The Compound #4. S.A. Bodeen. Pages 147-193.

In my fourth blog post, I will be discussing a little more about the father, Rex, and his reasoning for locking his family in the Compound. In the reading that I had to do for this blog post, there was a major twist in the book. In this reading, Eli found out that living in the Compound was unnecessary and that they should leave. Rex said that he created the Compound because of Eli. During the holiday season, the family went up to their house in Colorado to spend Christmas together. Being the busy man that he is, Rex consistently has to leave for business and a heated driveway was created so Rex could get to the helicopter pad quickly. Eli wanted to spend more time with his father and he wanted his father “to watch me on my new snowboard, wanted him to make hot chocolate afterward.” (170) Since he wanted his father to spend more time with him, Eli turned off the propane tank that was heating the driveway so Rex couldn’t leave for business. Rex confessed to the unnecessary Compound creation, but he wanted to spend more time with his family. Another reason to why Rex made his family go into the Compound was because he didn’t want his kids to become spoiled brats. He has really gone a long way in terms of character development since the Compound was sealed. Rex was nice at the start. Then he became crabby and mad which was due to the conflicts going on within the Compound. Now he’s back to his nice self helping his family escape even though he has Ergoticsm, a poisoning by eating infected grains. The reasons for locking most of his family in the Compound show how Rex has developed back to a nice, caring person.