Part 3: Pictures

  This picture is a visual representation of the quote, "Beneath Heaven is Hell, beneath Hell is Furnace. It shows where each place is in relationship to the other described places using integers, (1, 0, -1, -2), on what looks like an elevator button panel. Heaven is 1. 1 is a positive integer and positive can mean good. "Ground" or Earth, is 0. 0 is not positive or negative, so therefore can be interpreted as "neutral", meaning good nor bad. Hell and the Furnace are -1 and -2, they are both negative so can be interpreted as bad.

  I thought this picture was a great visualization to the reader as they are starting the book. A picture can sometimes provide more intense emotion. You almost wish you could get off at Hell. This picture provides suspense as to how could anything be worse than Hell?

  This image represents Alex in his cell at the Furnace. The boy in the picture seems to be about the age of an adolescent boy. This picture is an idea of how a new member to the Furnace, like Alex, might have felt on his first day. The lighting of the room gives a gloomy feeling of sadness and depression, just like "the light is fleeting". The way the boy is slouched over and how he has his head in his lap makes the viewer feel sad and sympathetic for this boy. The room is deserted and only contains a bed. These feelings are almost exactly the same for Alex. Even though Alex has committed his share of crimes, the reader roots for Alex to strive and views him as the Protagonist.

  An image like this cell helps give visual emotion for the reader.  A greater connection can be made to Alex and how he is feeling. The picture helps the reader build a picture in his head of a cell in the Furnace and how horrible it is.

  This is my interpretation of what a "Hell Hound", as described in the novel, might look like. At the beginning of the book, the reader reads about Alex running for his life in vivid detail. The reader can only imagine what mysterious, dangerous creature Alex is running from. The book describes these Hell Hounds as "massive jaws", "dripping great globs of saliva", "muscles and tendons flexing", "huge feet", "mutant dog", "silver eyes" and "fetid breath".

  I chose to illustrate a Hell Hound because when I was reading the book I had a clear vision of what it would look like. That vision added suspense and more intense emotion for me when I read about Alex's encounter with these beasts. I also felt like I was in Alex's shoes trying to escape. A picture speaks a thousand words.

  I created this picture of light at the end of a tunnel to represent Alex's escape at the end of the book. "Fueled by fear we took less than a minute to find the crack in the rock….We walked to the edge of the drop and peered down….I leaned over the edge and let the cold air embrace me."

  I chose to illustrate this scene because I was so excited that Alex was going to make it! The picture helps the reader see the light at the end and that Alex might actually escape the horrors of the Furnace. This picture helps the reader feel what Alex is feeling when in the book he says, "There was nothing but death behind me, and probably nothing but death ahead, but at least this way I would be free. And smiling at the thought, I jumped." The picture helps capture the idea that freedom lies ahead and only death behind him.

Image 1 - Original image by Fez, http://teh-ebil-spaz.deviantart.com edited by Gregory Decyk
Image 2 - Original image by Author Unknown, edited by Gregory Decyk
Image 3 - Original image by HaltomHooper, http://s727.photobucket.com/albums/ww278/HaltomHooper/?action=view&current=HELLHOUND.jpg&, edited by Gregory Decyk
Image 4 - Original image by Author Unknown, edited by Gregory Decyk