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Critical analysis of dystopian literature
Critical analysis of dystopian literature
Critical analysis of dystopian literature
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Setting Similarities of High School and Dystopian Worlds A cruel dystopian government in an apocalyptic world and a seemingly normal high school have a lot more in common than one may suspect. In Marie Lu’s Legend, the government rules with an iron fist and is one of the most stereotypical dystopian governments. This being said the setting is dark and very lopsided in typical dystopian fashion where the poor live in pure filth and the rich live lavish lives. Overall the setting of Legend appears to be gloomy and hopeless. The setting of Sharon Draper’s Tears of a Tiger has a very similar effect as of the setting of Legend. Tears of a Tiger is set in a fairly normal high school in the city. While it starts out vibrant and cheerful it soon begins to become a very serious and sad story. As Andy in Tears of a Tiger becomes more depressed the more the story makes everything in the setting seem drab and grey. This being said …show more content…
the settings of these two books produce the similar feelings, however of course there are also a few differences. The biggest setting similarity that Legend and Tears of a Tiger have is that both settings are very harsh. “It’s a plague victim. She must’ve been deteriorating for months, because her skin is cracked and bleeding everywhere, and I find myself wondering how the soldiers could have missed this one during previous inspections (Lu 4).” This, is an event that happens on a daily basis in Legend’s dystopian world which leads to readers picturing a very grim and harsh setting. In Tears of a Tiger, some of these same feelings are created by the death of Andy’s friend which haunts him throughout the book. Since Tears of a Tiger is largely written from Andy’s perspective everything in the setting becomes depressing just like his feelings. The feelings of depression and bleakness from Andy bleed into the setting which leads to relative harshness because there is nobody there to help Andy when he needs it. This makes the world of Tears of a Tiger seem very cruel and heartless since all of Andy’s depression eventually leads to suicide. Another similarity of the settings of Legend and Tears of a Tiger is that both settings seem to have an immense and unwavering sadness around them.
The settings of both books are heavily effected by death and the sadness that follows it. Both of these settings seem to be almost colorless at times with the lack of positive feelings. “He screamed what seemed like a long time. Then it was real quiet. All we could hear was the sound of flames, and little pieces of the car sizzlin’ and burnin’, and then the sirens of police cars (Draper 14).” After this traumatic scene in Tears of a Tiger one is not able to put together a setting full of happiness and good emotion after a graphic scene and description of a teenage boy being burned alive inside a crashed car. The feel of the setting after this incident is the same of Legend in the beginning of the book when the police are finding and killing people with the plague. The beginnings of both of these books shape the setting into an extremely twisted and dark place that has feelings of overwhelming
sadness. The one difference that is to be found between the settings of Tears of a Tiger and Legend is hope. While initially the setting of Legend creates a strong hopeless feeling it changes to the complete opposite by the end of the story. As Day begins to rebel against the government he injects hope into the people and setting around him in the book. Andy however in Tears of a Tiger seems to drain all feelings of hope away from the story and causes the setting to become a cruel and uninteresting place through his eyes. “It’s not that I want to die—it’s just that I can’t stand the pain of livin’ anymore (Draper 165).” Andy clearly has no hope left for his life and all he can feel is pain. This is the peak of his pain before he kills himself, and it shows that he has been seeing the world devoid of any hopefulness for a happy life and therefore drained the setting of being the colorful happy setting it was early on in the book. In conclusion, the settings of Tears of a Tiger and Legend are quite alike in the way they feel and the way they force readers to picture it in their minds. Both books have many feelings that shape the settings to feel very similar to each other. The way Andy sees the world as a horrible place is the same in which one can look upon the world of Legend. So, while the physical settings obviously cannot be the same because they take place in vastly different worlds the feelings and emotions created by the physical settings are very much the same besides one or two differences.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
The things that happen to McCandless at the end make me cringe every time I read it. There is just something about a person grasping for help just to receive none. Krakauer also lets some of the people from the story know when he interviews them. They often have very sad reactions that stir emotions. He specifically describes how McCandless’ mother reacts saying “As she studies the pictures, she breaks down from time to time, weeping as only a mother who has outlived a child can weep, betraying a sense of loss so huge and irreparable that the mind balks at taking its measure. Such bereavement, witnessed at close range, makes even the most eloquent apologia for high-risk activities ring fatuous and hollow.” (Krakauer 132) Another approach Krakauer takes that makes me feel a bit emotionally unstable is when he talks about his dad and his relationship with him. A lot of the ways he portrays his dad remind me a lot of how my dad is. It gives and deep connection to what I am reading. Also the entire story is sad due to how he starts off by spoiling to you that he dies and then he starts skipping around. The skipping around kind of helps make you forget that you just found out that he died in the end. It makes you cheer for him even though you know he is going to die. A good emotional quote from him is “Some people feel like they don 't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.”
Both authors use figurative language to help develop sensory details. In the poem It states, “And I sunned it with my smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.” As the author explains how the character is feeling, the reader can create a specific image in there head based on the details that is given throughout the poem. Specifically this piece of evidence shows the narrator growing more angry and having more rage. In the short story ” it states, “We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among bones.” From this piece of text evidence the reader can sense the cold dark emotion that is trying to be formed. Also this excerpt shows the conflict that is about to become and the revenge that is about to take place. By the story and the poem using sensory details, they both share many comparisons.
