My two main topics are; Don’t let other determine your worth, and Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.
In the book Uglies and the Movie Gattaca the main characters struggle with these two topics.
The book Uglies follows a 15 going on 16 year old girl, who is an Ugly and would do anything to become a Pretty sooner than her 16th birthday. All she’s ever had to look forward to was turning 16 and becoming pretty. She wishes for it even more because her best friend in the whole world just became pretty and she is separated from him, ready to do anything to be by his side again. Throughout the book we get to watch Tally grow and learn. She learns that being a Pretty is not all that it's cracked out to be, that
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when you get the Pretty surgery you lose your individuality. You are made like everyone else, pretty, perfect, and brainless. When they get the surgery, the doctors do not only make them beautiful on the outside but they take a piece out of the brain that makes them their unique, individual self. Making Tally decide she doesn't want to be a Pretty anymore, but the only way for her to save all of her Ugly friends is to become a Pretty. In Gattaca people are born either a “God Child” born naturally or born of a genetically modified egg before inseminated into the womb.
The main character Vincent was a God Child and In-Valid, but he always dreamt of going into space. He was always second best after his brother Anton was born. His brother Anton was born of genetic modification. He grew faster, taller, and stronger, was born a faith birth, he was born with a heart condition that would only let him live until he was 30 some years old. His parents didn't believe in him, so he left, taking everything that connected him to his family, which was very little. He wound up working as a janitor at Gattaca. Where his dream really took over every thought he possessed. Vincent was going to work there one day that he promised. He met a man that could make all his dreams come true. That's when Vincent started the transition from Vincent to Jerome. Jerome was a Valid, who got into a car accident, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, so Vincent became Jerome and started working at Gattaca. Soon Jerome (Vincent) would be on his way to space. Using his smarts and all the DNA Eugene (Jerome) would collect for him. But there was a conflict, the director at Jerome’s (Vincent’s) work was murdered, and Jerome (Vincent) was seen as a key suspect. He did everything he could to get passed the accusation, and one of the key investigators turned out to be his brother, Anton. Vincent did everything in his power to still be able to …show more content…
go to space. But in the end it was a random act of kindness that let him go. In both stories the main characters, Tally and Vincent want to become something they are not for social acceptance and personal gain.
Tally's gain was to be reunited with her best friend, and Vincent's was to go to space. The stories are both set in a dystopian future society, they are kind of close in the fact that they change people to make them better or more acceptable. In the Uglies they have to wait until they turn 16 to be made Pretties and acceptable. In Gattaca they are either born perfect or Valid (genetically modified) or they are born In-valid (naturally). Both Tally and Vincent experience a conflict that makes them question if what they have done, or will do is worth it. Vincent decides yes, he’ll stay pretending to be Jerome but Tally decided no, she doesn't want to become pretty anymore. In the end of Gattaca Vincent gets what he wants, he goes to space. The ending of Uglies isn’t so satisfying, Tally ends up becoming Pretty, but kind of for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones. It was an act of selflessness on her part rather than
selfishness.
The bureaucratically controlled Fahrenheit 451 society and the technologically controlled Gattaca society depict similar, as well as different, aspects of dystopian dehumanization. There are also commonalities shared by Vincent and Montag in their struggles of gaining some control of their life, and staying under the radar while persevering to fulfill a desire that goes against societal conformity, yet they also contrast each other in some aspects.
The book I read was Pretties by: Scott Westerfeld. This book is the second book in a trilogy. The first book is Uglies. You will understand Pretties better if you read Uglies.
The outlook on our future is promising due to teenagers realizing how crucial uniqueness is in this world. Teenagers are coming to the realization that a person’s heart is much more important than their outer appearance. Teenagers are beginning to understand that a person’s outer appearance isn’t what’s going to make the world better, their heart is. In both “The Uglies” and in “Harrison Bergeron”, the authors show how they believe the future is going to turn out. Their predictions show a future that is not so promising and a future that is completely controlled by their government. Reading these stories should inspire young teenagers minds and help them realize that this isn’t the type of future they want, which will then lead to teenagers
Most readers should be able to relate to the characters in this book. The main character is a thirteen year old girl named Celeste Harris. She is an overweight junior higher who thinks nothing could be worse than popular mean Lively Carson stealing her best friend, Sandra. That was until her Aunt Doreen secretly enters Celeste into a pageant for plus-sized girls. Regardless, Aunt Doreen is a typical average aunt who is always in people’s business and has two daughters. While Kristen is the youngest and looks like a Barbie doll, Kathleen is the oldest who is getting married. Now, Sandra has been Celeste’s best friend since third-grade. That is until, Lively Carson, Celeste’s worst enemy who always makes fun of her, changes that. Finally, Violet Page is a famous large-sized model who is the host for the Miss Husky Peach pageant. She also is married to Theo Christmas who is Celeste celebrity crush ever since she saw him in concert.. Readers can learn a lesson from each one of these characters.
