Somebody's Keeper

I feel like I am a "keeper" towards my younger cousin.  Her name is Sienna but usually everyone just calls her C-Ray.  In June, Sienna will turn four years old.  She can speak Spanish and English pretty well.  This is because her mom is from Puerto Rico so she speaks Spanish and they live in Philadelphia.  Sienna is so little and I feel that I need to be her "keeper" because she is so small and fragile.

My Sister's Keeper Introduction

          Jodi Lynn Picoult was born in Long Island, New York.  She was born May 19, 1966.  Picoult earned her bachelor's degree in writing at Princeton University.  Now she lives in New Hampshire with a husband and three children.  Her novels are usually written in a way that a different character tells a different chapter, just like My Sister's Keeper.  Picoult wrote her first story when she was five.Her first novel was written while she was pregnant and was published in 1992.

Information: http://bestsellers.about.com/od/authorprofilesaz/p/jodi_picoult.htm
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Chris McCandless Editorial

Border-line insane or crazy genius

By Caitlin Johnson

            Living with such a privileged life, filled with parents who can give you the best, who would want to give that up?  Well, Chris McCandless did.  He wanted to turn away from his father’s plan for him to go to an Ivy League school and become a doctor.  Most people feel strongly about what Chris did, they think it was brave and courageous.  However, some people think that he was crazy and insane.  Those people say that it was just not smart to go into the wilderness with practically nothing; they say he was ill-prepared.  I, myself, side with the people who think Chris McCandless was brave and courageous. 

            Most people seemed to be really fond of Chris.  However, as soon as Chris had met someone, he told them that his name was Alex.  As soon as Westerberg met Chris, Westerberg felt the need to care for him.  Westerberg says that, “He conveyed a vulnerability that made him want to take him under his wing”(Krakauer, 16).  Westerberg meets a lot of hitchhikers and gives them jobs at the grain elevator that he owns.  He gave a job to Chris when he saw him in town two weeks later after Chris left Westerberg’s house.  “Usually most of the hitchhikers don’t really want to work.  It was a different story with Alex.  He was the hardest worker I’ve ever seen.  Didn’t matter what it was, he’d do it: hard physical labor, mucking rotten grain and dead rats out of the bottom of the hole.  And he never quit in the middle of something.  If he started a job he finished it”(18) said Westerberg.

            Westerberg continues saying that “Right away you could tell that Alex was intelligent”(18).  He also noticed that Alex read a lot.  This is probably why he is so smart because he reads a lot.  Westerberg says that he “used a lot of big words.  I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking”(18).  Chris tried to figure out the world.  He tried to figure out why people were so mean to each other so much.  Chris seems so persistent and determined all the time.  This was the case especially about his Alaskan odyssey adventure.

            When Chris graduated from Emory the family dog, Buck, had just recently been hit by a car.  Therefore, he was still recovering.  Chris asked his mom and dad if he could take Buck with him over the summer to be with him.  However, because of the accident they said no.  Carine says that, “Chris didn’t think twice about risking his own life, but he never would have put Buckley in any kind of danger” (128)  She still wonders if Chris would still be alive today.  Carine thinks that he still would be alive because he never would have put Buck in a dangerous situation.  Chis never would risk Buck’s life just like he risked his.

            However, there was still a lot of negative mail that the article aroused.  Most of the bad stuff was written by Alaskans.  A resident from Healy said, “The author describes a man who has given away a small fortune, forsaken a loving family, abandoned his car; watch and map and burned the last of his money before traipsing off into the ‘wilderness’ west of Healy” (71).  I can see where they are coming from.  It kind of makes sense seeing that he did go into the wilderness “purposefully ill-prepared” (71).  I still feel like he was brave and courageous to go.  To live off of the land is really hard seeing that he did not really like killing big animals that would go to waste. The only other things to eat when there was not much to hunt for were berries and obviously they can be deadly.  For the most part McCandless did a good job of differentiating the toxic from non-toxic plants.

