THE MESSENGER

PLOT SUMMARY

• Exposition: we are introduced to all the charactors, and the setting/time.
• Matty: a boy taken to village when he was young, from a place of poverty, who takes care and lives with seer
• Seer: a man taken here when he was blinded, living with matty. raised matty ever since he came.
• Leader: the coordinator of Village. Came here on a sled. Also known as Jonas in the Giver
• Mentor: teacher at village. Helps newcomers learn the right ways of living.

EXPOSITION CONT.

• Village society: this is where all the main charachtors I mention lives.
• - this is a place where imperfect people are welcomed, crippled, homeless, lost, and just plain different
• Time period: this book doesnt tell you directly what time period this is. I think it's late 1900's
• -This is similar yet completely different from our society today, so it could be the future.
• There is a connecting woods. It is feared by the people their but Matty crosses through it all the time.

RISING ACTION

• Matty discovers his gift of healing, while recovering an immobile frog
• -he also heals dogs, which takes much out of him, it takes a day to regain strength
• Leader notices selfishness creeping in, all deriving off of trading
• -people aren't trading objects anymore, people are trading themselves or their flaws
• Matty gets Kira. Kira agrees to go and live in Village. They start their journey back.

CLIMAX

• Matty and Kira get stuck in the woods. They become very sick, almost dead.
• Leader and Kira speak together through their gifts, and tell matty to heal.
• Matty places his hands on the ground, and heals forest.
• - he also heals village, and everyone their who traded themselves.
• Matty dies a hero. He gets his true name, healer.

DENOUEMENT

• The keening begins in village because Matty died.

CONFLICTS

• Man vs. Nature
• Also if your looking in terms of allegories, it could be man vs. Himself

Untitled Slide

I think that the life lesson to this book is to not fall into pure pressure. Almost all these characters cracked, except those like Matty. The world needs more heroes like Matty, that won't fall into pressure but rather thrive. If you don't fall into sin, (trading) than you will ultimately prosper, but if you do fall into sin, than you will receive punishment which was death in this book, but Matty who is Jesus in the allegory, will save everyone.

My book ended in irony. Matty is so close to getting home with Kira, after all he went through and struggled/fighter for, he ended up losing his life. After reading this book, I concluded that the tone of the book is very serious. I think that it is also anxious because there is so much to this book that got me worried, or even excited for the next chapter.

In this book, I found a lot of sensory imagery when Matty was in the woods going to get Kira, and also when he was coming back. He talked a lot about how bad the forest looked, and how bad it smelled. He also talked about how the berries all of a sudden tasted sour, and bitter. He heard faint voices in the woods as something was stocking him, and soon found out that woods was plotting its death

Simile: page 141 "Matty didn't want to alarm her, but he was in excruciating pain, as if his arms had been burned by fire."
Personification: page 9 "The trees seemed, sometimes, almost to part and usher him through."
Hyperbole: page 109 " Matty saw the blind man touch his daughter's face, to learn her, and he watched in silence as they mourned Kira's mother together, their hearts connected by the loss.
Metaphor: page 147 "The razor-sharp seeds sliced mercilessly into into their legs..."

I loved this book. I think that the ending was very satisfying. The author put a lot of thought into this book. I actually love the irony at the end. I didn't find much humor in this book, it was serious. This book inspires me to be a better person, and to be more like Matty, becomes he demonstrated hero like qualities and obeyed, and was overall a good person. I feel as if the author should have let Matty hear his true name. I think it is sort of sad that he didn't get the name he truly wanted, but I do think its nice that the title of the book is Messenger