The Sea Inside

1. Watching The Sea Inside made me realize how sometimes you need to fight to survive; or for death. Ramon Sampedro's life was dramatically changed with one accident when he was in his early twentys. The area of the ocean by Ramon's house was tretchorous, and Ramon wasn't paying attention to the water when he jumped in, and it resulted in him being paralized. I think that any person should have the right to end their life if they're in the position Ramon was. His friends were willing to help him because i think they saw the pain Ramon was in (not physical, but emotional).
2. Ramon Sampedro and Jean-Dominique Bauby both were paralized, but i think they were having different struggles. Ramon was fighting to end his life, while Bauby was fighting for life. Bauby was trying to show people that he still had a fully functional mind, he just wasn't able to express it very clearly. Yet he still found a way to communicate with the outside world. He was a fighter, if you will. Ramon had decided he could'nt continue his life if he was paralized. He believed he couldn't simply love because of his condition. I believe the Diving Bell and the Butterefly was more powerful because Bauby kept fighting after his accident. He showed that life is a precious thing, and shouldn't be taken for granted.
3. In The Sea Inside I noticed that there were alot of close up shots throughout the movie. There were some different camera movements too, including panning. One scene that I noticed the camera angles was the scene when Julia is looking at the old picture of Ramon, before the accident. The camera shot is an extreme close up, and it really adds meaning to the scene. It seems to make it more dramatic.

In chapter fourteen Danielle is confronted by the 'man in the aviators', again. This time is different though. Since getting chased down the streets of Vietnam by an unknown man, she has been very scared. She stays up all night in her hotel room, unable to sleep because of the thought that the man knows where she is staying. The man comes to her hotel window at night, and tries to rob her.

"Before I had a chance to get out of bed, s sharp pain stabbed through my shin. I rolled off the bed just in time to see a metal hook-attached to a broom handle as long as an arm- jutting from the window ledge. From the floor, I watched it rise and descend, swooping near the backpack I'd left at the foot of the bed...Moonlight caught upon the jeans of the man with the aviator sunglasses as he crawled over the balcony and climbed down to the street."

Danielle was scared of the man before, and now she is terrified. The hook cut deep into her shin, by the bone. She tells the receptionist of the hotel tells her about how he knows the man before, he has been known to steal from tourists. The man is not from Vietnam. The receptionist tells Danielle he will take care of it in the morning.

This chapter also flashes back to a time where Kelly, Danielle's sister, got pregnant. Kelly grew up to be just like her dad, heavy drinking daily, arrogant, and tough. The pregnancy was caused by a one night stand and the father wasn't heard from again. When her dad found out about her being pregnant, he yelled at her. He yelled at her about how she is a slut, immoral, and can't raise a child on her own. When Kelly actually has the baby, her dad changes his mind, in love with the fact that he now has a grandson.

Danielle's dad's friend, Goodman, also dies in this chapter. They were taking turn blowing out tunnels, and he was caught off guard. The irony of Goodman's death; it was really Danielle's dad's turn, Goodman was just closer to the tunnel. When checking tunnels to make sure they are inactive, one has to be very stealthily and quick. Goodman was being careless, and paid the price. He was shot right between the eyes by a Vietcong and the back of his head was blown off.

"Dad picked up Goodman's burned-down cigarette and took a deep drag. He told me this story many times over the years, and every time he said the same thing: 'That bullet had my name written all over it. It was my turn, and Goodman took it.'"

Seeing Goodman die changed him. He couldn't believe it was actually happening. He was instantly filled with hatred, sadness, and fear.

Chapter thirteen bounces around a lot and talks about many different things. The first thing to happen in this chapter is another flashback to the day Matt got hit by the car. He ends up surviving, but can't walk for almost a year. The doctors are surprised because there is almost no way to reach the kids parents and they are out of town. When Danielle's dad finally does show up, he reeks of beer and doesn't sympathize, but continues to use 'tough love'. He says,
(watch the language ms. tholen)
"'Dumb little shit,' Dad said, shaking his head, 'running around in traffic like that.' Which in Dad code, was a prayer of thanks that his child was going to be okay."

