Week One

Reading Two: "The Shabbat"

1. The short story comic, "The Shabbat", was written by Nasreddine Shah. The time period of this story is during the bombing in Iran. The main character, Marji, is an average girl and living the average day life in Iran. Marji heard there was a bombing on her street. Marji ran home to see if her family was dead or not. Once Marji found out that her family was all safe, she found out that her neighbors house was hit and that Jews normally stay home on the Sabbath (Saturday). After Marji found the neighbor girls bracelet, Marji came to a conclusion that the neighbors were home and died from the bomb that hit their house.

2. At the beginning of the story I was a little confused. The beginning of the story was more like information and then the middle of the story was more like the beginning of the story. During the middle and end part of the story I felt happiness and sadness. I felt happy when I found out that Marji's family was fine. Then suddenly after the relief of finding out that Marji's family is ok, the audience discovers that Marji's neighbor friend died from the bomb.

3. The relationship of the characters are between Marji, the main character, and the neighbor girl Neda. The girls have a building friendship which then gives each character the emotions of caring. The characters roles within the story are relating to past history events, bombing in Iran.

4. My main focus reading this short story was on the language. At the beginning of the story, I was beginning to get confused. I then had to reread out loud the beginning of the story and listen to the words to understand the meaning of the information of the story.

5. Comic layouts of short stories give a story a whole new meaning and audience interpretation. I think that my view of the story may differ from other students by the way I comprehend the language and images within the comic short story.

6. This story makes me rethink of the knowledge I learned within my Children Literature class of fall 2013. In Children Literature class we read and dissected the use and meaning behind the literature within Comic's.

7. "The Shabbat" is a short story that was created as a comic layout. Within my McCloud book that was required for Children Literature, the book spoke of how spacing the boxes gives a sense of time. The images and literature help give the audience emotion.

To speculate about the meaning and importance of "The Shabbat" text, the audience must pay attention to the language of the the author and the images portrayed within the boxes and space between the boxes.