Close reading on Graff

     I am writing my blog post to discuss Ender's game.  I am writing about one of the "unseen" characters in the book, Graff.  Many people see Graff as a person who takes tons of orders.  Some people don't even know who Graff is.  You learn a lot about Graff from the bold writing in the book at the beginning of each chapter.  You see inside his head and what he feels about Ender.  I understood him as a complex character and a multi sided character.  I know people that skipped the bold part and they really missed out.  Graff has one persona at the beginning of the book and a completely different persona at the end.

     At the beginning of the book Graff takes orders from his commanders and thinks nothing of them. Graff is doing what his commander thinks is best for the army.  It seems like he doesn't even have a mind of his own he just does what his master tells him, like a slave.  As we near the end of the book he  start to understand what is happening and how they are treating Ender unfairly.  He thinks on his own and doesn't take orders any more, sort of like a slave rebellion.  Graff has changed from a person that  commands to a man who decides stuff for himself.

     You learn about Graff in a side story, and it was pretty interesting, almost as interesting as the real story.  There is a tiny conflict that is not about ender at all.  you also see that Orson Scott Card put in a reference to slavery.  By studying characters you don't know much about you may learn some surprising things.  You may get obscure references that the author put in the book to reward people that closely read books.  The next time you read a book try to think about characters you wouldn't normally notice.

Fox

The book that I am doing my blog post on is "fox". It is a story about a bird and a dog that are friends. The bird says " I will be your missing eye, and you will be my burnt wing". They are perfect for each other.  Then one day a fox comes around and persuades the bird that the dog running is nothing like flying. The bird leaves the dog and goes with the fox because the fox says he is faster then dog.  But fox betrays the bird and leaves her in the forest.

This book was about greed. The bird is happy with dog until fox comes around and messes things up. The bird is perfectly happy with dog but when she hears someone is faster then dog she gives dog up. The bird wants to be with the fastest creature, not the one that is not a good friend. The bird is a very greedy character.

This book connects to the world in a lot of ways. A lot of people are greedy. One person that was greedy was Bernie Madoff.  He stole money from investors that believed in what he was doing. He was sort of like the bird. He didn't stop at good enough, he kept on going and going and going for a long time and that made him a greedy person. "Fox" was a book that was about greed. The book had a lot of connections to real life.