It then flashes back to Danielle's childhood. She talks about how there was no supervision when she was growing up, so she was able to do whatever she pleased. Her dad didn't exactly play the role of a 'father' in this book; not caring about her grades, how many detentions she would get, curfew, things like that. It talks about how she would steal money from her dad's gun cabinet to buy acid. Any time her dad would confront her, however, she would lie and he would believe her.

"I stood and went back to my room. leaving him to believe that Kelly was the only thief in his house."

Chapters eleven and twelve tell more about Danielle's dad's experience in the war and more about the divorce. Danielle's mother looks upon the divorce like it never happened, and if Danielle were to ask her about her childhood, she would pretend to not remember. Her mother has decided to move on with her life, but her dad is still greatly affected by it, with drinking as the only way to drone the old feelings out.

" For a long time- even after the divorce became final- my father could not grasp that our life on Trussoni Court had ended."

Danielle talks about the first Christmas they celebrated after the divorce. The family (minus the mother) went to their uncle Gene's house. On the way home from the family dinner and such, Danielle's dad takes a wrong turn and heads toward the old house on Trussoni Court.

"When the truth hit him, he slammed on the brakes and cut the engine, leaving the truck mid-road. Folding his arms over the steering wheel, he buried his head in his hands and sobbed. We kids looked from Dad to the long empty highway, scared. We had never seen our father cry before. ..... 'Are you okay, Dad?' I asked him, touching his arm. 'Get in the house, he mumbled. 'Go on. I'm fine.' I think it was then, as I walked over the icy sidewalk, leaving my father to cry in his truck, that I began to hate my mother."

This quote shows that Danielle is more on her dad's 'side' involving the divorce. Even though her mother did hurt her dad, she must have been in a lot of pain as well during the divorce.

Chapter twelve talks more about her in Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and about her dad during the war. Danielle is followed again by the mystery man again, and ends up even being chased. I'm not sure who this guy is yet, but I'm sure he will have an important role towards the end of the book, once we find out who is actually is. Danielle ended up having to steal a bike just to get away from the man.
The end of the chapter is about her dad searching a tunnel (he was a tunnel rat in Vietnam). He describes the tunnel, saying how it is the most elaborate one he had ever been in. The one thing about scene that effected me is when him and Goodman found the hospital ward in the tunnel. Danielle's dad finds a dying old man and he tries yelling something to him in Vietnamese. Since her dad can't understand, he kind of just stares at the man, unable to look away from his eyes. With the old man is a boy, not older than 16, who is thought to be his son. Goodman takes the young man captive and kills the old man.

"When they were almost to the surface, my father paused in the darkness, as if held back by a kind of gravity. Years later, in the dim light of Roscoe's, he would tell me that he felt a pain he hadn't felt before, the pain of something inside of himself dying. He knew he had lost part of himself underground that day. What remained climbed up to the sunlight, and to the rest of his life."

He was deeply affected by the helpless old man being killed.

Danielle's life is changed in the end of chapter ten. It gives the gruesome details of her younger brother, Matt, getting hit by a car.

"He was just off the curb when a brown Mercury (going, the police report would later confirm, too fast for a twenty-five-mile-an-hour street; going, the police report suggested, at least thirty-five) clipped him with its bumper. My brother popped into the air, just high enough for the grill to get him full on. I saw a sparkle of sunlight on the chrome. I saw a blur of Matt movement as my brother was thrust backward. He hit the pavement headfirst and rolled, stopping at the curb, a few feet from where he started."

