This section of Moloka'i, just as the previous ones, was great. It consisted of many incredibly sad events, but kept me very interested. The section went on for nearly 40 years (of Rachel's life), so there was a lot of evident character development. There were many deaths that were mourned, and many joyous events that were celebrated. Rather than going over every event like I had done in my previous blog posts, I thought it would be more compelling and effective to create a Glogster of the important events that occurred in Rachel's life throughout this section.
***note: third bubble - "Japense" is a typo for "Japanese"
As you can see from the Glog above, Rachel had a very eventful 40 or so years. The last page of the section was when it was discovered that Kenji had died, and I was extremely upset that this had happened. Earlier in the book, Leilani, too, passed away. Once Kenji was gone, it was as if Rachel truly had no one left. The only person Rachel had that she was really close to was Sister Catherine, and besides that, she was on her own. Though she was no longer the lost seven year old girl from the beginning of the book, I still felt immense sympathy for fifty-something year old Rachel.
The major events in Rachel's life can be found above. But, what about the major events in all of the residents of Moloka'i's lives? Well, there's a Glog for that too! In the Glog below, multiple historical trends and events are depicted.
Many of these events may seem irrelevant to the story. However, I pulled the information straight from the book, along with some further research. All of these events had a certain significance to Rachel's life. For instance, the fact about baseball being popular was important because the first time Rachel noticed Kenji, he had been playing on Kalaupapa's baseball team. The temporary release trend was significant to Rachel and Kenji because they had come so close to applying for it themselves. When the many Caucasians arrived on Moloka'i in 1941, Rachel's future neighbor, Gabe, also arrived. This is definitely important, considering Gabe ended up killing Kenji. The fact that education was lacking on Moloka'i contributes to Rachel's life because she felt as though she suffered from this lack of education, and she always wished she could have learned more. The modernization was a big part of Rachel's life because she influenced Lawrence McCully Judd to make many changes, and she and Kenji were both very excited about the arrival of electricity (specifically their new refrigerator and street lights). Lastly, the Pearl Harbor Attack had a large impact on Rachel at the end of the book because she was terrified for her family residing on O'ahu. To me, it is amazing that a fictional character experienced so many events that are 100% real.
Your blog post seems very appropriate, and also very well done for the section that you read. Making a glogster almost replicates a scrapbook, which Im sure any main character would probably make in these fantastic stories. On a side note, you said that the death of a character made you sad. Was there any way in which the writing contributed?
ReplyDeleteDara, this blog posting was very well done. Both of your glogsters were creative and relevant. It's clear you spent a lot of time on them. The second one was very interesting to me, as I knew basically nothing about the island beforehand. But, it was very easy to read and understand, and I learned a lot from it. Great job.
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