My book is titled “Eaters of the Dead” by Michael Crichton. There are two
major themes to this book. First is man versus man and the second is man versus
nature. The nature that man is going up against in this book were the
supernatural monsters that terrorized the town. Through most of the second half
of this book the northmen are fighting the monsters or preparing to. This is the
main struggle of the book. These monsters are the “eaters of the dead.” The
second struggle of this book is man versus man. This man versus man struggle is
an internal struggle between the tribe. It is a struggle for power within the
tribe. This occurs at the beginning of the book. Two men of the tribe are
struggling for power after the leader has died. Those were the two main themes
of the book. The main conflict in this book is the men fighting the monsters.
Throughout most of the novel the men are fighting these monsters. The monsters
had killed many people in the village and kept returning to kill some more.
These monsters were the main problem within the town and the villagers had to
kill them. This conflict was finally resolved when the men killed off the rest
of the monsters. The main character in this book was Ibn Fadlan. He is the only
character in this book that you really get to learn a lot about. At first he
seems like he he is a stuck up Arab rich man. He criticizes the northmen and
doesn’t go along with their rituals. He basically doesn’t give them any
respect at all. Then he starts to change though. After being with the northmen
for awhile he starts to become like them. He acts like them, and he takes part
in some of their rituals. A symbol in this book was the huge sword that the
leader of the tribe uses. It was a huge sword and it symbolized strength and
leadership. It was a huge sword so it would take a very strong person to use it.
It showed you who the leader of the tribe was. This contributes to my man versus
man theme. It can show you that he was stronger than the rest, so he deserved to
be the leader. An American issue that relates to this is the struggle for power
in American companies. Many companies are having a struggle for power within.
This was just like how there was a struggle for leadership of the tribe. The two
northmen were struggling for power of the tribe. This can be closely associated
with the struggle for leadership today in America. I enjoyed this book a lot. It
had lots of action and adventure. It had very many exciting points. It was a
book that I actually like to read. I think that it should be on the list of new
and improved books. I’m sure that many kids would like it.