I stopped reading at the end of this chapter, and it didn't say weither he died or not. It described his body as twisted, his head a "red flower, broken at the stem".
This chapter also talked about how Danielle's dad has countless girlfriends. There were two different kinds of women in his life: the ones that stayed over night and were never seen again, and the ones that stayed around. He had lots of both. The book goes into deep detail about three of the girls who stayed around: Maria Vargas, Suzie, and Lolly Parsons. Maria is a Mexican girl that Danielle's dad has over to the house for drinks, but he never tells anyone that is is associated with her. He doesn't tell people about her because she is an illegal immigrant and he is a very "American" man (goes on about how his taxes shouldn't be used on food stamps for people 'like her'). Maria is also a married woman, but her husband is in jail. Suzie is Danielle's dad's Roscoe's girlfriend. She is a much younger girl, Danielle even thinks of her as the older sister she never had. Suzie is another one of her dad's drinking buddies and he is impressed how she can always keep up with how much he drinks. Danielle really likes Suzie because she says her dads temper dissolves when he is with her. Lolly is the crazy girlfriend. She is the type of girl everyone is warned to stay away from, but Danielle's dad doesn't listen. She is described as a home wrecker and a gold digger. She was recently send to jail for breaking and entering of Danielle's house and now her dad is attempting to get a restraining order from her. But Lolly still won't leave him alone.

The book goes back to the time where she was visiting Vietnam again. She sees the man in the aviators again, and he even gets very close to her. He comes up to her taxi, puts his fingers up in a V, and walks away. Her friends all joke about it and she says something that states this man is going to have a big role in the book maybe later on.

"Suddenly, I felt something that I had never expected to feel-that Vietnam might not let me off so easily. However illogical, I was sure, suddenly, that I had inherited a debt and this man had come to extract it. As he walked closer, I believed in fate, retribution. That nothing of the past was forgiven. Or forgotten."

It then goes back to life when Danielle was younger. It talks about how her dad was diagnosed with throat cancer. It talks about how it disappeared and returned, he had to go through chemotherapy. He is also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. His report shows he is suffering from the following things:

Being overly alert
Felling emotionally numb
Experiencing feelings of paranoia, excessive sensitivity, or that like has "backed you up against a wall"
Experiencing physical reactions when you are reminded of the traumatic event
Reliving the traumatic even, acting or feeling as if it is happening again
Trying not to think about, talk about, or have feelings about the traumatic event
Having bad dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event
Not being able to remember an important part of the event.

He is told to go to therapy and other counseling. Even with the report on his illness, he still believes he doesn't have a problem. There are times in the book where he will be doing something and he will abruptly stop what hes doing, and start telling a story about the war. Danielle talks about how it physically pains her to see how in denial of things her dad is.

Chapter seven is all about a school shooting that happened at her school, Saint Patrick's Grade School. It was a day like any other, but a townsman came in and, to put it quite literally, shot up the school. His name was Brian Stanley, and he shot Father Rossiter, and other staff people, claiming God had sent him to do so. Danielle recalls how she hadn't been able to confess all her sins to the Father in time.

The book is also talking about how the divorce is being finalized and such. Danielle decides she would rather live with her dad rather than her mom.

"And I knew, by the way she turned away-pain giving her an elegance she did not have five minutes before-that she accepted my choice and that was my first step away from her would remain forever between us."

Danielle says this quote after her Dad gets upset and argues keeping the kids for the weekend (when its originally the mom's weekend). After Danielle decides to stay with her dad, her mom realizes it may be a permanent thing. Danielle misses her mom.
Her dad is a wreck right now. He is continuing to tell stories about the war (which Danielle's heard many times) and is still in love with Danielle's mom. Danielle is a twelve year old girl having to deal with many pains that divorce and addiction inflict. She tells about how sometimes her dad will leave her on the side of the curb, forgetting to pick her up to go to Roscoe's.

(This is more of a paragraph than a quote, but i think its pretty important.)

"On these evening, when I had been forgotten, I felt waves of desperate isolation wash over me, a sensation I would one day call depression but which, at the time, I designated as pure, pervasive cold. There was no remedy for it, no prescription, nothing I could do to nurse myself to warmth. I was utterly, hopelessly bone-chilled on a blasted-out-moonscape sidewalk. It made no difference that I had a room packed with books and clothes and CDs in the house behind me. I would not go inside. I would sit and wait. I would absorb the ice and the snow and the wait until I was frostbitten blue. I would hold out until the end, continuing the game of chicken I played with my father, wanting (for once) to win."