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Compare Prompt: How the song Astronaut by Simple Plan relates to the book A House in the Sky

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Compare Prompt: How the song Astronaut by Simple Plan relates to the book A House in the Sky

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Astronaut by Simple Plan would be a very good theme song if A House in the Sky was turned into a movie.  The song has very meaningful lyrics that talk about loneliness and separation.  As these are the themes of the memoir, the band sings a song that is closely related to Amanda’s kidnapping and captivity as well as her loneliness and sadness.  The first lines in the song, “Can anybody hear me?  Or am I talking to myself?” sounds like Amanda’s attempts to reach out to people when she us in captivity.  The next lines few lines are “In the search for someone else, Who doesn’t look right through me.”  This can be used to describe how Amanda feels when the boys who captured her see her only as a woman and not as an actual person.  They only see her as a burden or as someone they can abuse.  In the chorus of the song, the writer sings about sending an SOS from a tiny box.  This is exactly what Amanda did at night when she had imaginary conversations with her mother.  This was Amanda’s sense of comfort.  Another line that is very fitting is “Now I’m stuck out here and the world forgot.”  Amanda feels like she has been abandoned many time throughout the memoir and by different people.  When Niall is taken to a different room, when the Canadian government refuses to help, when she escapes to the mosque only to watch the people there side with her captors.  One final line, and maybe the most relatable is “Who’s so disconnected, it’s so different in my head.”  This is similar to when Amanda seems to disconnect her mind from her body and actually sees her captors hurting her from a third person point of view.  “I felt a bizarre, disembodied relief.  Nothing at all hurt.  I’d become unhitched, like a blown bit of dandelion drifting on a pillar of air.  I was an observer, purely an observer, a self without a body”(Lindhout and Corbett 337).  The things that happen to Amanda are indescribably evil and wrong, and although no song can do her memoir justice, Astronaut can at least portray some of her feelings into lyrics.

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Reflect Prompt: A reaction to the memoir: A House in the Sky

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Reflect Prompt: A reaction to the memoir: A House in the Sky

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When I first started A House in the Sky, I honestly did not enjoy it.  Hearing about Amanda’s adventures through the world was interesting, but it was not the eye opening or jaw dropping story like most memoirs.  In my eyes, her opportunity to explore the world, living without commitment and constantly being able to do what she wanted seemed fascinating and envious.  However once the memoir reached the half way point, it seemed to change completely.  The characters that had been discussed were shed in an entirely different light.  I saw the characters at their most vulnerable and rawest stage.  Amanda’s loneliness from being separated from the world, her fear of being raped or killed, and the ever looming sense of despair that for the rest of her life, she would be nothing more than a prisoner were all emotions that the authors portrayed.  Reading the book made me uncomfortable and nervous, something all memoirs seem to do.  I think that this is because when you read a book, these characters are fictional and manipulable.  An author can do whatever they desire to make the story interesting, suspenseful or terrifying.  Memoirs, on the other hand, are true stories.  The contents in the pages you are holding actually happened to someone.  The fear they experience, the loneliness, the pain.  It all actually happened.  Once I had made these connections, it made the memoir a lot more somber.  I enjoyed it, but in a different way than one would enjoy a regular book.  I enjoyed it because it brought light to issues around the world as well as made me grateful for what I have.  While reading the memoir, I was surprised by the fact that even in the modern world, there are still some countries where women are viewed as different or below men.  It made me wonder if the women in my life have ever had to deal with prejudice or different treatment because of their gender.  It increased my respect for them tenfold.  I was also surprised by how radical some people are.  In a way I can understand their thought process.  Since they can not make their voices heard in  regular manners, they resort to extremes like bombings or killing.  I can’t understand how they can still be okay with themselves, or continue to consider themselves the “good guys” after committing such acts.  What inspired my in the book was Amanda’s attitude and her adaptability.  No matter what happened to her, she got through it and managed to get Niall through it as well.  It made me disappointed in myself that I give up on  tasks such as math problems or training programs when they get difficult, and Amanda can survive through 460 days of abuse, rape, loneliness and terror with ever giving up.  No matter what happened to her, she kept herself going.  She considered suicide but fought through it knowing that she was strong enough mentally to defeat her captors.  What angered me was that the Canadian government refused to do anything to help Amanda’s family.  They were more worried about ruining their reputation than saving a Canadian citizen.  I always wondered why it took so long to rescue hostages.  Now I know it is because most of the time the government refused to help and a family already burdened with the despair of losing a loved one has to gather together an unreal sum of money.  Overall, A House in the Sky was an outstanding memoir.  It made me view many things in a different light and it also allowed me to see that no matter what, I can get through anything.

