In the novel, Summer by Edith Wharton, Charity had fallen in love with Mr. Harney. When Charity hears that Harney is newly engaged to Annabel Balch, she writes him a letter.

Charity wrote the letter because she felt that Annabel was “…at least the kind of girl it would be natural for him to marry.” (Page 78) Part of Charity could never see a girl like herself marrying a man like Harney.

Another reason she wrote the letter is she felt that it would be useless to fight with Harney over the engagement because it was too late and had already been done. On page 78 the novel reads, “The more she thought of these things the more the sense of fatality weighed on her: she felt the uselessness of struggling against the circumstances. She had never known how to adapt herself; she could only break and tear and destroy. The scene with Ally had left her stricken with shame at her own childish savagery.” Here, Charity knows in the past she has been childish and now is trying to compensate by being mature about the engagement. However, there is a small part of Charity that believes Harney will still come back to her.

Her letter may be a way to tell Harmey to do the right thing but to also make sure Harney knows she will be there waiting if he decides to end the engagement with Annabel and choose Charity.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins focuses largely on survival. Whether in home districts, against other districts, or even against the Capitol, survival is a theme that is repeated throughout the book. At the beginning of the book, Katniss is fighting for not only her own survival, but her family’s as well. Throughout the book, obviously, we see many means of survival through the hunger games. But through all of this survival, characters try to find a sense of normalcy in their lives. The idea of having a home and food to go back to or the idea of having a crush is almost ironic. However, a romantic plot line stems throughout the book and at the end we have a love-struck boy and a confused, torn teenage girl who have just fought and killed for their lives.

In our class discussion on Monday we talked about where Katniss is emotionally toward the end of the book. This goes hand in hand with the statements above. How can we expect Katniss to have a grip on her teenage emotions when she has had the stressful job of being the sole provider and bread winner since she was 12 years old? Her insights on herself are shallow… but if you lost your father, maybe the one person you truly looked up to, and had to fill his immensely large shoes at such a young age, wouldn’t you have a pretty reserved grip on your emotions? If the story was reversed and Katniss was a male, would we be questioning her thoughts and emotions? Would we be as critical or would we acknowledge his past for what it was and label him as an emotionally strong person?

As for comparing this novel to others such as Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I think differences outweigh similarities. Twilight is rooted on a romantic idea, whereas The Hunger Games has more of a rebellious political plot with a romantic undertone. The plot and the characters themselves are completely different. Both of them have their pros and cons, but I have read both and have really enjoyed reading The Hunger Games again. I have picked up numerous ideas now that I didn’t before and it has been a great read.

“The Lottery” is a short story about a town who, every year, hosts a lottery. The lucky winner gets stoned. Nobody in this town knows why they hold the lottery, but because it is tradition, they continue to stone people year after year.

The ethical theory that this is tied to is social contract. Social contract argues that we are self-interested people who want to live and live as well as possible. Therefore, rational people agree to live according to certain rules for our mutual benefit, providing that others obey these rules as well.

The townspeople in this story seem to be average, rational enough, everyday people. Yet, every year they stone one innocent person. Nobody speaks harshly of the lottery until their slip of paper is the one that has that black dot at the top, suggesting that, indeed, people are self-interested and egotistic. Tessie Hutchinson is an example of that. (pages 707 and 709) No one in town knows why they conduct the lottery, but everyone in the town follows, proving that rational people agree to love according to certain rules for mutual benefit, providing that others obey these rules as well.

This example of social contract is very interesting. It’s crazy to see an example this extreme. It makes you think of the traditions we have today. Obviously, none are as intense as stoning people, but do we have traditions ourselves that follow under this type of thing?