To Whom it may Concern

To Whom it May Concern

Authors Note: this is a creative piece that is a letter sent between two sides in a war. The story is inspired by the word: barrage.

Dear Sender of Artillery,

I must send my congratulations to you on the previous artillery strike on our troops. The barrage of fire near cut our numbers in half. And, how you planned the use of explosive, gas, incendiary then, explosive shells again was surely the key, making this strike much more effective than the many before it in this seemingly never-ending war. It was rather impressive how, the explosive shells met their mark with our vehicles and equipment, how the gas shells dropped our men like flies, and how the incendiary shells sent a fire storm that burned the buildings down as if they were matchboxes. You won’t feel left out of the fun for long, my enemy!

Sincerely,

Receiver of Artillery

Themes of "The Lottery"

Themes of The Lottery

By Austin Witthun

Authors Note: This is a short response to “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson about themes that occur in the story.

While there are many themes in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, two stick out the most. Those two are humanity and government control. First I will discuss about how and why the theme humanity is in “The Lottery”. My first reason is that while the village itself seems very normal and humane, the lottery is the opposite. In the lottery the winners do not receive a prize but instead are stoned to death in public, by the public. Even friends of those who have won must throw stones at the winners. If the village were humane, they would stop this even though it is a strong tradition among their people. The people in the village say that other villages have thought about or have stopped doing the lottery which is most likely due to this reason.

The other of the two major themes is government control. One of the reasons that this theme appears in “The Lottery” is because the people of this village are forced to partake in the lottery. It is almost as if the government is forcing this tradition on these people because it is obvious that no one wants to kill their friends or family and, no one wants to be killed either. The chance of getting killed without a doubt strikes fear into everyone that enters the lottery. Unfortunately, these things do happened in “The Lottery”. Although there are many themes that could be in “The Lottery” these two, humanity and government control, are the ones that have the most influence on the story.

If Only They Would Wash Me...

If Only They Would Wash Me…

Authors note: this is a short story that is one paragraph in length about the life of a mirror that says wash me.

Oh, how I long to be washed. I must have been here 14-no… perhaps 15 years and haven’t been washed yet. Me, on the third story of this apartment in this city. When I first started to see myself becoming dirty, (which I will remind you was not only from years of neglect but, also from the pollution of those cars and factories to which I live so close by) I quietly and ever so politely asked the family whose walls we share to please clean my surface. I never got even a glance or a response. As years went by my respectful asking became not unlike begging. The begging didn’t last long for, it became yelling and shouting over time. I simply thought that if the family could not sleep or function, they would wash me to silence my uproar, but I was wrong. Their wills seemed to be stronger than I suspected though, I did notice that they would look around in horror when I howled as if they didn’t know where I was. One day after I had made a whole lot of commotion the previous night, the sleep-deprived family seemed to be fighting, although I felt bad because this was not my intention, I felt that I was so close to my goal. After all it had only taken 9 years. About a week or so later, these strange people came into my apartment and took everything away. I never saw them again which is too bad. Aside from the fact that I was mistreated, they weren’t all that bad really. So, I’ve been here for six more years since then but, the odd thing is; nobody has moved into my apartment after they left. So now it seems that I have been left here to rot and, and still I have not been cleaned.

Government Control

Government Control

By: Austin Witthun

This is a 5-paragraph essay about how the theme” government control” is in several novels and, how it affects these novels.

There is a theme that, unlike others, is a sinister theme. One that when in a story, makes the setting a terrible place and the people do dreadful things to survive. It doesn’t really teach a lesson but instead makes the reader realize, that the little bit of control their government has on them and their lives, isn’t so bad. This theme is “Government Control” and it is in the novels: The Giver, the Tunnels series, and April Morning.

The first story that this theme is in is The Giver by Lois Lowry. In the community that the main character Jonas lives in, the government controls everything from what the peoples jobs are to how they act (that is done by these pills that everyone in the community and they are taken to “control the stirrings” as Jonas’ parents said). The only people that realize that the government is doing this are Jonas and he Giver. They even try to have these things in all of the people called Sameness. Most people look alike, the weather is always the same, they can’t see colors and, they do the same things forever. Those are just a few different examples of what the sameness does to these people who have no idea that any of this is happening.

