Astronaut Mark Watney vs. Mars

Astronaut Mark Watney, was part Ares 3, a mission to explore the surface of the planet Mars. Astronaut Watney is presumed dead after a sand storm hits the mission’s location. Watney is left to survive on a bunker or HAB, with food that will last 120 days, which is not enough time for a rescue party to land on Mars. Mark has to come up with a way to grow food in martian soil. He succeeds on planting potatoes and fertilizing them with waste. To water his plants, Watney mixes hydrazine and oxygen and then burns them together to create humidity which is then transformed into water by a humidifier. Watney 1, Mars 0

During this process Mark finds a leak and realizes that the HAB is filled with hydrazine and it will blow up any time soon. Mark is forced to leave the HAB, which is now a ticking-time-bomb, and hide in one of the Rover’s, which are small car-like machines. Watney 1, Mars 1

The HAB

“So that is the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a HAB designed to last thirty-one days.”

Just by reading this quote we can guess what kind of person Mark Watney is. Even though he’s chances of survival are extremely slim, he does not give up. He is an extremely optimistic person to keep trying to find ways to survive regardless of his situation. I wouldn’t have had the will to try to survive, I would have given up.

“So, I’m here in Rover 2. I can stay for a day or two, tops, before the 

CO2 filters from the rover and my space suit. I have that long to figure out how to deal with this. The HAB is now a bomb” (Weir 35).

I feel very sorry for Mark Watney. Just try to put yourself in his situation, being abandoned in Mars. Just imagine trying as hard as you can to survive, even succeeding in growing plants in Mars, being so close to survival only to loose all hope of survival because of one small mistake. Personally I would have given up any kind of hope.

Knowing Mark Watney, he will not stop trying to find a way to survive. His engineering and botany skills, combined with his resourceful thinking have allowed him to strive and prolong his days of supplies and resources. I think Mark will find a way to solve the problem that is taking place in the HAB. Mark Watney is no quitter. 

Madness

            As soon as Halloran recieves Danny’s plead for help, he gets on the next plane to Denver in order to help him. Danny had dreamed that his Jack was going to kill him and Wendy that day. As soon as Danny wakes up, and goes to the hall, there is a man in a dog costume, bleeding. He threatens Danny and tells him to get away.  When Danny goes back to their room he realizes Jack is missing. Meanwhile, Jack had spent the night at the bar, drinking imaginary alcohol. He is hallucinating again. He is at a 1945 party that took place at the hotel. There is a guy, Lloyd, that tells him that he should kill his family to punish them. When the parry disappears, Jack his very drunk and falls uncountious on the floor. When Wendy finds him, Jack grabs her and threatens her. He then begins to choke her, but she manages to hit him in the head. Wendy locks him in the kitchen pantry. Lloyd comes and tells Jack that he will let him out if he kills his family. Jack agrees and finds drinks in the counter table, alongside with a mallet. (Hallorann is now on his way from Denver to Sidewinder. He rents a snowmobile and heads towards the Overlook.) At the Overlook, Wendy is looking for Jack with a knife in her hand. Jack surprises her and hits her with the mallet in the stomach. Jack chases her up the stairs, but she manages to stab him in the back. Wendy goes inside their room, but Danny is not there. Wendy finds some razors in the bathroom and cuts Jack with those. (Hallorann is now at the hotel trying to get in but the lion hedges are preventing him from doing so.)  Jack goes to face Halloran while Wendy collapses onto the ground.

            (Outside the Hotel, Hallorann is fighting of the hedge lions, he manages to throw them gasoline and lights them up.) As soon as Hallorann gets to the lobby, Jack hits him with his mallet on the face, leaving him unconscious. Now he goes looking for Danny, determined to kill him.

            Danny is now up on the third floor, hiding. Tony is telling him that he must try to help Wendy and escape the treacherous place. When Jack arrives to the third floor, Danny was trapped in a dead end corridor. This is when he tells Jack that he is not being himself that the hotel is taking over him. Jack suddenly becomes himself, and tells Danny to run and that he must remember that he loves him. As Danny ran down the stairs he remembered that his father had not taken care of the boiler, and that at any moment now it would blow up. When Danny gets to the lobby, Hallorann is now up with Wendy, trying to get out of the Hotel. They all jump onto the snowmobile and watch as the Overlook blows up in the horizon.

