The Brothers K.

I really like Hamlet. It's about someone who can't make up his mind; constantly debating whether his efforts will be worth the results. In the play, Hamlet is envious of his friend Horatio's level moods, while he progressively becomes more irrational from inner pain. Hamlet operates in extremes, wildly swinging from one feeling to the next. If The Brothers Karamazov is going to be likened to Hamlet, Dimitri is definitely him. The borderline insane, passionate and suicidal make great heroes since they are more interesting (and better) examples of humanity.

Alexey is definitely "your humble narrator," observing Dmitri, the flawed brother.

Some books are known to have the main character observe the actual hero, like in The Great Gatsby. I'll mention Fight Club as well, since the dynamic character is all in the narrator's head. Sometimes this perspective allows for a more fuller picture. There is actually a line in Fight Club about how Freud said our fathers are our models for God. Hamlet's father is murdered and he is immediately disillusioned. Although I am only on page 357 in the novel, we all know that Fyodor Karamazov will be murdered as well. When Dmitri repeats his brother Ivan's words "everything is lawful" referring to a world without god, he may have been contemplating to commit the murder himself. Freud loved this book, along with hamlet since they are similar stories; the death of the father creating indecisive, troubling times for the son.

I also finished the part where Ivan gets irrationally angry at Smerdykov and was somewhat fascinated by the whole exchange. After considering what could be troubling him, he regrets not expressing himself better to Alyosha and his views on the exsistance of god in the famous chapter "The Grand Inquisitor". But I think the source of anger that Ivan can't put his finger on, is that he sees a bit of himself in Smerdykov. What he desires is credence in his ideas, and certainly has the flaw of pretentiousness about him. He describes Smerdykov as having this "bruised vanity" that he found unbecoming. Both are angry young men, still smarting from not lovely childhoods.

Chloe and Jackie

I bought a rat for my seventh grade science fair project and named her Chloe. She was black on her head and shoulders and white everywhere else. I kept her and actually taught her some tricks; running across my outstretched arm, standing up when held my fingers above her head, and almost could make her fetch sunflower seeds. She died my freshman year. I think it was my fault. I didn't think Chloe was that old, but I suddenly noticed one night that she was rather thin, and lying immobile next to her wheel. Guilty thoughts raced through my mind as I struggled to recall when I last fed her; it had to be the night before. In hindsight she was almost 3 years old which is the typical life span. What follows is semi-embarrassing, because some might say she's just a rat. She was still breathing, so I took some of her food, crushed it up and mixed it with a little water then tried to make her eat it. It was no-go, and a bit panicy at this point I called my mom to come downstairs and help me. My mom didn't really have any other ideas. Then, I heard Chloe exhale her last breath, and it rattled as it left her body. I've always thought death rattles were only an expression, but to witness one is chilling. In my hands, her warm little body went cold then stiff. I now knew what it felt like to have something die in my hands. Chloe now felt as stiff as the rats we dissected in middle school.

A similarly guilty experiance happened with a filly I had named Jackie. I recall the morning I last saw her alive, not really seeing her since I just blindly put her feed in the pan. If I would have looked, I might have noticed that Jackie had a bleeding gash on her neck. When I got home from school, I didn't care to check on her, and went inside. My dad came back from work and said that Jackie was dead in the pasture. I went out and looked at her, lying in the middle of the pasture with her tounge sticking out and felt terrible. Staring at her as my brother and my dad talked, I heard them saying that she must have been bleeding a long time, almost since that morning. Remembering where she was standing when I fed her, I went over to that fence by the pan, and could see it was generously smeared with blood. I must have been standing right next to her when she was bleeding to death, and walked to the bus.