Book Review

The book I am reading this quarter is called Pendragon: The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale.

 I chose to read this book because it was passed down to me from my brother and he said it was a good book. It is an action/horror book so anyone who would like a thrilling story with a lot of twists this would be a good book for them. On a scale from one to ten I think I would give it a nine.

Edgar Allan Poe Essay

Konnor Drewen

Mrs. Zurkowski

Greens

11/1/010

Why Green is Adolescence

            The color green in the story is the third room from the east-wing. The symbolic meaning is of the adolescence years of life. It is like forests because people that age like to explore. It is also the color of money and that about the time where someone starts to build up a fund of money. That is because around that time people start to worry about money and the future. Green is adolescence because it is an early stage of life but it is showing that much time has passed.

            It symbolizes the progression of life because each color shows a different time in life. Each room in the story is a different color starting in the east and ending in the west. Like how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Or how the clock goes in a clockwise motion starting at one and ending at twelve making a full rotation.  The color blue helps to think of birth and young children. The color purple helps to think of children around the age of eight, how they are happy and worry-free. The color green helps to think of young adults and adolescence. Always exploring and searching around in the woods and other places. Also starting to consider money and how important it is for life. Orange is more of a time of adulthood. Going to parties and seeing some friends. White helps think of the wise and the older. Not always considered the most interesting but defiantly someone that people should talk to more often than not. Violet is the sorrowful years. Where people think that the old are just in pain and sometimes the old are even hoping to pass soon. Black is the end of it all. From about seventy to when they pass to the other side.

            My color relates to my life because I am in those years now. This is an important stage because people my age are starting to worry about college and money and the rest of their lives. People my age still like to explore in this time of our lives but in different way. We explore different career fields to find something we may go to college for. There is also another kind of symbolism in this story. I think actually in the story that the people went through these stages while in the castle. The blue stage was when they first got into the castle. The purple stage was after they had settled in. I think the green stage in the castle was some of the time when they were having the parties. The orange stage was the rest of the time they spent at parties. The white stage was the masquerade. The violet was when they saw the red death and Prince Prospero was chasing him through the rooms. The black was when the Prince died followed by the rest of the partyers.  They were having fun are going through a new life in the castle until the red death showed its face. That just proves that no matter what you do you can’t escape Death itself.

O.Henry

O. Henry

·         O. Henry was born William Sydney Porter in Greenboro, North Carolina.

·         When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his parental grandmother and paternal aunt.

·         In 1887 he married Athol Estes Roach; they had one daughter and one son.

·         In 1894 Porter started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone.

·         When the weekly failed, he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist.

·         In 1894 cash was found to have gone missing from the First National Bank in Austin, where Porter had worked as a bank teller.

·         When he was called back to Austin to stand trial, Porter fled to Honduras to avoid trial.

·         Porter entered in 1898 a penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio.

·         While in prison, Porter started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. His first work, 'Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking' (1899), appeared in McClure's Magazine.

·         After doing three years of the five years sentence, Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and changed his name to O. Henry.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ohenry.htm

Edgar Allan Poe

famouspoetsandpoems.com

Something I already knew about Edgar Allan Poe is that he wrote"The Tell Tale Heart" and "The Raven." There is also a engraving of a raven on his tombstone.

Answers to Questions

1.      Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. He died on October 7, 1849.

2.      The tragic event that influenced his writing was when his mother, brother and foster mother all died in 1842 after contracting tuberculosis.  

3.      Some theories of why he died are beating, epilepsy, dipsomania, heart, and toxic disorders.

4.      I think that he called Virginia home.

5.     He married a girl named Virginia and she was fourteen.

6.      Signed the guestbook.

7.      The Raven was published January of 1845.

8.       No one really knows who the Poe Toaster is. Many people have come forward but it has not been proven any of them did anything.

9.       The Tell-Tale Heart and the Black Cat were written in 1842.

10.       West Point military academy expelled Poe in 1831.

Thoughts on short stories

I look foward to reading short from Edgar Allan Poe because I always liked his way of thinking and his work. I also look forward to reading some William Shakespeare. I have enjoyed reading his work before and will enjoy reading it now.