Entry 2 (In Darkness)

In my book, In Darkness, Shorty is a complex character. In the parts of the book that take place present time, he either wants to die, or to get out of the rubble. He can’t decide and is in a constant mental battle with himself on which he should choose. Also, in each of the stories he tells us of his childhood, he becomes even more of a complex character because he desires many other things. For example, in the story of how Shorty and his twin sister, Marguerite, they save a dying baby from a trash can. Shorty wants to save the baby, but yet at the same time, he doesn't want to walk out of the city, where he could die, and the chances of finding someone who actually wants to and has the capability of helping are extremely slim. Another example is, in this book many of the Haitian civilians view the drug-dealing gang leaders as who should run the country, and the United Nations soldiers as invaders and should leave them to run their own country. Shorty doesn't know who to believe because to him, the UN soldiers are nice. My book is structured by taking place inside Shorty’s head. It jumps back and forth between past and present as he explains different stories to us and the thoughts he has inside the hospital rubble. 

Entry 1 (In Darkness)

I am reading the book In Darkness, by Nick Lake. It is hard to identify main characters in this book because most of the book so far are thoughts and stories from inside the main character’s head. There are main characters in each story, but they differ each time. So some of the major characters that repeatedly come up in each story are the young Haitian boy, Shorty, who is telling us the stories, his twin sister Marguerite, a gang leader known as “Biggie”, and Dread Wilme. The setting is also hard because there is the setting of the dark rubble under a hospital where Shorty is trapped as he tells us these stories, and then the setting of most of the stories he tells are in the small, poor town of Cite Seleil. The main overall conflict in my book so far is Shorty is trapped under the rubble of a hospital after an earthquake in Haiti. He is slowly dying of thirst, hunger, and insanity. He needs to get out. Also, there are many side conflicts in the stories he tells, such as fights between the gang members, crimes of other people, and as Shorty and his twin try to survive in the violent country of Haiti.