SETTING
The story takes place in St. Andrew Valley, an ordinary town with not much in it. Jason and his friend look for snails sometimes, exploring rivers and basically anywhere with moisture. Jason attends Teen Power Outreach sessions held in the church basement every Thursday because his mom forces him to. He also goes to mass every Sunday at the Church of the Good Shepard. One day he has a revelation while under the water tower: water is life. After making a new religion centered around the water tower, he recruits disciples and eventually they go to the top, where things go badly. They swim in the reservoir and then Henry falls off and lands on the catwalk, breaking many bones. Afterwords they get arrested and Jason goes to jail for six hours until his dad bails him out. Henry goes to St. Theresa's Hospital. Near the end of the book, Jason and his friends go to the mall, where he gets hit in the head with a crutch, then hits his head on the floor and gets a mild concussion and seven stitches. The story ends with Jason in the hospital, reflecting on the events of the book.
PLOT
Jason Bock, agnostic-going-on-atheist teen, and his friend Shin go to the water tower looking for snails for Shin's collection. They run into Henry Stagg and his goons, and Henry knocks Jason on his back. While laying down with his head scrambled, he sees the water tower with the sunlight gleaming over the edge. Feeling fed up with Catholicism, he realizes the importance of the water tower. It brings water to everyone in the town, and water is life. He comes up with the idea of the water tower being God. At one of the Teen Power Outreach sessions, he states that he doesn't worship the same god as them, and starts making up god as a joke. He tells his f...
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...nished by his father, ends up hating Jason and calls him a heretic. Magda, the only girl in the church is liked by all its members. She gets in huge trouble because of Jason and hates him for it. Henry, the violent and unstable one gets severely injured and later hates Jason because he says he isn't good enough for Magda.
TONE
The book is very comical, but it is also a satire of religion. It is somewhat subtle, not blatantly insulting any religion, but it does show some of its consequences.
THEME
The book shows the effects religion can have on people, specifically Shin, who goes becomes an insane believer. It ruins the lives of all the believers of the water tower.
PERSONAL RELEVANCE
I think the theme is very relevant, seeing how religion controls the majority of the population. People don't question their faith very often and this book is about a boy who does.
Vonnegut deals a lot with fantasy in his book, Cat's Cradle. From the beginning, he talks about the religion that he follows: Bokonism. This is not a real religion, however he has rules, songs, scriptures, and opinions of a person that practices this fantasy religion. Within his description of this religion however is black humor as well. I think that by him making up this whole religion and an entire island of people who follow it, is in a way mocking today's religion and the way that people are dedicated to their beliefs.
The major points in the story are about not necessarily believing in something just because
I think that the messages this book displays are important for anyone to think about, and apply to their lives every day.
The book exemplifies the failure of religion especially in minorities. Any religion that has a “better afterlife” like heaven for
There are many examples of strong argumentative writing in the second half of the book Everyday Arguments. Topics of writing examples include today’s college student, the internet, sports, earning your living, diet, and reading popular culture. Of the writings, two stood out as notable works to be critiqued; Who is a Teacher, and Thoughts on Facebook.
events that may be an influence on Jason’s behavior and adaptation to his home life, home life
...plot twists. For instance, Keven Roose was the last to get a print interview from the late Jerry Falwell and the article Roose wrote was handed out during the funeral. It is a little ironic that Kevin Roose wrote the article in order to gain a better understanding of the late Jerry Falwell for his novel. I believe the author successfully gave an unbiased account of the evangelical lifestyle. The novel included a range of evangelical Christians which demonstrates that it would be ignorant and wrong to group all of these individuals in one group based on religion. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the author reacted to opinions he did not agree with, specifically the constant homophobic remarks which were rather insulting as he has many gay friends and gay family members. Therefore, I would recommend the novel because it has interesting content and a reasonable length.
Many novels use religion as the central object of their plot. Franny and Zooey, by J.D Salinger and The Razor’s Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham both display religion as having they key role in their novels. Religion is the main guide in Franny and Zooey and The Razor’s Edge for the search of meaning. During the search for meaning the two main characters Franny Glass and Larry Darrel, use religion as an escape from everyday life and from bad memories. Secondly, these two characters put important factors of their lives on hold, which leads their loved ones to disagree with their search for meaning. Nevertheless, both characters benefit from their religious experiences.
I believe that that the moral of the story is that nothing in this world is impossible anything can happen at any given time. Like he said in this chapter how could people be starving in the richest nation in the world. And every one doubted Plaisted but look what happen he proved every body wrong. When you put you mind to it anything is possible.
...ents itself in this interlude. Like the others, it ties a god to the new land through sacrifice, and presents the death of god(s) as result of a lack in, or abandonment by followers.
At first glance, it seems that the abhorrent destiny of the main character is at the mercy of mischievous and cruel gods.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
It is a book that my child may never be able to read. It seems that the only logical reasoning to aid in what offends people is to completely eliminate the book from the library. A better approach is to understand that this book may help them examine other beliefs, attitudes, values, and traditions and to accept, tolerate, or even reject these ideas without prejudices against people who hold particular views. In the democracy In which we live, where regularly all ideas are debatable. A wide range on all points of view should be available to the public.
When you first purchase a PC you will notice that almost every PC has a BIOS integrated in it and you usually are able to access it when you first boot it up. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System and is a simple set of electronic instruction’s that a PC when it starts up. It is the third type of software a pc needs in order to function properly. The BIOS is basically the foundation that allows your computer hardware and software the ability to communicate with each other. BIOS is also generally stored in the motherboard of a PC and is usually stored on a rom chip which reassures that it cannot be damaged by errors such as disk failures. Typically during a BIOS startup it checks to see if the
The story started at the Kingdom of Iolcus, Greece, when Pelias gain the throne by killing his brother and taking the queen as his wife to rule the kingdom. The queen worries about her son that he might also get killed by Pelias she decided to hide the Jason in the wilderness and telling to the king that the baby had died. Jason was raised by Chiron the Centaur; he grew up smart and strong in the mountain. When Jason grew up and discover his rights as the prince, he decided to return to Iolcus to confront the king and take the throne.