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Reflect Prompt:  Exploring personal questions that this text brings up for me

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Reflect Prompt:  Exploring personal questions that this text brings up for me

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When I read this memoir, it did make me question things about myself.  I think that the biggest one was whether or not I was mentally strong enough to endure the pain and the loneliness that Amanda went through.  If I am honestly speaking, I do not think that I could.  The amount of strength, both mentally and physically, needed to survive that situation is crazy.  I would have given up after a week.  I could never imagine being held captive for over four hundred days.  Her endurance and strong will is something that I wish I could learn to have. Another personal question that I asked myself after finishing the book was whether or not I would have done something to help Amanda and Niall if I was in a position where I could have.  I would like to think that I would have helped the two try to escape or assist with their rescue.  I think that I could muster the strength to risk my life in order to help people who are being wrongly treated.  I feel like I would never be able to forgive myself if I did not at least try to help them.  The last question that this memoir got me asking myself was whether or not I would have the courage to go out and explore the unknown.  Amanda lived her life how she wanted to.  She jumped into the unknown and did what she loved.  I asked myself if I could ever find something that I am so passionate about that I would do anything to achieve the goals and checkpoints needed to do the thing I love.

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Investigate Prompt: A close analytical reading of a passage

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Investigate Prompt: A close analytical reading of a passage

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They came and went.  They fussed with the ropes.  They put the blind-fold on and then took it off.  When I screamed for help, they shoved a sock in my mouth, forcing me to breathe through my nose.  I must have lost consciousness, because I woke to find Skids, on his hands and knees before me, peering intently at my face – checking to see if I was alive.  Twice on that second day, they rolled me over onto my back, on top of my tied arms and legs, which caused my blood to flow into all the parts of me that had gone dead.  The sensation was excruciating, a blast of stippling circulation, but it gave my limbs moments of relief.  Each time, though, when they returned me to the stomach-down position, the pain felt worse than ever.

The calm voice tried to say things, but I argued with it now.

Breathe, it said.  I can’t.  You’re going to be okay.  I’m not.  I’m going to die.  You won’t die.  Keep breathing.  I’m dying.  No you’re not(Lindhoult and Corbett 326-327).

This passage of the memoir is a very significant part of the memoir.   The passage takes place during Amanda’s captivity, and is quite possibly the most torturous thing that her captors do to her.  Her captors bind her wrists and her ankles, and then tie them together behind her back.  They then gag her and blindfold her.  In doing these things, Amanda’s limbs are pulled behind her back and her eyes are put under extreme stress and pressure.  Amanda describes the pain as unbearable and muscle searing.  Not only is this passage significant because it sheds light on some of the awful acts that Amanda suffers, it is significant because at this moment in the memoir, it shows her true mental strength.  Amanda, through the pain and torture her captors put her through, is still able to tell herself that she will be okay.  She is able to demonstrate mind over matter by convincing herself that although her body is undergoing pain, she is still fine mentally.   This passage really shows Amanda’s lowest physical moment and her strongest mental moment.  This contrast is why this passage is important.  Although she argues with herself, there is still a calm, reasonable, and strong part of her mind that knows that the pain she is going through is only temporary and that she is strong enough to get through it.  This determination shows throughout Amanda’s story.  She never gives up and is always a rock for her friends and family.  This passage of the memoir just further proves this point.

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This picture can be related to the memoir A House in the Sky.  Although this picture seems like it wildly different from the horrifying themes of the memoir, there is one aspect it can be related to.  This playhouse seems like just any other playhouse to most people.  However, to a child, this seems like the best place ever.  A place high in the sky where they can pretend to be anything they want.  A safe place for them to grow and to think.  This is similar to Amanda’s house in the sky.  Her house was a place where she would escape to when her captors abused her.  “Lying on my mat, I found relief in visiting my house in the sky.  I went there and tried to stay as long as I could….This sustained me.  It made all the difference” (Lindhout and Corbett 326).  Although the picture is a playhouse or tree house and Amanda’s is a house in the sky, both serve as an escape or a haven for those who need it.