12/12/2016 0 Comments The family's napkinLeslie was a young girl growing up in Tijuana, there were very few things she held as fact. Her mom and dad had hooked up when they were young, her mom always told her. He was a Marine. He went overseas right after leaving her mom. Her mother told her that it wasn’t his fault, and that he didn’t even know she existed. Growing up, she only had one thing of his: a napkin that he had written out contact info for when he returned to America.
Not having a father as a kid was tough, but she understood. Her mom was all she needed. When she was around 15 years old, she wrote a letter to Jeffy Conlet and sent it to the marines in hopes it would reach her father someday. She gave contact information, and about 4 weeks later she got a call from someone in Iraq. “Leslie, there’s someone on the phone from you. He’s a soldier. she think it’s your dad.” her mom told her. She was in total shock. She had always imagined this moment, but now that it was here she didn’t know how to respond. she picked up the phone and started talking to the soldier. “Is this Leslie?” The soldier asked. “Yes,” she replied. “I’m a soldier from the Marines… I was walking through camp, in the rain, when I saw your letter in the trash can. It was unopened, and being poured on. Out of curiosity I grabbed it and decided to call you to let you know your letter was never delivered, and I’m sorry.” The soldier said. This moment made her lose motivation for finding her father for years. As she aged, she became increasingly more motivated and captivated about who her dad was. This yearning for her dad and knowing him increased for years. By the time she took action and decided to seek out her father, she had a kid, a deep relationship, and a deeply embedded life in California. she decided to go to a psychic and talk to her about it. “For years I have been without my father. All I know is that his name is Jeffy Conlet, that I’m his kid, and he has a granddaughter. I’ve never met him, but I’ve looked long and hard. I have been on social media looking, I’ve worked with my mom, but it’s like he just doesn’t exist. Is there any hope for me finding my dad?” she asked the psychic. “My dear child, you have struggled through thick and thin. Without your dad, half of your family is missing. Believe me, child, family is a bond stronger than all the machinery and all these internet databases in existence. You will find your father within… 1 year according to my readings.” The psychic foretold. As soon as she left the psychic, she went straight to a private investigator. “Internet databases might not be able to divide a family, but they certainly can help me find a family,” she thought to herself. Leslie gave the investigator the only link she had to her father-- her napkin with contact information. The only remnant of her father was now in the hands of someone who would either find her father, or not. *** Eventually the private investigator called her back with some details on a potential match. “Now this guy, he trained in Camp Pendleton around the same time that your mother and this Jeffy were having relations. His name is Jeffy Conley, and he lives in Indiana.” The investigator said on the phone. “But my dad’s name is Jeffy CONLEY!” Leslie replied. “But that’s the thing- what if you guys have just been misreading it this entire time? Look, I already called him and he’s agreed to do a paternity test with you. Are you open to that?” She asked. “Yes,” Leslie answered. Her heart was racing. she actually had a shot of finding her dad-- of giving her daughter a grandfather… of meeting her family. The results came back a few months later month later, and they were positive. She found her father… to this day, she still can’t name what she felt at that moment. After a suspenseful period of time, they made contact and decided to fly him out to California to meet. Her withdrawn, yet loving father and I were finally reunited. And he was wonderful. Apparently she has a brother, and 4 step siblings, and a stepmom. On top of that, she has two aunts, and 5 new cousins. *** Now it’s Thanksgiving and I am in Indiana, explaining the entire story to my Aunt Cheryl… it feels like I’ve known her my whole life. I met my 5 cousins-- well, I met 4 cousins. My cousin, Kyle, is in the Marines and couldn’t be here. But I met Chris, and Ashley, the youngest cousins. They’re twins. Mason, who is Kyle’s brother, is a senior in high school. He said he was going into something mechanical like building car parts, or becoming a mechanic. Then I also met my 4 other half-step-brothers and sisters. And as I ate my hot dog, I used the napkin to wipe my mouth, and thought back to my childhood, where a napkin meant so much. Even though we’ve been separated for 22 years, it feels like we’ve always been together. I don’t know what made me go and visit that psychic that set me on this quest-- my new kid, impatience, but I do know that it lead me back to my family. When you value family, and set out to find family. The universe rewards you in so many different ways… I made it this far, started my own family, and because I grew up fatherless, I have 5 brothers and sisters that I wouldn’t have had any other way. She found out later that her dad had gone back out to Tijuana to find her mom, and couldn’t find her. Then it took them some searching, even a private investigator to find him. Her daughter is so lucky to live in a family where they’ve learned the value of family, and worked to keep each other in their lives. She can’t wait to see how wonderful of a mother her daughter will be one day. Today she keeps her last name as Conlet in all of her legal documents, and birth certificate. There’s a story behind that name. A story about how they found each other after years of separation. A story about countless challenges through childhood, and self doubt and nerves. A story about family. And that is the best story of all. The goal of this article is to prove to readers that if you enjoyed reading The Giver by Lois Lowry, you will enjoy The Compound by SA Bodeen. Readers of The Giver will enjoy The Compound because of the similar settings, communities, characters, leadership styles shown in both books.