Keung is one of the protagonists of the book "White Jade Tiger". He has tanned skin, long braided hair, and black eyes. Keung grew into a hard-working, ambitious man from experiencing a tough moral in life. Together, Keung and Jasmine (who he believed to be a spirit of his dream) will return the White Jade Tiger to Bright Jade to end the deathly curse on the Bright Jade clan.
Only a person who lost loved one can understand the drastic change it makes on your life. In the book Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, a young boy and his father must learn to cope with their mother/wife dies. It is the story of how things change and how they slowly move on after this loss. During the whole story, the author uses symbols to show important messages of the story.
In books the author relies on words, experiences of the character and others accounts to show emotion. In movies there are more ways to inflict emotion; through images, facial expression, dialogue, and music. Not only did these different works of art show emotion in different ways but they also made audiences feel different things. The tone of the book was a much darker one than that of the movie. Jon Krakauer included stories of McCandless childhood, struggles, and last days alive to show the darker parts of his journey. Some examples of this are; telling readers right away that McCandless is dead, his father's secret family, months that his family and friends spent worrying about him, ways he could have easily avoided his death and so on. None of these experiences described in the book make readers feel an overwhelming sense of happiness of joy. Krakauer focused more on telling the exact facts of Chris McCandless’ life no matter if it made people feel sad. Sean Penn on the other hand, painted a much happier and romantic telling of Chris’s story. Showing him and Tracey bonding, illegally paddling down the Colorado River looking free and happy, or creating amazing bonds with the people he meets along the way. The few sad parts in the movie that are shown are his parents and Carine worrying about him and his death, which is countered with the
The book Tiger's Curse is about a girl named Kelsey Hayes. She goes to a circus to find a
Being a mother is an extreme difficult task that cannot be perfected, as many will ivetablly make mistakes causing inversable harm to their children. This is the case for both mothers in Elizabeth Bowens " Tears Idle Tears" and DH Lawrences "The Rocking Horse Winner". Despite being perceived as the perfect mother on the exterior Hester has many internal complications for instance her heartless nature and her superficials desires that she puts above her own children. Similarly Mrs. DIckinson's high expectation for her son causes her to have a cold and cruel attitude, leading to the awful relationship she has with her child. In comparison to each other, without a doubt they both have atrocious personalities and both are destructive to their children.
Overall one gets a sincere feeling of loss and lacking in these three novels. Perhaps it is by paying attention to the warning that is embedded in these commentaries that the authors achieve their true goal in guiding their readers to a higher understanding of life. Both authors are quite thorough in presenting their viewpoints on life. There are also other conclusions and lessons that can be drawn from these novels. Many people feel that they are commentaries on the wrath that war has on the young, or the tumultuous times of a new century. However, it is the false ideal that life can be lived by negating responsibility for actions that prevails and burns a sense of virility into the readers of these three important novels.
Every story has a tone to it, and the choice of words Stockton uses in his makes it a more powerful and suspenseful story overall. The words make the readers feel anxious about what will occur, as well as providing vivid imagery for the readers to image the scenes in their head. One example that supports this claim is how Stockton describes the princess, as well as describing her feelings for her lover. In the text, it states, “...but upon that hot-blooded,
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
Toni Morrison's novel, Beloved, reveals the effects of human emotion and its power to cast an individual into a struggle against him or herself. In the beginning of the novel, the reader sees the main character, Sethe, as a woman who is resigned to her desolate life and isolates herself from all those around her. Yet, she was once a woman full of feeling: she had loved her husband Halle, loved her four young children, and loved the days of the Clearing. And thus, Sethe was jaded when she began her life at 124 Bluestone Road-- she had loved too much. After failing to 'save' her children from the schoolteacher, Sethe suffered forever with guilt and regret. Guilt for having killed her "crawling already?" baby daughter, and then regret for not having succeeded in her task. It later becomes apparent that Sethe's tragic past, her chokecherry tree, was the reason why she lived a life of isolation. Beloved, who shares with Seths that one fatal moment, reacts to it in a completely different way; because of her obsessive and vengeful love, she haunts Sethe's house and fights the forces of death, only to come back in an attempt to take her mother's life. Through her usage of symbolism, Morrison exposes the internal conflicts that encumber her characters. By contrasting those individuals, she shows tragedy in the human condition. Both Sethe and Beloved suffer the devastating emotional effects of that one fateful event: while the guilty mother who lived refuses to passionately love again, the daughter who was betrayed fights heaven and hell- in the name of love- just to live again.
Throughout history there have been many dystopian societies, societies with major flaws. In these societies actions occurred which caused harm to the citizens such as murder, destruction of property and other unfortunate consequences. These events are often portrayed in novels to point out the consequences of these societies. The novel Legend by Marie Lu contains events and situations based on historical occurrences such as World War II, North Korea and Tiananmen Square in order to point out societal flaws in real dystopian societies.
It is not the tragic subject matter of the text that is of primary interest - but rather the manner in which the plot is developed. The story line progresses as if the reader is "unpeeling an onion."