            Chris McCandless was brave, courageous, and never gave a second thought about risking his own life.  Chris was really smart and intelligent; he also liked to read for fun.  Therefore, he knew what he was doing.  Even though Chris did not think about risking his own life he probably would not have took as many risks if he had another living thing with him.  It is pretty obvious that Chris cared for animals because he felt bad when he shot the moose and could not eat it because maggots got all over the meat and was a waste to kill it.  Chris was a hard worker as well, “when he started something he wouldn’t quit until he finished” (18).

Characterization of Christopher McCandless

Chapter and page #	Description/quote from novel	What impression you get about Chris with this character trait or description?
Chapter 1
Page 4	“Five feet seven or eight with a wiry build, he claimed to be 24 years old and said he was from South Dakota.  He explained that he wanted a ride as far as the edge of Denali National Park, where he intended to walk deep into the bush and ‘live off the land for a few month.’”	Chris is not physically fit for walking into such a dangerous environment.  He seems a little crazy.
Page 6	“I tried to scare him with bear stories.  I told him that a twenty-two probably wouldn’t do anything to a grizzly except make him mad.  Alex didn’t seem too worried. ‘I’ll climb a tree’ is all he said.”	Chris doesn’t seem to be scared so easily.  He seems very determined.
Chapter 2
Page 13	“The body was taken to Anchorage, where an autopsy was performed at the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory.  The remains were so badly decomposed that it was impossible to determine exactly when McCandless had died, but the coroner could find no sign of massive internal injuries or broken bones.”	Chris had been in the bus for a long time while injured.  Therefore he died as a result because he was not being taken care of.
Page 12/13	“I stood on a stump, reached through a back window, and gave it a shake.  There was definitely something in it, but whatever it was didn’t weigh much.  It wasn’t until I walked around to the other side and saw a head sticking out that I knew exactly what it was.”	He was smart enough to try and warm himself up inside the sleeping bag throughout the winter time in Alaska.
Chapter 3
Page 18	“It was a different story with Alex.  He was the hardest worker I’ve ever seen.  Didn’t matter what it was, he’d do it: hard physical labor, mucking rotten grain and dead rats out of the bottom of the hole.  And he never quit in the middle of something.  If he started a job he finished it” said Westerberg.	Ever though Westerberg only knew Chris as Alex he still saw that he had pride in whatever job he did.  He stuck to it even the real gross and dirty ones.
Page 18	“You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent.  He read a lot.  Used a lot of big words.  I think maybe part of what got him in trouble was that he did too much thinking.  Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were so bad to each other so often.	This says a lot about how smart Alex really is.  He seems like he would analyze every single situation that he encountered, by the way that Westerberg described him.
Chapter 4
Page 32	“Although, in retrospect, I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me.  Chris was very much of the school that you should own nothing except what you can carry on your back at a dead run.” Walt said this.	Walt always kind of knew to himself that Chris would abandon all of his material possessions that he didn’t need.
Page 37	“…… to get an ID and a job but feels extremely uncomfortable in society now and must return to road immediately.”	Chris says that he feels uncomfortable in society now and longs for the road.  He must be depending on himself and no other people.
Chapter 5
Page 40	“One thing I do remember is that he had a thing about socks.  He always wore shoes without socks – just plain couldn’t stand to wear socks.  But McDonald’s has a rule that employees have to wear appropriate footwear at all times.  That means shoes and socks.  Chris would comply with the rule, but as soon as his shift was over, bang! – the first thing he’d do is peel those socks off.	According to this passage Chris has one weird little quirk about wearing socks.  To keep his job he just dealt with wearing socks.
Page 40	“He was reliable, though, a body showed up every day, so they didn’t fire him.  They only paid twenty-four an hour, and with all he casinos right across the river starting people at six twenty-five, well, it was hard to keep bodies behind the counter.”	However, it sounds like even if no one really cared for him it didn’t matter because they needed him.
Chapter 6
Page 51	“I thought he was too nice a kid to be living by that hot springs with those nudists and drunks and dope smokers.”	It seems like Franz really cared for what was best for Chris.