           

“And now Tony stood directly in front of him, and looking at Tony was like looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself in ten years, the eyes widely
spaced and very dark, the chin firm, the mouth handsomely molded. The hair was light blond like his mother's, and yet the stamp on his features was that of his father, as if Tony — as if the Daniel Anthony Torrance that would someday be — was a halfling caught between father and son, a ghost of both, a fusion.” (572)

This is what Jack had inside himself.

Wow! I didn’t expect that. Is this some kind time travel experience? Did future Danny’s existence depended on this moment? Maybe future Danny had to help five year-old Dannny in order for him to exist. Maybe if “Tony” had not helped him, Danny could have been killed.                                            

"Go on and hit me. But you'll never get what you want from me. The face in front of him changed. It was hard to say how; there was no melting or merging of the features. The body trembled slightly, and then the bloody hands opened like broken claws. The mallet fell from them and thumped to the rug. That was all. But suddenly his daddy was there, looking at him in mortal agony, and a sorrow so great that Danny's heart flamed within his chest. The mouth drew down in a quivering bow. "Doc," Jack Torrance said. "Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you."  (592)

Incredible! Can you imagine the guts you need to stand in front of a psychopath killer? I envy Danny’s courage and boldness, and not just for standing there but for saying what he said. His words where so powerful, that what ever had taken over Jack left him for a moment. This is a very powerful quote, it shows us the power of words, and how they can make huge differences.

            Reading this novel was one of the best choices that I could have made. It is full of suspense and interesting themes and messages, such as the importance of family and the importance of communication. I would totally recommend this book. It would frighten you and delight you at the same time. It is a true page-turner

The Bad Moon Rising

While Danny was being choked by a “ghost” in room 217, Jack had been taking a nap. But he’d had a nightmare about his father. He was remembering how his father had come drunk home and beat his mother with his walking cane. Her mother had almost died because her skull was fractured. In his dream Jack heard a voice of his father, calling. 

“Kill him. You have to kill him, Jacky, and her, too. Because a real artist must suffer. Because each man kills the thing he loves. Because they'll always conspiring against you, trying to hold you back and drag you down”(335). 

Jack opened his eyes, sweating. The CB radio, was smashed up under his feet. This was their only connection to the outside world. Jack walks up the stairs, worried when he spots Danny sitting in the top of the stairs. He’s paralyzed with fear. There are finger marks around his neck. Jack screams for Wendy. When Wendy sees Danny she jumps to conclusions, and accuses Jack of hurting Danny. Jack is shocked, he tries to explain things to Wendy but she rushes down stairs. Jack follows her down to the lobby where she is talking to Danny. Danny screams, “it was her!” Danny tells his parents that he entered room 217 and that a dead women came out of the tub and started to choke him, but he managed to open the door and run. Jack thinks this is ridiculous, so he decides to take a look for himself. When Jack enters the room everything seems perfectly. When he opens the bathroom curtain, he sees nothing. When he locks the door behind him, he hears foot steps rush towards the door. The door nob starts to jingle, as if someone tried to open the door from inside. Jack runs down to the lobby, frightened. But he says that there is nothing up there in the room and that they should not worry about it.                                                                                                   

That same night Jack and Wendy discuss what had happened earlier that day. Wendy is very worried and she says that they should try to get out of this Hotel as soon as they can. Jack agrees and says that tomorrow he would try to start the snowmobile.                                                                                                                    Jack is now standing in front of the bathtub of room 217. There’s is a dead man on the tub. Its George Hatfield, the kid he’d beaten up at his last job. But suddenly he wasn’t dead anymore, he stood up and started to choke Jack. Suddenly Jack had his father’s cane in his hand. He began to beat George with it. While Jack beat him he realized it was no longer George, it was Danny, and he no longer had a cane, he had a mallet. Jack woke up alarmed, sweating. He had been dreaming again.     

During the afternoon, Jack went down to the storage room to look for the snowmobile. When he found it he realized that it would not start because it had no battery. He looked around for it, and hated himself when he found it. He did not want to leave. The Overlook was supposed to be a bonding experience fro his family and a way to escape his drinking problems since there was no alcohol at the Hotel. Jack pretended he did not see it and walked out of the storage room.                    

