I never got a rain tree. I did get some burning bushes several years ago that have struggled to become pretty and at least were red this year. I have been lucky to check off many things on my travel bucket list such as seeing the cherry trees in blossom in Washington, DC. But the thing we usually are trying to find out when we read is what do the characters want? Some lad wants his own dragon, for example. It seems like a good thing. Someone else wants to make music. I can understand that. Someone else wants to restore his good name.
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On the way to getting what they want, though, things happen. The journey is not easy. Things get hectic or fall apart. Sometimes weird things happen that change the mind of the character as to what he wants.
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Sometimes it is someone else who is insisting that the character wants something that he does not. How can he or she escape to work on their own desire? Or suddenly the characters are thrust into a situation where they must put away what they want to help others or to save the bad situation.
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Frodo would have gladly gone back home, but someone had to carry the ring. Atticus took on the defense of Tom. Jo March cared for her sister Beth who was dying. Elizabeth Bennett admitted to Darcy that her sister Lydia was lost. Lymond did his best to save the child who would become Mary Queen of Scots.
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Part of understanding and caring about a character comes from understanding what they want and hoping they can get it. Often, they cannot and we have to accept that with disappointment. We learn how they handle life and how they keep on going despite not getting what they want. We see how they change to want different things. They earn our respect.
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The proud Jo cries in front of the Professor and earns what she has discovered she wants. Darcy changes or at least begins to understand how he has been wrong. Scout learns what it means to not kill a mockingbird. In Shane, Chris, the cowboy learns what being honorable means as he becomes a farmer's helper. He has learned his lesson well and he has changed what he wants...for the better.
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What have some of your favorite characters wanted? Did they get it? Did they change to want something else? Or like Heathcliff did they do harm because they lost what they wanted and wanted revenge?
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Diaries of the Week:
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