Friday, October 8, 2010

The Burning Plain and Other Stories by Juan Rulfo

"I don't know why she ties my hands, but she says it's because they say I do crazy things. One day they found me hanging somebody; I was hanging a lady just to be doing it" ( 4).

In this story from the many that this book contains it is talking about a little boy that is always tied up and locked up because
he does weird things. If he goes out he does things and later on doesn't remember what he did. It also talks about him going out to the street and people start throwing rocks at him. The little boy also likes to bang his head on the floor because he says it sounds like drums and he likes how they sound. He starts banging his head on the floor slowly but keeps on going faster and faster. In this quote the little boy is asking himself why they tie him up but its because he does things and later doesn't remember anything. He was hanging the lady just to hang her but did not know why he was doing it.

Questions: What sickness did the boy have that he did things and later on did not remember them? Why do you think Juan Rulfo decided to put different stories together or what was the purpose? Why do you think the story called They gave us the land was short and did not continue? What is Juan Rulfo's writing style? Why do most of the stories don't really have an ending?

How this photo relates to the book will be with the story called Macario i really liked reading this story because it was kind of weird. I had never read a story like this on this little boy gets tied up because if he doesn't get tied up he does things. Later he can't remember what he did because he has some kind of sickness. As it says this in the book, "
I don't know why she ties my hands, but she says it's because they say I do crazy things" (4). The little boy asks why he gets tied up and his godmother tells him but he doesn't really understand that what he does is bad. I feel bad for the little kid because it sounds like he is little and is not able to understand things clearly as an adult does.

Well a connection that I can make with the book to me would be that I have a neighbor that has mental problems. He is already 21 but acts like a kid of 5 years. Sometimes he does things but doesn't know they are bad. Last time he threw his moms medicine away but since he isn't able to know whats wrong and whats bad he just does what comes to his mind. Sometimes he throws gallons of milk into the sink and when his moms finds out and tells him that's not good he starts cry and doesn't stop but sometimes he is able to understand when he did something wrong.

In the news sometimes I hear that kids get their hands tied up so they won't do stuff. But eventually their mom or dad get taken to jail because the police doesn't think that is a good way to teach kids how to behave. Sometimes the kids do have mental problem but its still not a way to treat a kid like that because they don't really know what they are doing.

In another story there was a man that some people cut his toe off and he did not like that so he later was looking for revenge. He did get revenge but ended up killing more than one person because it was dark and he did not know which one he was suppose to kill. Various time in the news I have heard story about revenge. People want to get revenge for things people have done to them which is not good because they become serial killers or other stuff. This are some connections I could make from the book to my life.

I would recommend this book to people because after all it is interesting. It also contains some stories are scary to think about but when you think about it, it's scary to think that there are people out there in the world that are like that. I'm referring to the story about the man looking for revenge and ended up killing more than one person. what i did not like about this book would be that the stories don't really have an ending but at the same time they leave you with the doubt of what happened next or what would be the ending of this story. I would like to know the connections between this stories.