The Uglies is a book about a futuristic look of America. There are a lot of futuristic things like hover boards. But this society isn’t perfect like people think. The narrator in this book is tally Youngblood who will be on a journey to find her best friend. In this society everyone is obsessed with beauty. And the Uglies are the people between the ages of 12 and 16 they live in a remote community far from the beautiful people. In this community the Uglies anxiously wait for their 16th birthday. At the age of 16 they go through a mandatory plastic surgery in order to live up to society’s standards. After they go through plastic surgery they will be known as pretties, and they will also live with all of the other gorgeous people. After changing communities they will party all the time and spend most of their time drinking champagne. But then Tally find out that the government is hiding a scary secret about becoming a pretty and she will risk her life and her friends to save them from becoming pretties.
Vincent’s flaws are seen as a restriction on him from the moment he is born. The audience sees this through the nurse’s proclamation that his “early fatal potential” is at “ninety seven percent probability.” The stigma attached to such a condition is shown when his father refuses to give Vincent. his own name, demonstrating effectively how his inferiority results in him being abandoned from the outset of his life. These events are indicative of the stigma attached to the notion of being an ‘INVALID’ in this “not too distant” future. However, what this synthetic and artificial world in Gattaca fails to account for is the strength of the human spirit, which relates to the concept of “...
For the first topic, I chose to write on the relationships described in the readings. Each story perfectly depicts the complex meaning behind the different relationships. No two relationships are the same; therefore, that is what makes them interesting to decipher. The subsequent relationships described below all had their ups and downs, which made them all very relatable, for me, as the reader. Furthermore, there was a very notable dynamic in all of the relationships over the past five weeks.
In the first section of the book it starts off with a little girl named Tasha. Tasha is in the Fifth grade, and doesn’t really have many friends. It describes her dilemma with trying to fit in with all the other girls, and being “popular”, and trying to deal with a “Kid Snatcher”. The summer before school started she practiced at all the games the kid’s play, so she could be good, and be able to get them to like her. The girls at school are not very nice to her at all. Her struggle with being popular meets her up with Jashante, a held back Fifth ...
story points out that beauty has its cost as well, the power of being beautiful holds a great
I believe that one theme of this book is, that you should always watch what you say, how you
Connie can be labeled as an average teenage girl: vulnerable, carefree, desirous, and curious. She has just discovered the power of her own beauty, but hasn't yet realized that power, in any form, must be controlled. Connie has long, dark blond hair. She is petite and seems confident in her looks, yet "everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home" (par. 5). Connie loves to h...
There are many interesting quotes and advice given in this book; five statements stood out that I felt are worthwhile.
In a world where many are led to believe that they fall short of what society depicts as “perfect”, it is still true that everyone is beautiful in their own way. There are even more demands on girls now a days than there has ever been before. Some may think they need to fit in, so they become someone they are not or they begin to act like a totally different person. “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, illustrates society’s high and unrealistic expectations on the physical appearance of women, while failing to see that a woman’s self-esteem is at risk of being diminished.
...e ability to achieve anything in life. Hopefully, readers would learn from this novel that beauty is not the most important aspect in life. Society today emphasizes the beauty of one's outer facade. The external appearance of a person is the first thing that is noticed. People should look for a person's inner beauty and love the person for the beauty inside. Beauty, a powerful aspect of life, can draw attention but at the same time it can hide things that one does not want disclosed. Beauty can be used in a variety of ways to affect one's status in culture, politics, and society. Beauty most certainly should not be used to excuse punishment for bad deeds. Beauty is associated with goodness, but that it is not always the case. This story describes how the external attractiveness of a person can influence people's behavior and can corrupt their inner beauty.
The topic that I choose is mental health education for teenagers in school. Mental health is a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. In schools we have classes focusing upon the physical and educational well-being of students but has ignored the mental well-being. The lack of mental health education results in people not knowing how to properly interact with mental illness both in others and with themselves. Not only is the knowledge of how to deal with mental illness an issue but the stigmatization that has derived from the lack of understanding creates a negative environment in confronting these illnesses.