Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

               The novel Little Women published in 1868, teaches an extremely important lesson: Life does not always turn out how you originally plan it. The main character Jo has aspired to be a writer her entire life. She has published a few short stories in newspapers, but nothing to her satisfaction. Although in the end, she does not end up writing for a living, like she always plans, she gets married to a professor and they start a boarding school for boys and have a family. This is just one example out of many in the novel where life takes you on a different course than you originally expect. At a certain point in everyone’s lives they have goals, something they want to accomplish, or somewhere they want to go. This is amazing and gives life purpose, although accomplishing these things will not make us happy if we are not happy within ourselves. This is a piece of advice I have been given more times than I can count, although it was not until after I read Little Women that I actually started listening.

            Along the way to getting to where you want to go there will be many pit stops where you lose track of who are and what you want to do. It is so easy to lose track of what is truly important in life. The thing that most people do not understand when going through this is that it happens to everyone. This book taught me that these pit stops are essential to get where you want to go. How you handle getting back on the correct path defines who you are as a person and can make getting to that destination even more important and more satisfactory that it would have been before. In the book the March family lost a daughter when she was very young and reading about it was devastating because you could feel the pain of each character as they dealt with it in their own ways. Although the truth is that even though I hated to see Beth die, most of the characters would not have reached their full potential if she did not. Now they had something to fight for

No matter how much you may want to at certain times, you cannot go through life on your own. Little Women shows the importance of family and friends, not only through the tragedies, but also more importantly through the successes. There are very few people that will ever be there for you no matter what and when you do find them you need to hold on to them. You can never achieve what you want in life on your own, you have to have people in your corner who support you but are not afraid to tell you the truth. Everyone needs someone in their life who will give them constructive criticism. For Jo this was her father and her mother. Her father helped her with writing and her mother helped her with personal problems. This is a metaphor for balance in life. Balance is incredibly important especially in this day and age where it is so easy to get tipped over.

            Family values have been steadily decreasing for a long time now. Most families do not eat together at a table and make conversation; most families do not share the good and bad parts about their days; most families do not trust or respect each other. Personally I find this very sad because even though a lot of the times they drive me insane, I have no idea what I would do without my family. The idea of family is losing value as times go on. Who your family is does not matter so much as long as you have someone who loves you unconditionally. No family is perfect, but if one were it would be the family that Louisa May Alcott created when she wrote the novel. The March family went through so many hardships that would tear most people apart, but it only made them stronger and that is what a family should be.

            At the end of Little Women everyone was happy and in their “Castles in the sky”. Life does not always end happy, but it will if you want it to. You decide if you are happy or not. It is a conscious choice that everyone makes everyday and it is never too late. All of these little moments and insignificant events in life are adding up to this huge grand finale. Everything is intertwined and everything happens for a reason. Bad things happen, but that does not mean you can walk around with a grudge against the world, you just have to look at the bigger picture and realize that everything is meant to be.

              Little Women is a beautiful book that is surprisingly relatable. All of the characters are different parts of who everyone is with good and bad traits, but they are all there for each other no matter what.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

            The author of Watership Down, Richard Adams, created the story on a long car ride to entertain his children. The story ended up lasting longer than the road trip did so he used it as a bedtime story for his two daughters. It was not until one of them suggested that it should be a book, that he even considered writing it down. The story itself has a very romantic theme, dealing with rabbits representing us as single-minded people and nature giving us different obstacles to overcome. Even though it was created for children it is not only entertaining, but also has broad themes that relate to everyday lives for adults.

After Fiver had a premonition about his warren being destroyed by humans the rabbits that chose to leave become very wary of people. They spend half of the novel searching for a safe place that they can settle, where people cannot hurt them. The rabbits’ main enemy throughout the book is humans. Although, in the last few chapters Hazel is mulled half to death when a young girl finds and picks him up, changing the way he feels about people. She keeps him safe until her mother’s doctor arrives and shows him. These two people save Hazels life.

Society cannot put everyone into a category, which is what most people do. A few blonde girls make a stupid remark and now all blondes are dumb; a few girls are shy and now all women are inferior; a few Spanish come over illegally and now they are all criminals; a few African American people are uneducated and now they are all low class; a few radicals attacked and terrorized people and now all Muslims are terrorists; a few white people had slaves and now they are all racist. As a human race we categorize people based on the first detail we know about them and separate them into a tiny boxes with other people who may or may not happen to share that one same detail as them. This is a habit that everyone has and that everyone has trouble breaking, even if they know it is wrong. But it needs to be broken. Sadly, usually the first detail we can find out about a person is their race and ethnicity. If we can stop making premature judgments about others, we can wipe away our prejudices and focus on what lays behind the masks we create, whether it is good or bad.

