2.9 wide reading

Title: prisoner of birth

Author: Jeffery Archer

text type: Novel

“I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.”. law is a tedious balancing to determain black from white and innocent from guilty however after reading the novel “A Prisoner of Birth” by Jeffrey Archer I felt outraged that an innocent man could be tried in court for a murder he did not commit and found guilty and have to live with these consequences as i previosly belived that courts were designed to allow both prespectives to be heard, the truth to be determained and the correct decion made . however during the sentancing danny cartwright’s lawer tried on multiple occasions to try to shift the case in the direction of the true murderer however was constantly shut down and unable to point the fingure in the correct direction. this resulted in danny being sentanced to 22 years in prison. This huge injustice and failure of the legal system that results in a completely incorrect sentence give’s me a feeling of distrust in the processes involved in making a ruling in court. It made me consider how many innocent men and women were forced to serve an unjust sentence. The book also covered why, for  danny cartwright, pleading guilty for a lesser crime was not an option. “I could spend the next twenty years of my life living a lie, and if it takes me that long to prove that I’m innocent, that has to be better than the world believing that I killed my best mate.”. this quote shows that danny can not and will not let himself accept the possibility of a lesser scentance with the knowlage that it will publiclly declear him of killing his friend. he is prepared to even potentially go to prison for 20 years as long as he can still have the chance to prove himself innocent. this shows me as a reader dannys percistance to achive his freedom he is willing to recive a scentance of over 20 years instead of only 4 for a chance of being able to clear his name. this is extremly impressive for danny to have the forsight to think 20 years in the futre and decide that even if he has to spend that long to clear his name it is better than being known as a murder.  By pleading guilty to any crime the person is forced to be labelled as a criminal by society potentially ruining any opportunity for a job a family or many other desirable goals, even if they are innocent. It disgusted me that it was portrayed as a common practice that the lawers in charge of cases were encouraged to do so. This leads me to consider how many other people have been wrongly accused of a crime and taken a more minor scentance as a easy way out only to find  out that being labeled as a murder has much wider affects than simply the titel. this practice results in many incorrectly charged people to a difficult and unjust future. Ultimately this practice would not be necessary if the legal system was able to prevent innocent people from being charged. The practic of encouring the accused to plead down there sentance suggests to me that many of the lawers that take charge of the cases and suggest such a result do not truley care about the accused’s lifes in the long run. if they truly did it would be sugnificantly more likly that the actions taken would be more detailed and long term as this could allow for a more through approch leading to more scentances incorctly being applied.

Title: The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

Author: John Boyne

Text type: Novel

In the book “the boy in striped pyjamas” the main character Bruno is forced to move away from his home and live with his family in a place called Out-With. He is sad to leave his home and friends and constantly complains to the family that he wants somebody to play with. Early in the book when he is sitting in his room he looks out the window and sees a large fence. Beyond the fence, he sees many people and even some kids his age. All in striped pyjamas. As far as Bruno is concerned it is unfair that he is not allowed to play with the other kids. He does not know that his father is in charge of the concentration camp called Auschwitz. he does not comprehend the reasons he is split from the jews. This shows meas a reader that we all naturally work towards justice when we are young and the ability to be unjust like the many soldiers and his dad due to their actions is something they were taught. For them, they are doing justice as they perceive that after the first world war they were treated unfairly. They have been taught that this is a way for them to restore their country to its rightful place as the best country in the world. For them, this is justice and they are willing to do anything to achieve this. Bruno later walks along the fence and meets a boy his age on the other side of the fence. He does not know he is a jew and so he treats him like any other person and becomes his friend. He later asks his sister about the people on the other side of the fence. He learns that he should hate the jews because he was the opposite of them. However he still chooses to be a friend with the boy because he does not agree that they are that different. This demonstrates justice if only very small as he chooses to treat his friend fairly and creating equality between them. From this text, I realised that for different people in different situations they can perceive justice in entirely different ways. For Bruno’s father, his way of achieving justice was by restoring his country of Germany to its former glory. To do this he believed that he needed to run the camp Auschwitz as this is what he believed to lead to justice. he believes that justice can only be achieved by killing the jews as he explains to Bruno when he asks who they are he responds “Those people… well, they’re not people at all, Bruno”. this shows that Bruno’s father truly believes that he is a superior race to the jews for him this is justification to kill people such as the jews. However, Bruno does not see it like that. as bruno said to the boy “Well you’ve been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we’re all in the same boat. And it’s leaking.”. he may be ignorint as to the greater situiation he still decides that the boy is his freinds despite his diffrences.He believes that he is just like his friend and even sneaks inside the camp to help his friend rescue his father. He treats him fairly and as his equal as he sees this as justice.  this also shows me that every person in the world is a product of there upbringing and the values that they have are directly connected to there experences and influenceres around them. this means that to truely understand someone requires an understanding of there values they developed when they were a child. at the end of the text the narrator says this “Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age.”. this single quote that finishes of the book forces the readers to consider the posibility that somthing like this is happining in the wourld. like the dufurius in sudan the author challanges me as a reader to realise that we have not moved on and modernised as much as we would like to belive we have. many people would like to claim that such a herendous thing could never happen again but ignore the thousands of people killed wourld wide due to there ethnicity. john boyne picked this line as it challanges all reader to think about the real wourld and how the sad sstory he has told may really be being lived out elewere in the wourld.

