Thursday, March 8, 2007

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Characters:

Harry Potter- Is the main character of this novel. He has brown hair, wears glasses and has a unique scare on his forehead. He attends Hogwarts a school for wizards and witches. Harry Potter usually ends up in danger or on some type of mysterious adventure.

Ron Weasley- He is a tall young boy with red hair. He is also one of Harry's best friends.

Hermione Granger- The top student in her class, she knows many spells. Hermione never really likes the things that Ron and Harry get into but this time she follows the guys on their adventure to find the mystery of chamber secrets.

Tom Riddle(Voldemort)- Tom's past and appearance resembles Harry's. Tom is the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin. He has Ginny Weasley perform his dark tasks.

Hagrid- He is the gamekeeper at Hogwarts and very good friends with Harry. Hagrid is a giant who is very hairy, and loves strange creatures. Hagrid is framed by Tom Riddle as being responsible for the monster in the Chamber of Secrets.

Ginny Weasley- Ron's younger sister who has a huge crush on Harry. Ginny finds Toms' old diary. The magic diary convinces her to opening the Chamber of Secrets.

Draco Malfoy- He comes from a very wealthy family and actually bought himself a position on the Slytherin quidditch team, he has the fastest broomstick but is not very good at playing the game. Malfoy is very sneaky and always tries to get Harry in some kind of trouble.

Lucius Malfoy- Draco Malfoy's father, a mean man who tries to make his son the same way. Lucius Malfoy is head of the school governing board he tries to remove Dumbledore from power.

Albus Dumbledore- The headmaster of Hogwarts. He is a very fair wizard who believes there is good in everyone.

Gilderoy Lockhart- The teacher of the class called "Defense Against the Dark Arts."He is the author of many magical books, and the five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award.

Summary of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

It is summer time and Harry is back home with the Dursleys dreading every second. Dobby a house elf comes and visits Harry telling him not to go back to Hogwats, Harry disregards the warning. The Dursleys become angry at Harry for something he did not even do and ground him to his room for the whole summer. Ron Weasley comes and rescues Harry in a flying car and Harry happily spends the rest of his summer with the Weasley's. While shopping for school supplies with the Weasley's, Harry meets Lockhart and Lucius Malfoy. Harry and Ron have to return back to Hogwarts but they can not find the invisible platform at the train station so they end up flying the Weasley's car back to Hogwarts. The really do not have a graceful landing and they end up getting a detention. After doing some research Harry, Ron and Hermione find out that fifty years ago a chamber at Hogwarts was left open and a student was killed. Once again Harry wins the Quidditch match against Slytherin but during the game Harry gets hit with an enchanted ball and causes him to lose the bones in his arm. Dobby the house elf of Lucius Malfoy was the one who has enchanted the ball so Harry an be sent home. Harry speaks Parseltongue to a snake the students are frightened by it, it was said that only the heir of Slytherin was responsible for opening the chamber and only they could converse with snakes. Ron, Harry, and Hermione brew a potion called Polyjuice. They are able to question and assume the bodies of Slytherin's. They find out that Malfoy is not the heir of Slytherin. Harry comes across a diary, he writes in the diary and the diary writes back, from this diary Harry meets Tom Riddle who accuses Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets. Ron and Harry go on their way to find Hagrid, on their way there they meet the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge and Lucius Malfoy they have removed Hagrid and Dumbledore from Hogwarts.When Hagrid is leaving he tells them that they can find out about the Chamber monster by following the spiders. Harry and Ron find out that the monster was not a spider, coming to their conclusions they figured out that Hagrid was innocent. One day at school the teachers announce that Ginny Weasley has been taken into the chamber, Harry enters the chamber and finds Ginny's still body and Tom Riddle who happens to be a younger version of Voldemort, Tom Riddle also known as Voldemort had been directing Ginny through the diary the whole time. Harry calls for help from Dumbledore, a hat and a phoenix arrive the hat produces a sword which Harry uses to kill the snake. Harry sticks the snakes fangs through the diary, killing Tom and waking Ginny up. Harry explains the whole thing to Dumbledore. Harry frees Dobby Lucius Malfoy's house-elf. Hogwarts becomes serene and all the students leave for the summer.

Major conflicts:

1.One major conflict would be Lucius Malfoy trying to remove Hagrid and Dumbledore from Hogwarts.

2.Another major conflict would definitely be Voldemort leading Ginny through the diary trying to get a hold of Harry.

Themes:

In the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the book Rowling is trying to show that no matter what family you come from one with pure wizard blood or a family of muggles you can still do anything you put your mind to. In the book Harry is only half wizard and Hermione's parents are muggle yet they both are so much better at being a wizard than Malfoy is. Malfoy comes from a family of pure wizards and can barely do anything that Harry and Hermione can do.










Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Beowulf Summary

Late at night Grendel a monster comes to the town of Herot killing thirty men while they are asleep, carrying their bodies outside and eating them. The town of Herot was mortified of this monster no one was brave enough to fight him. Until one day Beowulf a man who considers himself a hero comes to Herot and tell his victories of his battles. The men are impressed with Beowulf, the king decides to let him fight Grendel. Beowulf stayed in Herot, pretending to be asleep so that when Grendel comes towards Beowulf he will be ready for his fight.
Grendel arrives in town and kills one of Beowulf's men, Beowulf then grabs Grendel, Grendel tries to get away so he can run and hide but Beowulf grabs a hold to Grendel's arm Grendel tries to twist and turn to get away but he is only making it worse, Grendel's arm ends up breaking off. Beowulf is then congratulated on his victory, he hangs the arm up at the hall, showing off his victory.
In the town of Herot after Beowulf's victory people told him about the monster that lived around the swamp. Without thinking twice Beowulf goes to the swamp to kill the other monster who happens to be Grendel's mother. Beowulf decides to kill her without any weapons but then he realizes that he needs his sword because she was to strong, the sword worked.
One last battle Beowulf is asked to defeat a dragon. In the middle of this fight the dragons flames melt his sword. Luckily Wiglaf was there to help Beowulf, they kill the dragon together. Wounded in the neck from the battle with the dragon Beowulf passes with Wiglaf by his side, and Beowulf was buried with the dragons treasures.