People all too often associate their identity with their apperances. Where you are from is an important part of who you are, but you should not hide behind it. There are many people who go along with these stereotypes just because they think that is what they are supposed to be, when in reality they just need to stop focusing on it so much. We can never find out whom a person truly is if we cannot get past these stereotypes to get to know them. The person may be good, bad, or somewhere in between, but at least the judgment will be based on them as a person and not their external appearances. Everyone is capable of good and evil, not just someone who is different. It is easier to blame people who are different because not as many people will stand up for them, but if we look a little deeper we are all the same and we all want the same things. We all have the power to stop stereotypes. If we as a society decided that it was no longer an issue than it would cease to be one.

            The rabbits did not realize this until they came across an evil warren that they tried to take does from, but they have spent so long focusing on all of these other potential threats that they did not realize that their biggest enemy is other rabbits. This directly translates over into our lives because we spend so much time worrying about everyone else that we do not realize that the only thing that can hold you back from achieving what you want in life is you. The main reason that people judge others is because of a lack of self-esteem, which is also the same reason that people hold themselves back. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. The same people who burden themselves with this confinement are also holding themselves back because of this. If we could move past all of this and rise above it as a people then the world would be a much better place to live in and that was the main message the book was trying to convey. There is a war at the end of the novel between the two warrens because they feel as if they cannot coexist. One group’s success does not make another group less successful. Watership Down is a timeless classic that everyone must read in their lifetime. It is an astonishing story about a group of rabbits that are just looking for a better life for themselves and their family, with an elusive deeper meaning. 

Candide by Voltaire

Voltaire's Candide was not considered to be his best work during his time, so he would most likely be very surprised at the success that has come out of it. Voltaire focused on philosophical novels and essays. He began writing at the start of the Enlightenment, which was a literary and artistic movement in Europe during the end of the seventeenth century to the beginning of eighteenth century that focused on logic, order, and the law. This influenced Voltaire's writing a great deal. Voltaire did not have close relationships with his family. His mother died when he was ten years old, while he and his father had a falling out when Voltaire became a writer instead of a lawyer as his father hoped. He spoke of many issues that have a religious undertone and are still relevant today.
The novel is incredibly philosophical and has a central theme that is one of the hardest questions mankind has ever asked itself: Is there a greater purpose for all of the suffering that is endured during life? Throughout the novel Candide and his companions suffered many great losses. Pangloss believed that everything happened for a reason. In the first chapter Candide follows Pangloss's teachings devotedly and wholeheartedly believes that everything happens for a reason, until he is kicked out of the castle in Westphalia and his life begins to spiral from there. From that point through the rest of the novel Candide asked himself if his mentor was right, or if it was just a lie that humans tell each other to sleep easier. It is easy to believe that everything happens for a reason when life is great. The only time people begin to question things they have believed are when tragedies occur. This happens to everyone at some point in their life. I have always believed that everything happens for a reason and that everything will turn out okay in the end. A few months ago a traveling priest visited from South America. He recalled vivid stories of tragedies that occurred while he was staying there. He conjured up images of dead children dead in the streets being eaten by rats and dogs, babies dying of hunger, families surviving on dirt and mud causing them to get worms. He told us that because he has had to undergo these things he, a priest, has struggled with his faith. When you see these horrific events come upon good people it is hard to believe that everything happens for a reason. Last week I found out that a priest, at the church I attend, had died. I was quite fond of Father Pazko, and I have never known anyone who has died before. I attended a funeral yesterday morning. This event may cause one to wonder why such a holy man would be taken from the world, but an ordinary person who has done nothing great with  their life was allowed to live. The only possible answer to that question could be fate. As a Catholic I believe in something called the mystery of fate, which is even if you have no proof you believe something. I have no proof that things happen for a reason, or no proof that this theory was not come up with by humans to make the thought of death easier; although I do completely believe it. Not because it makes me feel better, but because it would not make sense for us to be here for eighty years and then to just disappear into nothing.
The characters also struggled on if we have free will or if our lives are predestined. They eventually came to the conclusion "'All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds.' 'but we must cultivate our garden'". I took this statement to mean that the only thing we know for sure is that the main events in our lives impact other events. We do not know if our lives are predestined or not, but that does not mean we can just sit idly by. The choices that we make matter and in many instances define us. I believe that there is some mixture of both. I believe that God gave us free will, but he knows what choices that we will make and has planned how things turn out. Not only do our events affect other events, but the choices that other people make affect us. Everything we do has a ripple affect and those ripples turn into waves. Every small ripple and large wave hitting against the side of a lake causes erosion slightly altering and affecting the land. Our choices are ripples that affect other people and us.
The last substantial characteristic talked about in the book was the human characteristic that, no matter how much suffering is endured, humans will fight to live. All of the characters went through traumatic pasts and near death experiences, but when it truly came down to it they wanted to live and because of that persevered. As humans the thought of death scares us, so even when bad things happen repeatedly we still want to live.
Overall I enjoyed the book extremely well. It was enlightening; discussing issues that are still relevant today. Although the book talked about many issues such as these, there was still a broader storyline. I found it to be a very quick and entertaining read. Candide was a very witty character who added much needed sarcasm, dark humor, and comic relief to liven the story up. This is a book that everyone should read at one point or another in their lifetime.