Brock B American Lit

Since the last post Alan and Heather had just moved in from the big city of New York and they wanted to move and start a new life, and that’s what they got. Moving to a town with a bunch of nice people good spirits and a great atmosphere where Alan and Heather could raise a child. Even though the neighborhood is so nice and bright Alan being un easy of things around went and wondered off into the woods and found a mysterious lake that he never recalls being there, but thinks nothing of it. But, is there more?

Now, with Alan being more and more suspicious as the days go on Heather seems to start catching on of Alan’s weird and mysterious behavior, and starts to question Alan on what seems to be bothering him, but Alan doesn’t want Heather to worry about anything due to her horrible life back in New York and Heather seems to finally start to be somewhat happy again. Alan even though he seems to question the lake, seems to have a urge to go back to the lake and see and find out more about this mysterious lake that is on his property. One day when Alan was going to the lake he ended up cutting his leg pretty bad after tripping, Alan decided when he got to the lake to try and wash the cut, but instead of washing it, it healed. There was no sign of a cut, Alan was in utter shock, because he just had a huge cut on his leg that somehow just got healed in an instant. Alan had never seen anything like this, and he decides to run home and try and forget about it, but he just can’t.

I’m very interested to see what Alan will do with his new perspective on the lake and see what more it can do other than just heal people. Or some questions that I have is how is even possible for a lake to do that, did something happen for it to be like that?

The second section of the book “Cradle Lake” has gotten a lot more interesting than it was at the beginning of the book. While Alan and Heather started getting things put together and getting a new feel of the neighborhood, some neighbors by them, started coming over and introducing themselves and bringing Alan and Heather some food as well as some wine. After the neighbors went over to greet Alan and Heather though, Alan started exploring a little deeper within the property and he found a strange path, that would lead to a lake. Alan never knew that there was a lake by the house, even when he was a kid he couldn’t remember ever seeing a lake.

Alan seems to think the lake is weird and mysterious but Alan doesn’t think anything of it because what is bad about it? it’s just a lake. Alan wants to believe that it is just a ordinary lake, but he feels something suspicious is with the lake. Does the lake mean something more deeper? Within my life, im kinda like Alan with some things, with such as like very questionable and wanting to know a deeper meaning within something before knowing what it might truly be. And with some things that i found intresting within this section is that, I love how mysteryoius the overall scheme of things are, with thoughts and questions that Alan has with the lake and how the lake seemed to have got there. While also when Alan is trying to figure out more and more abouth this lake, also trying a be a friendly guy when the nieghbors that he has come over and tries and great him with gifts and wine for being new and moving in. While they are very nice and Heather likes the fact that they are nice, Alan starts to raise his brow about these people and that they are acting a little to nice like something wierd is happening.

The start of the book has been a usual start to any person’s life, moving into a new town. Getting used to things and getting warmed up by the surroundings of an area. At the beginning of the book Alan and his wife Heather are just starting to move into Alan’s uncle’s old house because his Uncle has just passed and the house was put into his name. Alan begins picturing the old ranch house from there as a child as this great and wonderful house, but when they soon arrive the house is holding on by a thread. While Alan is looking at the house the book states “Gone was the butter-colored gingerbread ranch from Alan’s memory. It was now a dirt-colored shoe box with a sagging roof and a frowning wraparound porch. The front windows looked blind with cataracts, and the yard horribly overgrown” (Malfi 8). This house even though it is not what it used to be, in Alan’s head is still special to him because he wants to leave not only his past but Heather’s past back in New York and start a new life somewhere he had been before and had good memories.

Since Alan’s and Heather’s past, they are both mentally exhausted and just want to start new. Heather seems to be in a state of depression after some miscarriages, while Alan wants Heather to start to warm up and begin being the woman she once was before the complications that had happened. The state of depression that Heather has fallen into has also affected Alan because he had quit smoking multiple times but he has started once again because of his wife being in a bad mental state.

So far from reading, I have questions: will Heather and Alan truly ever recover from their past in New York? Because even if you try to forget, some things will always sit in the back of your head and never leave. Another question is how will the people in the new area of the neighborhood react to Alan and Heather being more isolated and more to themselves with things? I’m sure these questions will be answered later on in the story, just need to keep reading and find out.

One of the main reasons, I picked the book “Cradle Lake” by Ronald Malfi is that, a couple years ago my mom actually decided to read the book because it sounded fascinating. As the story progresses the story gets more and more juicy, as if you never want to stop reading because you want to know what’s gonna happen next. Another reason I am picking this book is because the story that the book gives off is an eerie, and mystery vibe of Alan and his wife Heather after they move into an old ranch house after trying to escape New York and after two miscarriages. The ranch house is within a nice wealthy town, and it seems perfect but doesn’t it? Something that gives me the chills a little bit is that the town that Alan and Heather move into is a little too perfect and something suspicious is going on throughout the town. Especially between the town and a lake that Alan finds that gives weird strength and health to the human body.

Throughout all of the texts, all of the texts seem to relate to the mistreatment of Natives and show that whites and also Spanish colonizers took over Native land. All of the texts show what really was happening to Natives and how they were being treated, Red Cloud’s speech was an example of someone who had first-hand experience with the mistreatment and wanted to put a stop to it. Through Red Cloud’s speech, he put in good points about not wanting to have much but peace by stating “We do not want riches, but we want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches, we want peace and love” (Cloud 2). Through Red Clouds’ speech explains problems and also has solutions to those problems and through the speech. Red Cloud just wanted equality with his land and people and the U.S. government was not giving them that equality, but was giving them unfairness by deceiving the Natives. Red Cloud states in his speech “In 1868 men came out and brought papers. We could not read them, and they did not tell us truly what was in them” (Cloud 2). Red Cloud talks about this as well in his speech to show the unfairness within the U.S. government and show what the government was really doing instead of the government hiding what they were doing behind the people’s back.

How does Bartolome De Las Casa’s Text fit into the topic of Cultural Encounters and Frontiers? De Las Casa explains throughout the enite text of how the Spanish Colonizers tormented the Natives, an example of this is by forcing the Natives to convert to Christainity. De Las Casa states how the Natives even tried fleeing to the mountains to try and escape the Christans. ” Others fled to the mountains to avoid the terrible transactions of the Chrisitans. And the Christaians attacked them with buffets and beatings, until they finally they laid hands on the nobles of the villages…” (89, De Las Casa). This fits into the Cultural and Encounters and Frontiers topic because of the Spanish Colonizers coming to a new place of the world and forcing a religion on people (Natives) that have never expeirenced religion before. By the colonizers doing this the Natives didnt like the force being brought on them and when they treid rebelling againts the Christians the Natives would be slaugheterd. An example of unecacerry slaughter of Natives is De Las Casa stating, “The Spaniards made a rule among themselves that for every Christain slain by the Indians, they would slay a hundred Indians.” (90, De Las Casa). So by the Natives trying to rebell againts the Christanity religion and the Spanish Colonizers, they would be slaughtered. So by the Spainish Colonizers coming to the Natives land they wanna produce what they belive into other people which so happened to be the Natives and the Christians didnt like when they didnt want to turn to their religion because the Colonizers believed that there should be only Christianity in religion. Another way that the Spanish punished the Natives were by putting them to work that De Las Casa states “More than two million souls taken captive, and have sent them to do hard labor in the mines, labor in the mines, labors that caused many of them to die.” (90, De Las Casa). This is just another example of the Colonizers punishing the Natives of not wanting to turn to Christainity.

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