Week 1

While reading hungry again, I realized that I had missed a lot of things the previous time..
Its difficult to extract all the main issues because there are so many. And even when I identified them, it wasn’t easy putting them in words..

1) Death- does it solve the problem to the pain in life? (30)

2) Artists- Do they have to appear strange and measure their success based on the impression they leave behind?(39)

3) Abortion- Do we ever consider the baby as a living being with feelings? Or the situation of single unmarried mothers?

4) Taking for granted things that we cannot explain, like birth. (41)

5) Knowledge had replaced wisdom. We don’t want to think, we just want to know, and then blindly believe. (44)

6) Individualism- the fight for survival (50). The willingness to do something only when you get something out of it; like praying. (44)

7) The diff between truth (what a person believes in, no limitations as to the time zone) and reality (What one can detect using our five senses, things that are happening in the PRESENT). In TODAYS world, truth=reality. There is no faith, no belief; just proof.

8) Logical reasoning behind every action, so much so that we forget that it was once enjoyable. Eating oranges. (52)

9) Knowledge is limited and cannot answer some questions. Wisdom doesn’t answer it for you wither but at least it helps you cope with it.

10) Will we ever learn from our mistakes?
When alive each of the characters experienced pain----They wanted to escape the pain and so they killed themselves.-------IN Purgatory, they are STILL in pain, though of a different type.----Want to get rid of the pain--- They choose between Heaven & Hell
BUT: they don’t know what will come out of it either. Will it be painful? Even death can’t tell you! So was Sarah’s choice to cease to exist the only one that showed signs of learning from past experiences?


QUESTIONS-
1) Why did Sarah start eating shit claiming that she could go back? Is she trying to go through her past again? Quite literally at that! She says that she's going back. What is that suppose to mean? Any ideas?
2) How/why did Mug die? Where does he decide to go? Heaven or hell or a new life?
3) Why didnt Gek get reborn? Didnt she want to live again knowing that life didnt have to be perfect?


WEEK 1 WORK
1) The main issue of my character- Finding the answers to the purpose of existence.
2) Link to all other characters- Everyone is trying to find purpose and meaning not just in their past (when they were alive) but also in their present (in purgatory).
3) I think the best theme that we can go with is still the one about how we never really appreciate and live in the present instead we sit and spin our heads with questions about existance or sulk about the past and how we didnt use our time right. The amzing thing is that we dont learn, because ultimately were still wasting the present thinking about the past.
4) I think it's unifying because-
(i) Everyone is living in the past, trying to figure out what went wrong and how they can set things right if ever.
(ii) They STILL dont know what their future holds for them (what they will be reborn as/how heaven and hell will be like) and yet just as they did when they were alive, they go willingly towards an unknown future. The same 'mistake' repeated.
(iii) It ties in with greed.