Title: Shawshank Redemption

Director: Niki Marvin

Text type: Film

After watching the film “Shawshank Redemption”, I felt amazed at Andy’s ability to remain sane and functional despite the impossible odds of release. For most men being sentenced to serve 2 life sentences could easily make a man lose his mind, especially due to the brutality of his prison and knowing that he was unjustly assigned to it. the desire to be in the out side wourld can be so overpowering that it can lead a man to do stupid thing’s and as red  tells andy “Hope is a dangerous thing. It drive’s a man insane.”.For most people in any situation similar would bring forwards insanity and thoughts of ending it permanently. and as andy said “Get busy living or get busy dying.”however and was never one to give up and chose to focus on improvements such as the library shows that his persistence is in a class of his own. Due to Andy’s constant persistence for improvements when he decided he no longer could find any reason to stay he hatched a plan and it was revealed that for over a decade he had been slowly building an extremely long tunnel and made an escape with the necessary clothes, books and paperwork to resume a life as a fake person and withdraw thousands of dollars of funds he had been laundering for the warden. This allowed Andy to return to life just like his pre-prison life. this however did cause me to consider how the character of andy had changed from his prison experence as no doubt the experence is likly to have considiribly changed andy’s prespective of the wourld. as part of this thought i wonder what parts of the wourld he will aprociate more carfully. my gese is that he is likly to approch things more carfully as he has learnt the hard way that small choices can have huge unforseen repecutions such as througing gun in the river being one less peice of evedince for him. however i also did consider how many people dont get that opertunity to use what they have learnt in the outside wourld after getting a similar punishment unjustly. i wonder how there veiws would compare to andys experences. He also managed to smuggle out some paperwork showing the corruption that was caused by the warden resulting in an arrest warrant to be placed on him. This is true justice as the wrongs that have been committed against Andy have been repaid and the unjust prison authorities were revealed and treated accordingly. This film helped me realise how certain people can react in entirely unfair and cruel situations with intelligence to rationalise the situation and the ability to react to improve the outcomes. I realise that these people are the famous few that also help bring minority groups that are being treated unjustly into a better, more just and fair world. An example of such a person is Martin Luther King whose vision and action brought black and white men to equality.

Title: Gone Girl

Director: David Fincher

Text Type: Film

After watching the film Gone Girl I was left bewildered as to the motivations that drove the main characters to the actions they did. The main characters Nick and Amy Dunne were a married couple and their marriage was deteriorating after Nick was discovered to be having an affair with another woman. For Amy, this was a justification for her to leave Nick. However, she believed that Nicks actions were so unjust that she decided to frame her husband for her murder, in order to get him sent to prison and likely receive the death penalty. She believed that this was a justifiable response to his actions. she ensured the crime scene was meticulously set up so that all evidence pointed towards him as well as a book showing thoughts of her fear. she did this to align the public opinion to be that nick was a murder. it worked. at one stage nick went into an interview and the host said this “Nick Dunne. You’re probably the most hated man in America right now.”. this quote shows how her indirect manipulative behaviour is able to be used to devastating effect as nick an innocent man is able to be considered America’s most hated man . these actions show that her morals about what she considers to be justifiable are wildly misaligned with most peoples morals. this made me consider the absolute confusion that nick must be having as when he started his day before Amy was kidnapped he could have never expected to be in such a publicly exposed and critical environment. this helps me understand parts of nicks bizarre behaviour at multiple points in the film because he is simply shocked as to the speed that his life is changing. Nick was fully set up by his wife and when she came back and expected Nick to completely forget that he had tried to kill her. when it became clear that he was seriously considering leaving she got her self pregnant. This forced Nick into a difficult place were if he left he would have to fight for custody and would likely lose. This forces him to stay with Amy as he knows it is the only way to look after the baby. as he says to his sister margo “it’s going to be my child and I’m not going to leave it” and “I have a responsibility now, it’s not about what I want anymore”. these quotes show that nick is not going to dessert the child and is going to stay despite not liking Amy for the child’s sake. doing exactly as Amy predicted this again shows Amy manipulative nature over nick. This is an underhand way for Amy to keep the relationship together and is a manipulative approach to a relationship. this text caused me to think about how different the family around me is to Nick and Amy. in my family we are supportive of each other, we try to be helpful to the other members and we communicate any potential issues before they become an issue. in the film gone girl, we saw none of this family support and instead they took almost intentional steps to be harmful to each other. they also lacked any real communication about the problems and issues they were both facing. it struck me while watching the film that almost all the issues could have been avoided with proper communication between the 2 of them. this leads me to consider how many people cause unnecessary issues due to poor communications as to what they are thinking and feeling like Nick and Amy Dunne. I believe that many of the issues of the world are often over complicated and misinterpreted leading to poorly suited responses to the issues at hand. so proper communication between those in positions of power could solve many critical issues in the world simply by having a better understanding of other views through the use of more effective communication.

