Pox Party

At the start of the book it took me a good bit of time to really understand what was going on.  One of the main questions I had was why Octavian was not allowed to go into town, and why it was so dangerous to him.  Upon actually learning of his origins, as well as the time and location of the story it really became clear that because of his race he would be pretty unwelcome there.

I feel as if Octavian's life is pretty much one huge experiment.  The book makes it rather clear that he is not the same as the rest of the people in the house for several reasons.  The most obvious being his race.  It seems to me like the rest of the people in the house don't really see him as a human, more of just a test subject -- again, likely due to his race.  Some evidence of this is when they kill his dog and watch his reaction, to see if he has feelings.  I think that they are experimenting on him so heavily because he is different than them, so they want to know what makes him different.  It is also a bit strange how they treat him.  On one hand it feels as if he is the center of attention and everyone cares about him, but on the other hand it feels like that they really disrespect him sometimes.

One thing I also wonder is if Bono was at one point like Octavian was, where he was sort of the center of attention and everyone was interested in his behavior.


Sean