September+23-KAVALIER+AND+CLAY+THE+ESCAPIST-Molly+Velazquez

In class we started to discuss the homework which was pages 67-161 in //The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay//. We mainly focused on chapter 8, which is about the story of Tom Mayflower and how he comes to be The Escapist. In the chapter Tom helps his uncle Max perform his escape act as Misterioso. As Max is doing the act he gets shot by members of the Iron Chain, but no one in the audience notices. Max tells Tom that the show must go on and that Tom has to finish the act in his place. Tom puts on the costume and Max gives him a golden key that when Tom takes the limp that he has in one leg goes away almost magically. Tom goes on and performs the act as Max well but returns backstage to find that Max is dying. With his dying breathes Max tells Tom the story of how he came to be an escape artist and the story behind the magical golden key. When Max was young he was kidnapped and help for ransom. A man in a white suit appears and try to free Max but ends up being shot, as he is dying he gives Max the golden key. Max is heart broken and spends the majority of his life spending all of his money and time searching for the lock that the key goes fits with. When Max finally does run out of funds to continue his search he finds himself at a circus and sees an ogre that he wants to set free. He gives his last worldly possession of any value--the golden key--to the man who owns the ogre in order to have him be set free. At that moment another man in a white suit who is part of the League of the Golden Key appears and tells Max that he finally realized the true purpose of the golden key. With this Max becomes Misterioso and continues to free those in need, including Tom who he freed from and orphanage. As Max is dying he hands this responsibility and the golden key to Tom to continue and thus the Escapist is born. Here are some images of the Escapist.

The next scribe is Nolan.