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The Night Circus (6 pts): Puppets on the Ends of Monochrome Strings

     Throughout my journey into  The Night Circus , I had only one quote running through my head, and it wasn't even from the novel itself. It was from the first Star Wars prequel: The Phantom Menace, with the quote being Qui-Gon Jinn's, "There's always a bigger fish". At first, it seemed like my brain was just pulling up funny quotes for the hell of it, but the further I read on, the more I realized that it was referring to the amount of manipulation being done by the characters in the story. The story begins with Prospero and the man in the gray suit pulling Celia and Marco's strings, but after the circus is established as the venue, Celia and Marco begin to pull their own strings as well. Soon enough, the entire circus staff is under their control, as well as the exhibitions of the circus itself. Yet, despite manipulation having a negative connotation, there were some people in The Night Circus who used manipulation for good deeds. For example, Celia and Ma...
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Babel-17 (5 pts): Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones...

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A Wild Sheep Chase (6 pts): Why A Sheep?

     If you were to ask someone to think of a sheep, what would they imagine? They would probably think of a flock of fluffy animals grazing in a pasture. Maybe they would think of the phrase "counting sheep" when trying to sleep. I highly doubt they would imagine a ghost that possesses humans and robs them of their free will in order to transform humanity and the world.     But why did Murakami choose to make his ghost a sheep? Japan is very well known for its folklore on spirits (yokai), such as the Yuki Onna and Oni. It would seem that the most obvious choice for a creature in a ghost story would be a famous yokai. However, I believe that Murakami chose the sheep because it reverses the roles of humans and sheep- in which we are the ones being herded instead.     Sheep are very docile animals. They are the epitome of the herd animal, meaning that they will follow anything that leads them, such as a shepherd or sheepdog, and usually stay in groups ra...
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