1. How were the Tripods able to control the people?
- The Tripods are able to control the people because they cap the people. First of all, people get capped when they become about 14. All the guys get capped while girls rarely get capped. The Capping Day is a very big celebration, and they have a big feast. Everybody is excited of being capped although not Will and I know I wouldn't want to be capped. Anyway, our group has come of some theories on how the Tripods can cap people if they're just a machine. We had some different opinions, but this is mine combined with a few other ideas. First, when the person being capped goes into the Tripod, they are instantly blindfolded. I believe there are a few people (the ancients) inside the Tripod controlling the machine. I also believe they were the ones who made the machines. After that, the people shave the 14 year old's head, and they put the cap on their heads which also has wires that are inserted to the brain. I think that's how the cap is put on. Anyway, with the cap on people, the Tripods are able to control the people. The capped people don't' really have a mind of their own, and it's hard to call them a living soul since they have no control over what they do. Our group also came to a conclusion that Vagrants are produced when something goes wrong during the procedure of the capping. Vagrants don't really have a home, and people kind of ignore them. But not everybody is fond of the idea of being capped. People like Will is slightly afraid of being capped. Also there is a 'fake' Vagrant named Ozymandias who says there still lays freedom in the White Mountains, and Will is taking the chance to go there. I guess the Tripods don't have perfect control over their people!
2. Find evidence (quotations from the novel) to show that even though Will is comfortable living at the castle, he is frustrated that the Comte, Comtesse, and Eloise have been capped.
- "The bitter thing was that all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than their inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight or of turning from girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" This is a quote from page 111. I chose this part because it covers maybe not all of it, but most of the question. He sees that things are different. The place is peaceful, the people are kind, and people have chance to show their courage, but Will is thinking what's the point if they don't have a free thinking mind.
Another quote is "My feelings about Eloise herself were also jumbled and uncertain. I had traveled a long road since leaving the village, not only in hard reality but in my attitude toward people. more and more I had come to see the Capped as lacking what seemed to me the essence of humanity, the vital spark of defiance against the rulers of the world. And I had despised them for it- despised even, for all their kindness to me and their goodness, the Comte and Comtesse. But not Eloise. I had thought her free, like myself. I might even have come to the idea-it's beginnings, I think, were in my mind already- that when we set off once more for the White Mountains, there might not be three of us, but four. All this was rendered futile by the sight of her bare head. I had come to think of her as my friend: perhaps more. But now I knew that she belonged, irretrievably, body and soul, to the Enemy." - p 116. I chose this part because it is after Will had learned that Eloise was also capped, and his thoughts about her is changing. Even if the Comte and Comtesse were nice to him he didn't like the fact that they were capped, and now he has learned that Eloise is also capped. He doesn't really know what to think of her since he had thought of Eloise as someone like him. Now his thoughts toward her are uncertain since she is also capped.
My final quote is "Was I to abandon my hope of freedom, surrender the mastery of my mind, for the sake of wearing jeweled leather and having other men touch their caps to me? The notion was absurd. Whatever privileges I was given I would still be a sheep among sheep. In the morning, though, waking early, I thought of it again. I rejected it again, too, firmly but less quickly, and with a feeling of being virtuous in doing so. To accept would be to let down the others- Henry and Beanpole, the Vagrant Ozymandias, Captain Curtis, all the free men in the White Mountains. I would not do that: nothing would tempt me to it." -p121. I chose this part because it is after Comtesse pretty much 'offered' Will to stay at the castle. Will's life in the castle has become very comfortable for him and he has come closer to the Comte's family. However Will still does not like the idea of staying because he knows that if he stays that he will be Capped. He knows that he didn't come all the way here to just get capped. He is frustrated because he knows that he wouldn't want to be capped, but he is already so attached to the Comte's family and the castle.
3. Find evidence (quotes) to show how Will feels about being capped.
- My first quote is "Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" -p111. It is a short quotation, but it clearly shows that Will is still absolutely against the act of capping. He thinks that courage means nothing if the person has no real mind. Like before, Will still seeks freedom of the White Mountains. He wants to have a free-thinking mind, not a mind controlled by the Tripods.
My second quote is "Before Capping there might be doubts and uncertainties and revulsion; perhpas these people had know them, too.when the Cap was put on, the doubts vanished. How great a loss was that? Was it a loss at all? The Tripods, apart from the act of Capping itself, did not seem to interfere much with men.~~~None of it touched this secure and pleasant life." I chose this part because it is where Will's starts to change his mind. Now that he has seen that his life could still be joyful even if he gets capped, he's starting to think that it wouldn't be too bad after all.
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