Denise’s Comments (group member since Jan 15, 2012)

Denise’s comments from the EDUC 567 Spring 2012 group.

My favorite character in The Tale of Despereaux was definitely Despereaux. I love underdog stories and this one takes the cake! Despereaux is physically weak and sickly, but his heart is full of ambition and courage even when other mice have low expectations for him. For some reason him wanting to be a knight also really resonates with me. I’ll admit when I was a very little girl I always related to or wanted to be like the princess characters, but as I got older I definitely wanted to be like the valorous, honorable, and brave characters in any story. My first reading of this novel was after when I had reached that mindset, and even now I still favor those character traits, which Despereaux has even though he doesn’t realize it at first.

While I actually liked the complexity of Roscuro, I didn’t like the simplicity of Mig! I pitied her all through the story but I found it unfavorable that she was so lazy. It’s an odd character trait to give to someone the reader is meant to pity, in my opinion. You’d think her ambition would drive her to greater things if she wants to be a princess, though I’m sure a perk to being a princess was having people wait on her while she didn’t have to work.

I've always been a fan of Disney's Beauty and the Beast but still wished that Beast remained as a beast in the end, so I'm glad to see a version of the story where he does (outwardly at least, because we all know he's humane on the inside). However, getting to the end of this story was like pulling teeth. As others have already commented, I was rereading sections because of the awkward whimsy of the language and also trying to keep up with everything that McKinley wanted to throw at us (The telling of every aspect of each day despite how repetitive it was, the two tales of the beast, the story of who the sisters' mother was and the old woman, the random gift of the salamander which didn't amount to too much). I think I'll stick with the movie when I want a beauty and the beast story but I do agree with Sarah in that the back story of how Beauty's family relocated and developed was interesting.

The Giver reminded me of several other dystopian novels such as We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Anthem by Ayn Rand as well as the classic 1976 movie, Logan’s Run. By page 2, the “release” is already mentioned and right away I knew that’d be the government sanctioned “service” that will, in the end, prove to be one of the inhumane acts done to keep society in order. The society of The Giver clearly functions on the idea that the ends justify the means, even if the means include euthanizing people and making one person carry the burden, or memories, of everyone else.

Being that I’m familiar with the genre, what I mostly experienced while reading was just comparing and contrasting this story to other stories as well as treasure hunting for all the creepy vibes and hints of what really happens when someone is released. I enjoy thinking of “what if…” scenarios so, even though I knew something clearly wasn’t right, I did have fun piecing together the tweaked aspects of the community and all the other dystopian qualities of the society.

The most emotional response I had was to a particular passage when the Giver is stating that he wants to return to his daughter after he and Jonas carry out their scheme. Lowry did a good job building suspense and curiosity about the previous receiver, Rosemary, who wasn’t a success. On pg. 162, we find out that she was, in fact, the Giver’s daughter. I personally have problems getting into books when they are assigned for a class, but this did tug at my heart chords because the bond between a parent and child is something special. To read a story where there seems to be no exceptionally strong bonds between family members and then get hit with this one point where I was reminded of the parent-child connection had a pretty big impact.