Blankets- Chapters 8-9

In Chapter 8, I loved the example of "Socrates asking his disciple Glaucon to imagine human beings living within a dark cavern," on page 495. I loved how the humans accepted everyhting that was shown to them as truth, and when it turned out to be false, they believed that they were not in the wrong but the truth. The humans believed that the truth must be wrong or misleading. I also loved the images of fire and shadows that this mini story showed. The images of shadows made me think of something hiding and lurking, which I think the author used perfectly to connect these images and thoughts with Raina. The story and Craig, "realize what he'd known as a human was merely the shadow of a statue of a human" (pg. 501.) Craig not only realized that she was fake and not human, but she was doubly fake, a SHADOW of a STATUE of a human.
The scene where Craig is being lectured to by the adults at his church on attending art school is hilarious to me. The exaggerated facial expressions of the adults and the exaggerated noises, such as the sniffs, gulps, and gasps, were hilarious. In some cases, they could be cliched and overplayed, but here I felt the author used them perfectly to portray the narrow-mindedness of Craig's church and the community where he lived. Another aspect of the novel, pages 564 and 565, linked with the narrowmindedness of the religion taught at Criag's church. I found it interesting that the author depicted the Jesus figure as dark and forboding in the Bible stories taken straight from the Bible, but the Jesus figure depicted when Craig is doing what he feels is right and putting his own individual ideas into religion and belief, such as kissing Raina or remembering her blanket, is ablazed with light and smiling in approval. The smiling and warm figure of Jesus shows that Craig is deviating toward a more personal and independent faith that is not narrow minded and restricted like his church and community's.
I did not really like the end of the story. I felt like it just stopped mid-story, with no real ending. I wanted to know what happened to Raina and even to Craig. I just felt like there were so many ends left open, nothing explained. I understand that this is what the author may have been going for, but I'm mroe the type for a concrete ending.