The Ogre - Day 1

1) When Abel first presents himself as an ogre my first reaction was to think of some large unappealing monster. The word ogre is first presented in the novel when Abel says Rachel calls him this. My immediate reaction was that they had a bad relationship. Further on Abel goes and describes the origins of the word. He says ogre comes from "monstrare" which means "to show", (I thought immediately to the Italian word "mostrare" which also means "to show"). With this, Abel says that a monster is something shown and exhibited. The more monster-like the qualities the more exhibited it will be which I can agree with. A quote that stuck out to me is "If you don't want to be a monster, you've got to be like your fellow creatures, in conformity with the species, the image of your relations" (Tournier, 4). I feel this relates to the world today. If someone is seen as anything other than what society considers "normal" these people are indeed perceived somewhat as monsters and treated differently (like being exhibited, shown, watched, etc.).

2) I think part one is written as a diary because it helps to give the reader a closer, more intimate look as to what is going on through the eyes of Abel, how he views things around him. I feel he calls these his "sinister writings" because what he writes is who he really is and what he believes in the writings, and if he was this way outside of his writings society would consider him to be an ogre, a monster of sorts.