This section features writings by our readers. Topic suggestions for this issue are "Saving It" and "Misunderstandings." You can also send us something you've written from the creativity exercises on this page, or anything else you'd like.Make sure your writing isn't more than 300 words long, and then just email it to sherry@thescriptorium.net, and put the words "Scriptorium Scribbles" in the subject line! We can't wait to read your submissions, so get busy and send them in!
Death
by Madison Winborne
It's quiet now, not a single sound
You're going to go where others can't be found,
Under the surface, hold your breath
We're walking the dusty roads of death
Quicker now, keep up the pace
You're running a never ending race.
All across the world we'll go
Now time is beginning to slow
Soon you'll fall into a deep sleep
Where all the things you've done you will reap
No need to ever wake again
Cause your life has come to an end.
Book Review--Long Day's Journey Into Night
by Casey
The play "Long Day's Journey into Night", by Eugene O'Neil, is a magnificent play. Throughout, the reader can feel the characters' desire to be happy with their lives along with each others'. As the play starts the idea of it only taking place in one location and during the span of one day seems a bit boring, but reading on it is so engaging that it goes by very fast. O'Neil's detailed characterization of each person in the play makes all of them, in their own kookiness, seem so real. The character Mary alone has many depths of her personality. At first she is said to still hold the girlish characteristics of a shy convent-girl (13), but as the play progresses it is discovered that this is only a barrier she puts up between her and the world. She does this in order to hide a drug addiction and the resentment of bad decisions she made for herself in the past.
Along with his compelling characterizations, O'Neil uses suspense to draw the reader in closer. He constantly brings up Mary’s drug addiction, but only gives the reader a small amount of information at a time. O'Neil also uses suspense as he goes into the conflict between the father (Tyrone) and his son (Jamie). He plants the reader quickly into the conflict at hand, and then he slowly picks it apart. This technique creates a sudden confusion for the reader, but its effect makes them concentrate harder to the matter at hand. O'Neil has the reader engaged in the play the whole way through. At the end it feels as if the reader knew these people and their hardships were non-fictional. After doing research on the play, O'Neil centered it a lot around his own dysfunctional family, which perhaps gives it a realistic quality.
Since "Long Day's Journey into Night" holds so many valuable lessons of life, it should be mandatory reading at the high school level. O'Neil clusters so many outstanding fundamental values in his play; making it quintessential for young readers to study. He writes of the importance of stability in the home, self-determination, and education. On the other hand, the theory that it should be read nation wide could be halted because of the way O'Neil interprets each value. Scenes like where the Tyrone calls his son a disgrace, waste of money, and a bad influence on his younger brother could be considered unacceptable in places with religious and happy morals. This could make it easily banned in religious based schools. Because of the conflict between father and son and other references of an ill lifestyle, the play could be a negative matter for someone that is used to a culture of forgiveness and family love. When it comes down to it, plays like this one, and a perhaps sister play "Death of a Salesman," are crucial in learning, no matter what the excuse. They reveal a side of life that isn't sugarcoated. In addition to helping the reader feel and learn new emotions; this of which gives the power to reading.
About the Author: Casey is 17 and in Grade 11 She has been a ballet dancer for 14 years and likes to write analysis essays.
How Does One
by Brittney
How does one cry
when tears are wanted
but eyes are dry?
How does one cry
when pain is felt
and there's gray in the sky?
Why does one not care
when the people around one's self are morons
and don't even dare?
Why does one not care
when people die
because they chose to dare?
One does not know
how or why
one does not know.
But, one does know
that we live the way we want.
That's what one knows.
About the Author: Brittney is 13 and in Grade 8. She likes to write poetry and horror and is homeschooled.
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