Both of these stories have a lot of similarities. The protagonists share a lot of features. Both stories feature young boys who are living in an isolated area, in some dystopian future. In The Compound, Eli is living with his family away from society in a nuclear bunker built by his dad, a billionaire before the nuclear bombs went off. Eli grows suspicious over time of his father’s leadership as it becomes apparent there are a lot of secrets in the way the bunker is being run. And there’s a lot of suspicious activity on the father’s part. With all these elements present, naturally, Eli investigates into what really happens in the management of the bunker. In comparison, we have Jonas from The Giver. Jonas lives in a secluded community with no contact with the outside world. He was chosen to be trained as the bearer of memories, and as he began to receive the memories, he learned more and more about the activities that happen in the community’s government. With the help of The Giver, Jonas begins to investigate into the Committee of Elders, the leaders of the community, and their dealings. Another similarity between the two books is the setting of each book. Both books have a seemingly isolated, and dictatorial government or management. When readers analyze how each similar each of the settings are, you notice that both books have the community assigning jobs to the citizens, secrecy in leadership, and even the very nature of isolation from the outside world. In The Compound you see Eli attempting to get back on the internet, and in The Giver you see Jonas looking at memories of people and their way of life before they were put in the community. Another quality both books share is their leadership styles in the community, which are dictatorships and absolute control over everything the communities do. In The Giver, the community leaders control everything all the way down to people’s memories, and how they perceive color. While The Compound isn’t that extreme, it definitely shares qualities. For instance, they control where the kids are allowed to go, and what they’re allowed to do. As expressed when Bodeen writes “For the rest of us, challenging Dad’s judgment was out of the question. And I’d stopped asking him the first year whether he’d been able to make contact with anyone on the outside, and how long our supplies of water, food, and power would last. ‘I’ve planned for every contingency’ was his stock reply. And there was the way he would spend a week in bed, then all of a sudden not sleep for days. Weird. Even then, we never voiced our doubts about his leadership.” In that quote, we see that the dad controls all aspects of life, at least in Eli’s eyes. And that won’t change. We also see this level of control in The Giver. In The Giver we see an allusion to absolute power from the committee. “Therefore the selection must be sound. It must be a unanimous decision of the Committee.” This quote from The Giver alludes that a unanimous decision from the committee is the highest power in the community. This makes it clear that both of these stories have suspicious leadership in their communities. Finally, both Eli and Jonas want to escape their communities, and try to get connected with other people. “Out of habit, I clicked on the internet icon. Because it was there. I waited for the message to come up and tell me I was not connected to the world. But it didn’t. Instead, another message came. Wireless Network Now Connected.” That quote from The Compound showed that Eli was curious about connecting back to the world, and hints at wanting to leave the compound and his dad’s leadership. Then in The Giver, at the end of the book we see that Jonas manages to escape his community, and find another community. So in conclusion, The Giver and The Compound have similar characters, settings, communities, and leadership styles. If you like The Giver and all of it’s mystery, and edge of your seat reading, you will definitely enjoy reading The Compound. The Compound shares all of these characteristics; it keeps you invested in the characters, it intrigues you with all of the mystery surrounding the story, and keeps you reading on the edge of your seat. The settings in both books are practically identical with a dystopian future in an isolated community restricted from leaving or trying to contact anyone or anything outside. The characters have similar goals, like Eli wanting to connect to the internet and Jonas wanting to escape the community. And the allusions toward dictatorial leadership, government absolute power, and communism in the way the communities are run. |
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