Title: Emmit Till

Author: Jessica McBirney

Text Type: Online article

Jessica McBirney article about Emmit Till revealed to me the horrific nature that black people were forced to deal with. Emmit Till was brutally murdered by a few white men simply for talking to a white female. Carolyn Bryant the women he talked to later said in an interview “nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” however he was still brutally murdered. this shows me the drastic differences in races approaches to issues as whatever happened in 1955 would never result in the same outcome in the modern world mainly due to all people being more accepting racially. however he was still brutally murdered, this shows the inequality between the two racial groups as the only true difference between white and black people is in the shade of their skin. The colour of a person’s skin does not decide who they are, so it’s completely unjustifiable to classify a group of people as inferior based only on their skin. So because there is no real difference between black and white people, using their skin colour as justification for murder is completely unjustifiable as the morals they are basing their actions upon are straight-up wrong. White people developed these morals from those close to them when they were young like parents, siblings and friends. So they developed their flawed morals with the influence of others and therefore are prone to unjust actions. This teaches me that the influences of the people around people are incredibly important to the development of ethical morals and therefore the ability to act with justice. This helps me realise that people in the world that act unethically and unjustifiably may do so partly due to the influencers such as family and friends in their life. at the end of the text, the author says this “Even more disturbingly, there have been thousands of other African Americans who were also lynched, and many of their names have been erased from history. Because of the circumstances surrounding his death and Mamie Till’s refusal to let his death be in vain, his story has become one of the most well-known.” this quote shows how Mamie till fought to ensure her son’s death was not in vain and that action could begin. this quote encourages me to consider the many other people that ended up dying and there love ones chose not to take action like Mamie did. this leads me to consider what biases there are in the world today that are not revealed to the wider population as those affected don’t take action like Mamie did and speak out and challenge the wider population to consider the full biases and there affects.

Title: Red Cloud’s speech after the Wounded Knee Massacre

Author: Chief Red Cloud

Text Type: Written speech

Red Cloud’s speech after the Wounded knee massacre made me relieved that the injustices that were forced upon the Indians were finally resolved. Red Cloud was an American Indian chief who was forced to endure injustices caused by the government. as red cloud talks about the new government he says this “An Indian Department was made with a large number of agents and other officials drawing large salaries — then came the beginning of trouble; these men took care of themselves but not of us.” this quote shows that at the very start those that were intended to look after and speak there perspectives were only there for the money. this causes me to consider whether this part of the government was corrupt in its creation as the priorities of the department such as protecting the Indians never aligned with the officials in charge. this leads me to consider how different America would be today if the Indians had gotten proper support and representation through the government. The Indians were accused of being lazy and bad workers despite being given small amounts of time to find a job and little guidance as to how to do their job. Their rations were reduced. Their ponies were taken away with from them with promises of strong horses and ox. Deals that were never fully honoured. When the census came around they were accused of wasting food when the reality was that there was no food to waste. And again their rations were reduced. Eventually, they began to pray aloud to God and beg for their lives. The white men thought that they wanted their lives. The white men were terrified and sent for soldiers. They told the Indians that they would be killed. Most of them did not worry, however some ran to the hills. when the soldiers arived they said “don’t be afraid — we come to make peace not, war.”. Despite them working for the government they still understood that to do anything harmful to the Indians, as they were told to do, would be unjust and unethical.this shows me that people such as the soldiers are able to act morally and ethically was impressive as they could have easily decided that it was not their responsibility to make the choices and simply blamed those in charge. Instead, they dared to acknowledge that the Indians had done nothing wrong and so deserved to not be punished. this shows me that people able to choose the actions that they take and the repecusions even though they may belive that it is not there place to make a decion. The soldiers decion created equality and non-discrimination towards the Indians and shows that the military acted with justice towards the situation. However, not all people are courageous enough to act with equality and justice. This made me consider how many people are in a situation where they know that what they are doing does not create justice or equality but they still chose to do it. I think it is likely that it is surprisingly uncommon for people to act as the military did whether that is due to social pressure or people lacking the courage to act. This idea highlights the courage the group of soldiers had to act justly when it would have been easy to simply do as they were told.