Dialectic Journals

Pictures: I chose the picture of the cowardly lion from wizard of oz because it relates to the quote I chose to write about from chapter 6, where the character is talking about his cowardly heart. The lion from wizard of oz despises himself for being a coward just like the character from the book. The second picture is a picture of the Persians sacking the Greek towns which is mentioned in the quote I chose from Chapter 7.

Chapter 4: "Things are fallen which had stood upright. Things are free which should be bound, and bound which should be free. Things which had been hoarded in secret now blow and tumble open, and those who had hoarded them watch with dull eyes and let them go" Page 41
I believe the author is trying to make the point and illustrate the idea that everything is going crazy, and there world has been turned upside down. He is trying to show the reader that there is no more order, and everything is unorganized. In the part of the passage where he says "those who had hoarded them watch with dull eyes and let them go" is written to show that things that people have worked hard toward getting, hidden away so no one can steal, are now worthless because there is no use in keeping them, and so much has been lost that there is no worth in anything now. This paragraph can be related to by anyone who has ever experienced something that has changed their life, and left everything they know destroyed and turned their world upside down.

Chapter 5: "Fear arises from this: the flesh. This, he declared, "is the factory of fear."
After re-reading this sentence and the surrounding passages several times, I found that I agree with the author in some ways. Though I think there are other sources of fear, I agree with the author because most fear people have (especially warriors/soldiers) is associated with fear of being physically harmed. If we had no feeling of when something touched us people would not be afraid of getting shot, tortured etc. Common fears people have are fear of the dark, war, death... I believe most people are afraid of the dark because the media has put out that "monsters" reside in the dark. Monsters are usually associated with painful deaths a.k.a. harm and suffering inflicted on the flesh. I believe you can trace most fears back to the though of being harmed or a loved one/friends, flesh/body being hurt in some way. Though I agree with the author, I also think this sentence is much more relevant to ancient times because now there are more ways to inflict mental harm upon someone.

Chapter 6 : "I had seen my own heart and it was the heart of a coward. I despised myself with a blistering pitiless scorn"
After reading these sentences I immediately felt a connection to them. I think Xeo at this time feels ashamed, along with anger and disbelief at his own actions. I have felt this many times before. AT times I have done something without thining due to the fact another emotion has taken over me. The same thing happened to Xeo, where he had been hailed to a well, and pain over ruled his judgement and acted without thinking. After this my actions usually catch up to me and I'm ashamed, embarrassed and frustrated with myself, and the effect my actions have had on others. Xeo experiences this too when the torture is over he realizes what a coward he had been and the impression he had made on others; which results in the horrible anger he feels towards himself. He doesn't believe he deserves to live.

Chapter 7:
"Terror of sack spread throughout all Greece... so all pervasive was this dread that it had even been given a name. Phobos. The Fear."
I think this quote is interesting because it illustrates the effect that fear can have on people and how the fear of an event (or something else) can have on people even if the event hasn't even happened. It is interesting to me that such a large group of people can shared a common fear, one that is serious enough that it effects all of them. This fear is talked about so often in their daily lives they have to give it a name "Phobos" so this type of fear is distinct from any other feeling, and can be recognized by anyone. I think that by giving this fear a name (Phobos) its almost distinguishes this feeling as an event because it was so wide spread and shared with so many people at a particular time. The time before battle of attack. For example if you lived back then, and were alive years after the battle was over, but you had a grand parent who paricipated you coulod ask them "Do you remember the Time of Phobos?" and it would bring up an even (the time before the war) becasue the fear was so specific to that time.