Dezi

The character Dezi in “Speaking in Tongues” seemed like a good guy to start. He saw Tia sitting alone in McDonald’s and left money to pay for her meal. Dezi figured out that Tia had no where to go, and offered her a place to stay and fix her wound she got after sleeping in an unlocked car the night before. When they arrived at the apartment, he handed out money to all of the little kids harassing him.

After a while, Dezi’s charm began to wear off and we found out his true motives for being nice. The whole time Dezi was just trying to get Tia to become one of his prostitutes. He had told Tia she was beautiful to try to lure her to his apartment. When he gave money to the kids he was probably just paying them to keep their mouths shut about his true intentions. Tia almost left once, but was easily lured back with roses. When they returned home after that, Dezi tried to rape her.

I think Dezi’s behavior was a regular routine for him. He preyed on desperate girls like Tia who had just run away from home and had no money. Dezi offered her a place to stay, and it was hard to turn down. His eventual goal was to make her work as one of his prostitutes. Other clues that this was a routine were that he told her that he liked to take care of girls like her. The kids said that Dezi had a new woman when he first brought Tia home. Also, the prostitutes were willing to help Tia get out probably because Dezi had did the same trick to them, and they were trying to stop it from happening again.

Another Event With Two Versions

One of the questions from the readings on Dresden was to think of another historical event that had two competing versions to it. After thinking for a little bit, the French and Indian war popped into my head, probably because we just wrote a DBQ about it in AP U.S. last week.

For those of you who don’t know what the war was about, it was fought in the mid-18^th Century between Britain with its colonies and France. There isn’t much debate over what really happened in the battles, but there was a major difference between Britain and the colonies after they had beaten France. The British believed the war had been fought to protect the colonies and they therefore should help pay for some of the war. The colonies believed the war had been fought over the British gaining control of beaver trading in the Ohio River valley. They didn’t think they should pay for the war because Britain was going to make money off of it. Britain began to tax the colonies, and eventually the difference in opinion led to the colonies separating from Britain.

I know that Dresden and the French and Indian war happened 200 years apart and involved some other countries and places, but I did see some similarities between the two. Rebecca Grant and John Black argued about the intentions of Britain in bombing Dresden. Rebecca said Britain had bombed Dresden to disrupt communication and help Russian forces in the West. Black said Britain bombed Dresden to show their power and get more in the post-war treaty. He stated that they even made sure not to destroy the oil tanks that they owned in Dresden. Britain trying to make money is what made me think how the different versions of Dresden and the French and Indian war can relate to each other.

First Thoughts of Slaughterhouse Five

I didn’t like the first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five where it was random stories of Vonnegut’s life. I think it was more like an autobiography. The book got better in the second chapter when we were introduced to Billy. It was kind of interesting how Billy was larger than Weary, but he let himself get pushed around. He even laughed when Weary was trying to beat him up. Billy had many unfortunate events happen in his life. He started as an optometrist but was later drafted into the army. After he lands in Germany, he gets stuck behind enemy lines without any gear. Billy then returns home and marries a woman and also has children. In 1968 he is in a plane crash and his wife dies while he is recovering.
I noticed that the motif time kept appearing throughout the chapters. The events in Billy’s life are all scattered throughout time. His experience with the aliens teaches him how time is not that important. People can’t ever die; they just “appear” to die. They are only in a “bad condition at that particular moment.” They are still going to be alive in the past.
Billy’s experience with the aliens and death also brings up another reoccurring motif in the book, “So it goes.” Vonnegut includes this term after each time a death is mentioned. Some examples were when Billy's father died in a hunting accident, when Billy is the only survivor of the plane crash, and when Billy's wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning.