Tanner Grose Emily Maloney ENG 101-022 Tuesday, October 28, 2014 Textual Analysis of Jon by George Saunders Rough Draft Jon by George Saunders is told through the lens of a teenage boy in a dystopia society called The Facility. The Facility is located somewhere in the Midwest and is operated by people called Coördinator’s whose job is managing the groups of children within The Facility. The plot surrounds Jon as he explores events that occurred during his time at the Facility and how they shaped his own humanity. Like most literature that takes place in a dystopia, Jon acts a cautionary tale that reveals the depth of our own society’s obsession with consumerism and materialistic social status through The Facilities desire to create hyper-efficient …show more content…
The influence of technology within the setting is exposed in the lack of humanity and emotional health of the characters. A drug called Aurobon is administered daily to every citizen that rids them of unwanted, inefficient emotions creating completely complacent humans. The introductory paragraphs of Jon exposes this ideal very quickly through scenes depicting “the healthy benefits of getting off by oneself and doing what one feels like in terms of self-touching” which is later expanded upon by an explanation that “love is a mystery but the mechanics of love need not be, so go off alone, see what is up, with you and your relation to your own gonads”. The lack of emotion evident in these first paragraphs presents the first glance into the utter lack of the human condition within the short …show more content…
As a drone, brainwashed by The Facility and the daily doses of Aurabon, Jon cannot comprehend his feelings of love without comparing them to commercials and the products pushed through The Facility. The first evidence of this is found in the eighth paragraph where Jon states: I had many times seen LI 34321 for Honey Grahams, where the stream of milk and the stream of honey enjoin to make that river of sweet-tasting goodness, I did not know that, upon making love, one person may become like the milk and the other like the honey… they just become one fluid. (Saunders 239). Although the dark lines are in a way beautiful and can successfully express Jon’s interpretation of his feelings, the manner in which it is done just further exemplifies how the super-efficient professional product assessment done in The Facility transforms the basis of the human condition into an excretion of the tensionless society’s controlled manipulation. This manipulation is eerily similar to our own society desire to create satisfied consumers and a perfect product just with a dark
There is a passage in David Malouf's Johnno where the adolescent narrator muses upon the very full address which he, like Stephen Dedalus1 and schoolchildren all over the world, has written on the fly-leaf of his exercise books: ‘Arran Avenue, Hamilton, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, the World’. Queensland is ‘a joke’ and about Australia he asks,
A lack of communication between parent and child can lead to insufficient development of language skills, limited emotional bonding, and behavioral concerns. In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen Reb Saunders isolates himself from his son Daniel by raising him in silence. Seldom few words pass between them unless they are debating the Talmud. Over time, their lack of verbal expression results in a decline of their vigor and energy and an unloving relationship. Reb Saunders does not make a reasonable decision by raising Danny in silence because it forms a problematic relationship between the two and presents each of them with numerous mental and physical issues.
Who would be willing to die for their loved ones? Romeo and Juliet would and did. Romeo and Juliet’s love and death brought two families together who could not even remember the origin of their hate. When the parents saw what their children's love for each other, they realized that their fighting had only led to suffering and insoluble conflict. Romeo and Juliet loved each other to an extent that they killed themselves rather than live apart. They did it with no hiatus. Juliet says before she kills herself, “O happy dagger, This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die.”( 5, 3, 182-183) demonstrating how she would rather die than not be with him.
The novels The Giver by Lois Lowry and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury are both very similar and take place in futuristic dystopian societies. In The Giver, the 12-year-old protagonist, Jonas, is given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve. Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memory, shared by only one other in his community, and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. Likewise, in Fahrenheit 451 the main character Guy Montag recognizes how awful and empty his community is. He is a fireman in a community where all books are banned.
Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian fiction, or a type of fiction in which the society’s attempt to create a perfect world goes very wrong, “Harrison Bergeron” was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1961. This story is about Harrison Bergeron, who is forced to diminish his abilities because they are more enhanced than everyone else’s. This short story is an allusion of a perfect society and it is maintained through totalitarian. The author expresses his theme of the dysfunctional government of utopia through his effective use of simile, irony, and symbolism. Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential American writers and novelists, and his writings have left a deep influence on the American Literature of the 20th century. Vonnegut is also famous for his humanist beliefs and was the honoree of the American Humanist Association. “Harrison Bergeron” is about a fictional time in the future where everyone is forced to wear handicapping devices to ensure that everyone is equal. So can true equality ever be achieved through strict governmental control?
