Literature Circles 4- The White Mountains

In humanities, we had to make two well structured paragraphs about how this quote and the rest of the chapter relate to the theme, freedom.


Here is the quote:


"The bitter thing was all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from a girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" (p. 111)


Well since you may not know what the book is about when I write 2 summary's of it I will tell you a little about it. Anyways, a long time ago there were huge machine like 3 legged creatures called the tripods came to Earth. They came and took control. The people, not doing anything about it allowed the tripods to take control. However there was a boy called Will and he decided to go to the White Mountains to be free. But who knows. Will he be free like he wishes? or will he be capped and used as a slave. That is to be a secret.


Anyway, I think that this quote relates to freedom because, it is talking about how everything is wasted because there is no freedom. It is like when you are grounded your freedom is lost and it is rather boring. It is like for me, if I was grounded from video games then I would feel like i am in a cage. Like I am not free. Because it makes me feel great to do as I wish (after what you need to do is done). But in Will's case, you literally lose your freedom. Being grounded is enough for me, but for Will it is nothing like it, in fact it is much worse. 


Here is another paragraph. When it said that some people wanted to be capped, Will was shocked because he knew that there was no freedom in being capped. But he most likely wondered to himself why did some people look forward to being capped? It seems to me that some people think that being capped means to be learning how to be civilized. Like when the quote at the top said that they would turn into a knight or a girl into a lady. They thought that being capped meant that but it really ment... No Freedom! I think that freedom is when people dont give commands and get angry at you. I think when you are happy and not being taken under control is freedom. Being in the box is not freedom. That is my thought but I also think that this may be what Will thinks what freedom is.