The turkey had been delicious. Wendy had cooked it to perfection. It was three days later that Danny went outside to the playground. The snow had covered everything by five feet. Danny noticed a little opening in the snow, as if was a small cave. Danny crawled inside and he saw how deep it was. The snow that supported the roof collapsed, leaving Danny trapped, It was then when it hit him, he was not alone in there was someone…something in there with him. Danny desperately tried to make a opening above him using his foot. When he succeeded and climbed out, he saw a hand inside there. Danny was terrified and ran. But the hedges where in his way, just the way they’d been with Jack. The lions  began to chase him to the front porch. When he was about to step inside, he felt a cut in his left thy. It was then that Jack and Wendy grabbed Danny. Danny began to cry and explained everything to them. Jack was furious. He yelled at Danny, telling him that they where just hedges and that could have not happened. Danny cried the rest of the afternoon when he felt Tony calling. “Daneeeeeee…” (448). Danny begins to dream, he is running from someone in the halls of the hotel. He is being chased by someone with a mallet that is smashing it against the walls. Danny remembers what the cook, Hallorann told him, if he is in danger, he should give him call through his mind. Danny does so, just as he recognizes the roaring drunken voice of his father being him. “Come on you godamm pup, take your medicine!”(451). Danny now falls into darkness, everything disappears. He now only sees two words flashing in red. REDRUM. MURDER.

 

"Now. Now by Christ. I guess you'll take your medicine now. Goddam puppy. Whelp. Come on and take your medicine." The cane had gone up and down on her seven more times before Brett and Mike got hold of him, dragged him away, wrestled the cane out of his hand” (330).

            Now we know from where Jack got his tendency to physically abuse his son Danny. He had broken his arm once, and slapped him twice now. I pity Jack, he had to put up with these horrible beatings that his father gave. Just imagine that your father would hit your mother with a cane until her skull was fractured. Poor Jack, he too got beat when his father came home drunk. Will Jack ever dare to do something similar to Wendy or Danny?

“I had agreed to take her and Danny away from the big bad boogeyman and there were no problems. So you see, I thought the best thing to do would be to…kill her.
” (392)

        What?!? Why would Jack think of something so horrible? Is Jack actually thinking about what his father told him? Is he capable of killing his own family? Maybe Jack is a actually insane. He already has had hallucinations, he has weird dreams in which his father talks to him and he is thinking about murdering his wife. Jack is probably suffering from schizophrenia. Maybe he will kill Wendy or Danny.

                                                                                                                                                Something really sinister is about to happen. Jack is involved in some plot to kill or hurt Danny and Wendy. The Overlook is about to take over Jack and use him as a pupet. “I see the bad moon arising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin'. I see those bad times today. Don't go around tonight, Well it's bound to take your life, There's a bad moon on the rise.” (302)

Hallucinations

Jack had been shingling the roof when he is stung by a wasp. He tries to go down the ladder, but there is a nest full of wasps blocking his way. Jack gets another flashback, this one has to do with him loosing his previous job. He remembers George Hatfield, a student of his that had joined the debate team. The first few weeks George had had been a good contributor to the group with his strong arguments about controversial issues. But when he spoke, he could not pronounce one word without stuttering. Jack had to cut him from the team, and when he did, George took revenge. He had sawed his car’s tires. Jack had lost his temper and had almost beaten George to death. He had been fired the very same day. He thought his temper was just as uncontrollable as his drinking problem. Back to reality again. He went down the ladder to get the bug bomb.

That same afternoon Wendy and Danny had arrived from a nearby town where they had been purchasing some milk. Jack had hugged both Danny and Wendy with joy. Jack had kept the wasp’s nest for Danny has a present. Danny had been delighted and put it in his bedroom. Later, at night, Danny had been focusing on his reading. Jack says it’s bedtime and Danny should brush his teeth and out on his pajamas. Danny does so obediently and locks the bathroom door. He spends there some minutes and when Jack calls upon him but there is no answer. Jack threatens to punish him if he does not open the door. Silence. Jack breaks the doors lock with his foot, and there is Danny, sitting in the edge of the tub as if hypnotized. “Danny!” He does not answer. Instead another voice came out oh his mouth, deep and troubling. “Roque, stroke, the roque mallet… has two sides… roque, stroke, REDRUM!” Danny suddenly became himself, confused. He could not remember what had happened. Something to do with Tony coming and showing him a roque mallet. Everybody was confused. Jack and Wendy where frightened. Jack gave Danny a glass of water and put him to sleep. Midnight came, and a sharp shriek along with it. Jack and Wendy woke up alarmed, only to find Danny twisting on the floor with wasp all over him. Jack carried him to their room where he put some ice on his hand. Danny calms down a bit but is still in a lot of pain. Jack goes down stair angrily thinking that the bug bomb must have been defective, he gets a glass bowl which he uses to cover up the nest. He then slides a book under it and carries it to the front porch. He looks through the glass but he can barley see the nest because there are tons of wasps, at least a hundred. The wasps would not survive in the freezing temperature, Jack carefully places the glass bowl onto the  stairs of the front porch. He then goes back to his room to check on Danny and Wendy.

