Children of the Sea

1.) Identify the characters
2.) summarize the plot
3.) Offering personal response/ideas about the story

Characters: Dad, Manman, Daughter, Boyfriend, Old Man, Celianne

Plot:,In the beginning of the story, there is this boy who is writing about the boat that he is on. He talks about the sea and how it is endless. The boy expresses a deep love for the girl that he is writing to. The reason why the boy is on the ship is because he was apart of the youth group that the soldiers are trying to find and kill because they are protesting against the government. He describes the people on the boat and he starts to center his writing about a girl who is pregnant named Celianne. At first we just know that she is pregnant. As the story goes on she ends up giving birth to the child on the boat. As this happens the boat has already started to fill up with water because there is a crack in the middle of it. As more cracks developed, there was more water entering the boat. The people take turns throwing out with a bowl but this is not enough, so they need to have less weight on board. People's personal items are thrown overboard. This is not enough and the big topic is that the girl should throw the baby overboard because it is too much weight. The girl refuses because it is her child. People tried to wait for her to go to sleep to take the child away but as the boy describes it, she was never asleep. But as the story continues, she ends up starting to fall asleep. She knew that the child was dead because it never cried and the lips were purple. So she threw the baby overboard and then herself right after. The boat is sinking even more now and the boy knows that he is going to die. So he is writing in this notebook and he talks about how much he loves this girl. The Old man asks him what he is writing about and he responds with "my will." He knows that she will never read the words he is writing but he still writes about hoe much he loves her. He had a dream that he went to heaven, but it was underwater with mermaids and he could not talk. At the end of the story he talks about how he was destined to die in the middle of the ocean. Then he does die.

The girl is still in Haiti because she was not able to flee because gas was not being sold so they could not drive in their van. She talks a lot about how her dad does not approve the boy that she is in love with. This is a common theme throughout the story. She also talks about the difference between colorful butterfly and black butterfly's. Colorful butterfly's bring good news while black butterfly's bring death and bad news. She talks about all of the killing that is going on where she lives. Their next door neighbors sons head was brought to her as the remanings of him. She hates the soldiers and one night they came to her house. They ended up killing her because she was yelling at them and talking about her son being dead so they killed her. And the girl and her family had to stand by and watch because they were afraid of getting killed by the soldiers too. So they finally leave and the next day her family leaves the town and goes somewhere else. At this point both her and the boy start talking about their love for each other. We start to get more of a story as it goes on. One of the important parts is that the soldiers were asking her father for her. What ended up happening was the father sold all of his land and gave them everything that had away to keep her alive. So now the girl who used to hate her father has to give him respect because he saved her life. A little while later in the story she starts to see black butterfly's. She refuses for one of them to land on her but more and more came. And at this moment she knew that her love was dead at sea.

Personal Response: I feel like this story is similar to Romeo and Juliet because there is two lovers who cannot be together not because of their family, but because their government forced the boy to leave because he was a protester. This is a great story because it shows the meaning and importance of love between two people. It is also a sad story because it seems like they never were able to be in a relationship even thought hey loved each other because of the father and then because they were separated.