Connector

Section 5: p. 84-108

Your job is to describe a one or two personal occurrences that connect with what Ragweed is feeling, thinking, and planning on doing on pgs. 89-91. Share your experiences with the group and ask for other group members to describe a situation where they had the same feelings or instincts.

I have had a variety of situations in my life that I have wanted to run away from. However, something has always made me stay and fight to overcome my fears and apprehensions. For example, when I was younger, I always wanted to learn how to play the violin. However, once I tried to learn how to play, I realized how difficult the task was going to be. Therefore, instead of trying to overcome the difficulty of the task, I decided that I was going to quit. I actually convinced myself that I really did not want to play the violin, and that I was just having childish urges. This parallels with Ragweed because he was convinced that he was going to leave Amperville on the next train because he was tired of getting chased around by cats. However, like Ragweed, I had an experience that changed my mind. Whereas Ragweed’s experience was that he wanted to save Blinker’s life, my experience was that my Grandfather’s dying wish was that I would learn to play the violin as well as he had. He even gave me his old violin. After this experience, I realized that I had to continue trying to learn how to play the violin. Likewise, after Ragweed’s experience, he realized that the mice in Amperville needed to do something to stand up to and defeat the F.E.A.R organization. Therefore, my experience parallels Ragweed’s experience because we both were fed up with trying, so we decided to run away from our problems. However, in the end, we were forced to face and overcome our problems due to a marvelous experience.