"I was overcome with sadness as I bid good-bye to my bat. Yet earlier I had set fire to a mountain of arms and legs and felt nothing. I had thrown the boy from Elgin into a trench with all the others. And I felt nothing." (p.46)
Why do you think Jacqueline Kelly chose to have Calpurnia's grandfather share this story, especially this ending about the bat? What does this reveal to you about him and his experiences in the war?
I think that Jacqueline Kelly chose Calpurnia's grandfather to share the story because he had a good connection with his bat pet. This reveals that he had a good connection with his bat.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Colden's comment but I personally think that the author chose to have Calpurnia's grandfather share this story because when he kept on saying that the felt nothing when he tossed the dead body parts in to a mountain of fire I think that was because that the people that he knew were now gone. They were now dead and they left him. But the bat,(the bat that he refers to be his), kept on coming back and didn't leave him. And like Colden said, that to me revealed that he had a good conection with the bat.
ReplyDeleteI think Jacqueline Kelly chose to make Calpurnia's grandfather share this story to show that he has a very strong connection with animals and was destine to be a naturalist. This can be seen with the fact that he was able to catch the bat and keep it in his tent.
ReplyDeleteTyler, I totally agree with you except for the part you said that he had a very strong connection with animals.You are basically saying all animals. Does that mean that the connection that he had with the bat doesn't really mean anything because he has that connection with all animals? Please respond back to me, thank you.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting perspectives. Good thinking. Still, I wonder what it means that Granddaddy thought saying good-bye to the bat was more difficult than the way he had to dispose of human bodies.
ReplyDeleteI think that he thought that saying goodbye to the bat was more difficult to do than throw the bodies in the pit because like I said, he ad a very strong connection with the bat and he didn't really know the soldiers very much individually and he knew that the bat didn't have the natural instinct to come back to him, so he couldn't call for the bat to come back.
DeleteI think Jacqueline Kelly chose grandfather to share the story because he was the only person who really had known about the bat and I think he told this to Calpurnia because he knew that she would understand him and would be interested in the story. I think it tells you that he had to do a lot of hard things in the war, but disposing of the bodies wasn't that hard because he knew that all of the people were dead, so he knew he wouldn't be hurting anyone by burning the body parts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tyler in the fact that the bat he knew and lived with and in contrast with the boy from Elgin in which he didn't even know his name he just called him the boy from Elgin.
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