The White Mountains Discussion 3

I got this from : http://www.hp-lexicon.org/images/rj/rj_castle.gif
Here is a brief description on what is happening so far since the last bit of The White Mountains book. Henry, Will and Beanpole carry on with their journey and the take something called a Schmand-Fair. A Schmand-Fair is pretty much a carriage pulled by horses. Henry, Will and Beanpole took the Schmand-Fair so they could travel faster. The three boys are not exactly getting along too well. Henry and Beanpole have stuck together and are now great friends, but Will is being excluded. Later on Will gets ill (sick) and Henry and Beanpole leave him in a shack while they go out to the fields and get food. People find them all and take them in. Will is treated better than Henry and Beanpole and Henry strongly envies him for that. Later on when they boys plan their great escape Will decides to stay. I know what you're thinking, HOW COULD HE DO THIS? The reason is that he has fallen in love with a girl called Eloise. Eloise has been capped, but Will still is in love with her............................... Now I will answer the question's that I was assigned to answer.
1. How were the Tripods able to control the people?
- Tripods are able to contol people through the cap. The cap is sort of like a metal ring around your head. It is specially shaped for everybody's head-shape. (They do this because some people may have tiny heads [TINY HEADS = TINY BRAIN] and some may have huge heads, most people will just have normal sized heads though. Now you may be thinking : "So what? You can remove the cap? Besides, how can The Tripods control you just like that?" I have to tell you though that you CANNOT remove the cap, it is permanently stuck onto your head. Although sometimes I do wonder is you surgically removed the cap, what would happen? Even though the cap is permanently stuck to your glorious head, it is linked up with your brain. My theory is that

1. They abduct the person, while the person is in The Tripod it's eyes are injected with a poison that makes them temporarily blinded.
2. The Tripods begin to shave the humans head.
3. The cut a round line around the head, then The Tripods place the cap on, the cap has parts that go into your brain.

You have just read my theory. It is a bit disgusting I know, but that's how I see it. Tripods cap people when they come of age (fourteen). They cap all boys and rarely girls. Sometimes if Tripods make a careless mistake in capping a person, they become a vagrant. Vagrants are outcasts, something in their brain has gone wrong and they cannot think right, sort of like a two year old, they forget things easily and wander around a lot. They really don't have a permanent home. This could be a reason why people are scared of being capped. They may be frightened to become a vagrant. Most people think the capping cermony is a gigantic celebration, it is the time when a boy becomes a man (I always thought boys become men when they are twenty). They always have big celebrations and parties, as well as a feast. In France the celebration was bigger, it lasted for a week. People are excited to become capped, this is because they want to be just like everybody else. When you aren't capped, you are young and foolish! But then when you are capped, it's great ( well, they THINK it's great {I strongly disagree} [I strongly disagree because you cannot think for yourself and The Tripods control what you do.] ) because you're just like everyone else. My Lit. Circle group and I were discussing the possibilities of The Tripods being kinder in France. We thought of this because if you look at Eloise's family, everybody is kind-hearted and friendly. But they are all capped. Will comes from Wherton, most likely in Wherton it is so very unusual for a girl to be capped, perhaps not in France though. Look at Eloise and her Mother, they are both capped.
2. Find evidence (quotations from the novel) to show that even though Will is comfortable living at the castle, he is frustrated that the Comte, Cometesse, and Eloise have been capped.
- Will has met a lovely family, the Comte, Cometesse and Eloise, now here's the catch : They've all been capped!
"My feelings, as I listened, were mixed. There was some gratitude for her wanting to protect me: but resentment, too, at being judged, even gently, by a code of conduct which meant nothing to me. At Wherton the girls, like the boys, had come back bare-headed from Capping. My feelings about Eloise herself were also jumbled and uncertain. I had traveled a long road since leaving the village, not only in hard reality but in my attitude toward people. More and more I had come to see the Capped as lacking what seemed to me the essence of humanity, the vital spark of defiance against the rulers of the world. And I had despised them for it--despised even, for all their kindness to me and their goodness, the Comte and Comtesse.
But not Eloise. I had thought her free, like myself. I might even have come to the idea--it's beginnings, I think, were in my mind already--that when we set off once more for the White Mountains, there might not be three of us, but four. All this was rendered futile by the sight of her bare head. I had come to think of her as my friend: perhaps more. But now I knew that she belonged, irretrievably, body and soul, to the Enemy." (page 115 and 116)
Over here it shows that Will's feelings have changed slightly about Eloise. He is very upset that she has been capped, he also wished for her to come to The White Mountains as well. Now that she is capped, he has also realized that capped people can be nice and kind, so he is considering being capped, if he does get capped and he is nice, he won't mind as much, but I would still mind a lot because The Tripods still can control what you are thinking.
3. Find evidence (quotes) to show how Will feels about being capped.
- Will doesn't want to be capped, but all of that could change because of Eloise.....
"Whatever privileges I was given, I would still be sheep among sheep. In the morning, I thought of it again. I rejected it again, too, firmly but less quickly, and with a feeling of being virtuous in doing so. To accept would be to let down the others- Henry and Beanpole, the Vagrant Ozzymandias, Captain Curtis, all the free men in the White Mountains. I would not do that: nothing would tempt me to.” (page 121)
Over here in this passage Will does not want to be a capped person because he will be letting down everybody. He will also be letting down himself, Henry, Beanpole, Ozzymandias, Captain Curtis and all the other free people in The White Mountains. He shouldn't let them down, because what if Ozzymandias comes back to The White Mountains and discovers Will isn't there, but he meets Henry and Beanpole, and they tell him that Will met a girl and decided to be capped. Ozzymandias would tell his friends and Will would become a coward known to them.
"They were capped, they accepted the Tripods and all they stood for......"
Here it seems like Will is so annoyed with the people who have been capped. THEY ACCEPTED THE TRIPODS...... It is like those people have given up on life, and Will was almost one of them.