is good, and it is good that it remained in the jar. In other words, the jar originally served as a prison for the evils, but thereafter it serves as a residence for this good hope. It’s as if hope, separated from evil, takes on a new character and it becomes good. But had hope been released into the world with the other evils, it would have been another evil, a bad kind of hope. So maybe finding out the truth does have some good factors to it.
My grandma and I were talking about how sometimes not knowing something is better than finding it out and being completely heartbroken, and then she said something that I personally think will stick with me for the rest of my life. She said, “The truth will set you free, but you do have to endure the labouring pains of birthing it.” So no matter what stage in life you’re in, just remember that the truth is what frees a person of thoughts related to what else they might've done to change this or that. Besides the truth what else is there that would change this or that ethically or morally? The truth frees a person from any embarrassing contradictions they might utter in the future if they had originally lied. It’s also freedom from the guilt most of us feel when we lie. We are also doing our best to help the minds of other people come to correct conclusions. Although the moral in Pandora's Box is to not seek out the truth and keep away from curiosity, in life, sometimes we have to. Maybe not for ourselves, but for the people we love.
Two main topics covered in The Husband's Secret, are secrecy and revenge. The book mainly revolves around how secrets can not only hurt you but everyone else. We come to the understanding that everyone is plagued with secrets that have the power to destroy the ones we love. These secrets create internal struggles within us as we battle protecting our loved ones and deceiving them. Cecilia’s husband, John-Paul struggles not telling his wife about the murder of Janie, and writes her a letter which was originally intended to be opened after he dies. Everyone has different ways coping with secrets and John-Paul decided to write his down. Will Curtis is also keeping secrets from his wife. Tess finds out that her husband has been having an affair with her best friend and moves back to home to her mom. This doesn't only affect her relationship with Will, but her son Liam’s relationship with his father. Another main topic in the story is revenge. The desire for revenge each character feels in this story is very realistic to how one might feel after their spouse has an affair or a murdered loved one not getting justice. Tess begins sleeping with Connor and I think this type of scenario happens frequently with couples going through a separation (even if it is just temporary). She felt incredibly hurt and angry yet I think a small part was revenge, but it was mainly to prove to herself that other men still found her appealing. While Rachel, takes her anger out on Connor. After seeing a video of Connor and Janie together the day she died, Rachel has no other suspect in mind. So as she was driving home, she saw him crossing the street and accelerated with pure intentions of getting revenge. Unfortunately, she accidentally hit Cecilia’s youngest daughter, Polly, who was coincidentally chasing Connor.
The main message Liane Moriarty was trying to get across in the book was probably that one event or action can motion a string of bad, unavoidable repercussions. Imagine if Cecilia hadn't opened the letter, or Tess hadn’t moved away to her mom's house or even if Rachel hadn’t accelerated the car. The point is, sometimes letting things go is a better way of coping than bottling up your emotions. A good driving question that I might choose for my project is, ‘How far would you go to protect the life you’re living?’ but I also have a few more options like, ‘Does the truth really set us free?’ And, ‘Is it possible to ever, completely know a person?’ All of my questions relate back to the message of the book and are good driving questions to focus on. Some connections I can make with my book to Lord Of The Flies are how, in both of the books, and innocent person gets hurt. In The Husband's Secret, Polly, Cecilia’s youngest daughter gets run over by Rachel's car and is severely injured. In Lord Of The Flies, Simon is accidentally murdered by the boys. So, in both of novels, an innocent character gets hurt and affects everyone else in the story. Well, I guess sometimes the most innocent people are affected the most, by the foolish decisions and mistakes we make.
Reminiscing about the good old days when we were growing up is a memory trip well worth taking when trying to understand the issues facing the children of today. A mere 10 years ago, children used to play outside all day, riding bikes, playing sports and building forts. Today's families are different. Technology's impact on the 21st century family is fracturing its foundation, and causing a disintegration of core values that long ago were the fabric that held families together. Kids growing up after me, may choose to do things digitally rather than in real life. Daily tasks like going to school or running errands to the grocery story can all be done online and this may affect our descendants decisions. Although, doing simple everyday tasks with the touch of a finger tip may seem time consuming, our kids will never learn the impact of hard work. Which, quite frankly, scares me. Overall, technology is great, it has hundreds of pros but it also comes with a lot of cons. Finding the right balance in your life is the key to living a happy life. Personal time with family, going on a walk outdoors, or just disconnecting for a few hours from technology may be all you need to distress and find the right balance.
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