Page	“Sometimes we’d drive for hours without saying a word.  Even when he was sleeping, I was happy just knowing he was there.	Franz really develops a father-like figure towards Chris.  This shows that he is a real giving and open-hearted person.
Chapter 7
Page 63	“He was kind of shy at first.  He acted like it was hard for him to be around people.  I figured that it was because he’d spent so much time by himself.”	Westerberg’s mother really had to warm up to Alex to bring out his real personality.
Page 65	“Although a couple of times he mentioned wanting to get married and have a family someday.  You could tell he didn’t take relationships lightly.”	This quote really shows what Chris’ type of character is.  Also how he views and respects women.
Chapter 10
Page 101/102	“His hair was long, and he had a beard.  Chris almost always had short hair and was clean-shave.  And the face in the picture was extremely gaunt.  But I knew right away.  There was no doubt.  It was Chris.”	Sam, Chris’ brother, describes Chris’s typical physical features.
Page
Chapter 11
Page 109	“Chris was fearless even when he was little.  He didn’t think the odds applied to him. We were always trying to pull him back from the edge.”	Walt tells u that the fearless aspect of Chris stuck with him practically his whole life.
Page 110	“He quit partly because he didn’t like being told what to do but also because of me.  I wanted to be like Chris, so I started to play French horn, too.  And it turned out to be the one thing that I was better at than he was.  When I was a freshman and he was a senior, I made first chair in the senior band, and there was no way he was going to sit behind his sister.”	This family has many gifted people who are extraordinary at multiple things.  Chris is usually better at most things than his sister Carine.  However she started to play the French horn just like Chris and beat him at it.
Chapter 12
Page 122	“If something bothered him, he wouldn’t come right out and say it.  He’d keep it to himself, harboring his resentment, letting the bad feelings build and build.”	Chris kept practically everything to himself.  Apparently he also kept his own emotions to himself as well.
Page 125	“And he knew that if he’d written or called me, Mom and Dad would find out where he was, fly out there, and try to bring him home.”	Sadly Chris knew all of this and sadly this is what kept him continuing a great relationship with his sister Carine.
Chapter 13
Page 128	“That summer he disappeared he’d wanted to take Buck with him.  After he graduated from Emory, he asked Mom and Dad if he could come get Buck, but they said no, because Buckley had just been hit by a car and was still recovering…… Chris didn’t think twice about risking his own life, but he never would have put Buckley in any kind of danger.”	This is important because Buckley, the dog, could have kept Chris from dying.  Just like Carine said in the quote Chris cared about other people and animals so he could still be alive maybe even today.
Page 131	“His name was printed wrong.  The label said CHRISTOPHER R. MCCANDLES.  His middle initial is really J.  It ticked me off that they didn’t get it right.  I was mad.  Then I thought, ‘Chris wouldn’t care.  He’d think it was funny.’ ”	This is important because it shows how little Chris actually cares about the little things like the coroner’s office getting his middle initial wrong.
Chapter 16
Page 159	“Alex was clean-shaven and had short hair, and I could tell by the language he used that he was a real sharp fella.  He wasn’t what you’d call a typical hitchhiker.”	This shows that sometime he kept a good apearence.
Page 159	“He said it was something that he wanted to do since he was little.”	This shows that he has had a passion to do his Alaskan journey for a long time.
Chapter 17
Page 182	“He had a need to test himself in ways, as he was fond of saying ‘that mattered’.”	This really shows how well disciplined he was towards himself.
Page 183	“These entries are almost entirely about what Chris ate.  He wrote about hardly anything except food.”	It seemed that he was proud to be able to live off of the land for a long time.
Chapter 18
Page 189	“EXTREMELY WEAK, FAULT OF POT.SEED.MUCH TROUBLE JUST TO STAND UP.STARVING.GREAT JEOPARDY.”	This is the condition that Chris was in two days after he finished up a book named Doctor Zhivago.
Page 195	“The problem is that if you’re lean and hungry to begin with, you’re obviously not going to have any glucose and protein to spare; so there’s no ways to flush the toxin from you’re system ….. If McCandless ate a big slug of those seeds while he was already in a semi-starving condition, it would have been a setup for catastrophe.”	A professor had said this about the possible happenings of Chris McCandless death which is starting to seem quite odd towards Krakauer.