I can see the moon from here. She just came up over that building.(...) I’ve always loved the moon. I’ll even go out looking for her when she is not in sight. We read Romeo and Juliet in school last year and I was surprised and kind of mad when Juliet called the moon unreliable- “inconstant” she called it. I tried to start a discussion about it in class, but it didn’t really go over. Juliet seemed to be saying that since the moon was never in the same place from one night to the next that it was “inconstant”. I think she just liked to hear the sound of her own voice.
The compelling story of John Thompson was certainly unique and interesting, unfortunately, it is known that this is not the only individual who has experienced this treatment and being enslaved by a country, which constantly discusses freedom and liberty. However, in the book, there is limited visuals and authentic documents to entice the reader as well as adding more emotional values. Therefore, if the book had to rewritten or even republished there would be a need to have historical emotional values in order to bring the reader closer to the story of John Thompson. The life of John Thompson discusses his life as slave and his experiences from going from plantation to plantation and each plantation was very unique.
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey is a coming of age story that filled with suspense and mystery keeping us captivated till the end. Set in the 1960’s in an old mining town if Corrigan, where everyone knows one another. I certainly agree with weartholdcoat’s opinions on the novel, it’s a great thrilling read that keeps you completely hooked. Silvey uses various techniques like narrative and language conventions, theme and Australian context to achieve such a captivating finish.
While reading George Saunders’ Short story collection, In Persuasion Nation, it is easy to see that Saunders is using literary fiction with a hint of science fiction to convey a central message in each of his short stories. Saunders offers us a glimpse into a possible sad and scary future. Saunders’ loony characters play a huge role in the final production of a meaningful message. The protagonist is often the most morally sound of the characters, so this gives the reader a closer connection with them. Another factor in determining the way Saunders’ message is conveyed is the ridiculous unpredictableness of the plot. While the reader understands the message it makes it seem less scary or serious when the moral of the story is coated with humor. The use of outlandish story elements show the use of science fiction in his stories, but each story serves an intricate subject and this fundamentally shows Saunders’ rhetorical meaning. In Saunders’ short stories, Jon and My Flamboyant Grandson, the protagonists are well-developed characters that are easily relatable. The way Saunders separates the relation between reader and character is by placing them in the possible future. Because they live in an alternate universe these characters are also somewhat of an unreliable source for information; we cannot truly grasp what is happening in their minds. Saunders characterizes his protagonists as having better morals and a more clear thought process than the supporting characters by the way these characters either think, speak, or act.
The main goal of Brave New World’s society is to create a balance social stability, and happy individuals. To create such a world; feelings, passions, and relationships are nonexistent. No one has parents, children, or lover. Instead, everyone belongs to anyone. There is no emotional attachment; nothing is valued, only physical interaction. When one feels negative emotions, that society cannot control, such as humiliation and stress, a drug called soma is taken to feel content and impassive again. Great works of literature, such as Shakespeare, religious texts, and art are forbidden in the society because it can cause passion and curiosity beyond what they have been programmed to know. Even science is suppressed for it searches for truth, and according to the novel, truth gets in the way of happiness. ( ) While one can evaluate the novel and view all who are a part of the ...
Austen intends to show how human happiness is found by living in accordance with human
The poem entitled On My First Son is a pouring out of a father's soul-a soul that pours out every last drop of pain, anguish, and love for his deceased son neatly into a beautiful poem. Ben Jonson illustrates his love and loss with concreteness and passion. Just as an artist creates a painting on paper with a pallet of colors and different types of brushes, Jonson uses thoughtful phrasing and strong diction to create a vivid word painting of his son.
Love begets love. It is universally known that humans long for the feeling of love. However, what humans perceive as love might not be what love actually is. Many people believe love to be either physical or emotional, but it is never seen biological or physiological. Barbara Fredrickson, however, argues in her article “Selections from Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do and Become” that people are looking at love with a closed view. Fredrickson explains how the system of love is divided in three sections, the brain, oxytocin, and the vagus nerve. Each plays a special part in making a human what they are emotionally and physically. All of these also play
In order to gather all the information we have got in the science of love, many researchers in different fields have cooperated to form an idea of what occurs when love happens. One of the world leading researches in this field is the American anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of many best-seller books such as why we love, or why him, why her. She has worked with many neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologist, and doctors in order to achieve a big experiment where brains of participants that claimed to be in love or hear...
Love is ubiquitous and universal, and we have all encountered and relished in the power of love. Many people associate the meaning of love with feelings of strong affection and personal attachment. While this is very accurate, there are several different aspects of love that we neglect to acknowledge. Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson steps up and takes up this challenge in convergence with the magic of science. In doing so, she concludes that the things in which our brain thinks love is, are actually just the products of love. Love itself is something much greater and it is worth figuring out what this supreme emotion is all about. Fredrickson’s work primarily centered around the broaden-and-build theory, in which states “positive emotions