A couple of months later, Jack finds something strange in the cellar while checking on the boiler. An old scrapbook that contains all of the Overlook’s history. Jack is shocked by what he reads in that scrapbook. The Hotel had been through quite a mysterious history, since its owner was said to be the head of the mafia. For over twenty years, the Overlook was a refugee for mafia members. But in 1967 a drug-lord was killed in the Presidential Suite. There was a picture in the scrap book, a wall splattered with blood and some white stuff. Jack hears foot steps behind him and realizes Wendy had been watching him. She’d been worried now, mainly because Jack’s drinking symptoms had returned; chewing aspirin, whipping his lips or getting constant migraines. Wendy convinces him to go up stairs and rest a little bit.

The next day, Wendy and Danny went to the nearby town’s library, leaving Jack alone to do his duties. Jack would trim the front lawn’s hedges. Each edge was shaped as a different animal. There was a bunny, a dog, and two lions. As Jack trimmed the hedges, he got distracted by some weird noises over in the playground. He went over there to see what it was. When he was near to the swings he looked back. The lion shaped hedge had moved, it was in a striking position. Jack froze. Now the dog was in a running position, towards him. Jack closed his eyes and screamed. This could not be true, he thought. When he opened his eyes every thing was back in its place. Jack just had a hallucination. He decided to keep quite and not tell this to Danny or Wendy.

Snow was falling now, and Jack was asleep taking a nap upstairs. Wendy was knitting next to the fireplace down at the lobby. Danny was in front of room 217, staring at it, with the key in his hand which he had stolen from Daddy’s office. There was this certain force that made him unlock the door and open it. The room was cold. Danny turned to the bathroom. The bath tub had its curtains closed. When he slid the curtains open, Danny wet his pants with fear. A dead woman lied on the tub. Danny tried to run but the door was locked. He remembered what Hallorann had told him about some things not being real. Danny closed his eyes and relaxed. And when he opened them, the dead woman was still there, choking Danny.

“The lion on the left had advanced all the way to the fence now; its muzzle was touching the boards. It seemed to be grinning at him. Jack backed up another two steps. His head was thudding crazily and he could feel the dry rasp of his
breath in his throat” (307).

            I am a bit confused here, hadn’t Mr. Hallorann told Danny that only people what had “the shine” could see stuff that wasn’t really true in the hotel. Is Jack just having a hallucination because he was tired, or is this part of something bigger? Maybe Jack has schizophrenia, or maybe he shines as well.

“And then the voice of Dick Hallorann came to him, so sudden and unexpected, so calm, that his locked vocal cords opened and he began to cry weakly not with fear but with blessed relief. (I don't think they can hurt you ... they're like pictures in a book ... close your eyes and they'll be gone.)  His eyelids snapped down. His hands curled into balls. His shoulders hunched with the effort of his concentration: (Nothing there nothing there not there at all NOTHING THERE ,THERE IS NOTHING!) Time passed. And he was just beginning to relax, just beginning to realize the door must be unlocked and he could go, when the years-damp, bloated, fish-smelling hands closed softly around his throat and he was turned implacably around to stare into that dead and purple face.” (321)

            How is this possible? When Halloran said he had seen something horrible in this room, had he seen the same dead woman that choked Danny? Is this one of the ghosts that Ullman had mentioned? Is this real or just a hallucination? Will this “ghost” strangle Danny to death? Maybe Danny is just having one of those nightmares that he sometimes has. Maybe Tony is showing him the future.

Danny had always been right, Tony had told him the truth. They where doomed in the Overlook. This Hotel did not welcome any visitor. Hallucinations haunted Danny and Jack. But these hallucinations where some what real, they could hurt you, just like that dead woman had strangled Danny. Who knows maybe they would all be murdered by ghosts. REDRUM. MURDER.