Another story that this theme is in is April Morning by Howard Fast. In April Morning, the rebels are fighting against the invading British army because the Brits are trying to make sure that the colonists don’t break off from England and make a new country so that the British country would be twice as powerful. That is exactly what the colonists are trying to do. The government of England is trying to get the colonists back under control by use of deadly force. Obviously the control that government had wasn’t that powerful because; the United States is an independent country today.

My last example of a story that has this theme in it is the Tunnels series by Roderick Gordon. In the first book Tunnels, the main characters Will and Chester go looking for Will’s dad underground and they find an underground city. This city is just like a normal city except for two things. It is underground and, the evil people who control it. These people are called The Styx. They do not only control the government, but their religious views control the public. Later in the series, Will and Chester learn that the Styx are making a virus that when released, would destroy the entire population of humans that dwell on the surface. The Styx would do this because they believe that they are destined to take back the surface from “The Topsoilers” (slang for someone that lives on the surface.) This just shows that The Styx are more corrupt than they seem at first.

The reason that this theme is important is that it affects the characters and setting of the story. The effects on the characters are that the main character(s) have to be weary of what they do and who they trust. In all three of these stories, the main characters are trying to evade the control of the government because in these extreme situations, the control is a bad thing when it is normally there to be a good thing. It almost always puts the main character in trouble or danger. Government control also affects the setting of the story. In April Morning, it is affected because the setting is a bloody, burning war zone and it because of the government that the war is going on. In Tunnels, the setting is affected by the government control because the main characters go to jails, laboratories and, and a city. Yes, that would be considered normal except that in this story, all of those places are underground. With these three examples found in those three books, the affect on the setting and, the affect on the characters, this is how the theme: Government Control is in many novels and affects each one with near similar results.

The Very Real Technology of Cloning

The Very Real Technology of Cloning

By: Austin Witthun

Author’s Note: This is a 5-paragraph essay about the process of cloning and facts about clones.

Have you ever wondered about cloning? Or what it would be like to have a clone of yourself that could do all of the work that you don’t want to do? Well cloning may seem like science-fiction, but with today’s technology, it is very real. The definition of a clone is: “Cloning is the creation of an organism that is an exact genetic copy of another” (What is Cloning ). This basically says that a clone is the product of cloning which is a copy of a living thing which could be a variety of things from a stem cell to an animal.

Because in our science unit we have been studying cells, I will talk about the cloning of cells first. When you clone cells, the process of cloning is called SCNT which stands for somatic cell nuclear transfer is also called therapeutic cloning. To do this you would take any kind of cell except for the two reproductive cells (somatic cell), and remove the nucleus from that somatic cell, transfer it to an egg cell which it then is like a fertilized egg and, it is then transferred to a surrogate mother. This is how they cloned Dolly the sheep.

Many people argue about the advantages and disadvantages of cloning. First I will talk about the pros. There are an incredible amount of uses for cloning! One of them is that if tissues are damaged, a clone of that tissue could be able to replace it. If a stem cell is diseased a clone of that cell could replace it too. We could clone cells and study them to see how diseases affect that cell.

On the other hand there is a bad side to cloning. One of the cons is that after a cell is multiplied about 60 times, it begins to mutate and cause cancer. Also, when animals have been cloned in the past, they have been born with deformities and problems. They have been born prematurely and have an extremely short lifespan. Some organs including the heart, brain and, liver have had problems or are not the right size (Cloning ). The limbs of the animals have been either deformed or the animals cannot control them right.

Like I said in the previous paragraphs, there are many up sides and down sides to cloning. It is a very controversial topic. However it seems that the controversy is over the cloning of humans and animals. Some religious groups say that it violates personal freedom. One of the main points of others who say that it is a waste of time say this because the beginning process is very inefficient because not all experiments survive and then like I said before they have a short lifespan.

To sum this all up I will include my opinion. I believe that cloning (as far as current technologies go) is something that we maybe should try to improve but not perform on humans. This is mainly because of how not many experiments survive but also because of the probability that it will have major defects in its body. Also because cows, mice and, sheep have been cloned, we have no idea about how cloning could affect the mental state of a person which is more important than that in a mouse or something. But as far as cloning cells for research and transplants and things like that, I see no harm but I suppose that if the same cell was not cloned anywhere close to what I am now calling the envelope (60 cycles) and they don’t mutate then I think that that is an excellent idea. These are facts about cloning that I hope have given you a better understanding about cloning

Bibliography

"Cloning ." 1 july 2011. genome.gov . 18 april 2012 .

"What is Cloning ." 2012. learn.genetics . 18 april 2012 .

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