The Running Man Analysis

The usage of scene in The Running Man by Stephen King and When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz are the truly fascinating aspects of each story, respectively. Each of these authors are do a superb job of creating scenes with their writing that the readers are able to get attached to and not want to put down until they are finished reading. The creativity that is portrayed by the authors in each of these books in regards to scene usage plays a monumental part in the success of the books because of the vivid imagery and detail that is utilized. While the stories themselves our intriguing, the books would not be nearly as fascinating if the scene usage were lacking. The description of the scenes in these two stories and that way that they

are portrayed provide a more significant impact to the stories as a whole vice their respective plots.
Stephen King’s ability to arouse interest from the reader is typically due to his aptitude to create lasting images that stay with the audience. The Running Man is no different in this aspect. His usage of scene in this novel, though, plays an even more vital role than in his other novels because of the lack of character development that is put forth. With the exception of Ben Richards, most, if not all of the characters in this novel are fairly one-dimensional. Typically, that is not a necessarily good thing to have in a book. Stephen King, however, is able to defy normality by creating lasting images in this book that make up for his lack of character development. The only character in this book that the reader truly needs to worry about is Ben Richards, and King does a sufficient enough job bringing his character to life for the audience to get emotionally invested in him.
What Stephen King does do well, though, is providing visually stimulating images and scenes throughout the book to keep the audience intrigued and continue reading. The scene where Ben Richards is maneuvering through the storm drain is a primary example of why his usage of scene plays such a large role in this novel. He could have simply explained that Ben Richards escaped via the storm drain, but instead he put the reader in Ben Richards’s position. He made the reader feel as if they were in that storm drain, themselves. The sense of claustrophobia and paranoia that he presents in that scene make for a terrific read, and one that is vital to the overall outcome of the novel.
The primary plot in this book is that Ben Richards is attempting to escape from a government that is trying to catch and kill him. His success provides money to his family. The plot as a whole is fairly simple, and could easily be bogged down with poor usage of scene and imagery. This is also true for Natalie Diaz’s, When My Brother Was an Aztec. The scene usage that she provides in her book is phenomenal. The overall plot of her book is to tell the story of her drug-addicted brother, and the effects that are had on her family. While this is a powerful plot to abide by, it would fall drastically short if not for the strong scenes that she is able to portray. One of the poems within her book, “My Brother at 3 a.m.” is arguably the most emotion driven poem in the book due to the scene and visual imagery that she is able to convey to her audience. “O God, see the tail, he said. Look at the goddamned tail. He sat cross-legged, weeping on the front steps. Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother. O God, O God, she said” (Diaz, 44). This scene in its entirety is truly haunting. The plot of this book is to get the story out about her brother, but it is scenes like this that make the book truly worth reading.
The role that the usage of scene plays in both of these texts is to keep the reader’s interest through emotion and curiosity. It acts as a tool of modification to each of the stories. What the stories lack in plot points and character development, the usage of in depth scene and imagery are able to adapt to and overcome. The usage of scene in these two texts prove that scene usage is a hugely underrated aspect in writing. The ability to come up with well-designed story lines and plots, as well as realistic characters that are easily relatable to the reader are not adequate if the author is not able to paint a scene to go with it.
Both of these books are able to portray a true sense of despair that the characters are living in through via the use of scene.

At one point in The Running Man, Ben Richards awakens on the floor of a small house with four other individuals, including a crying baby. The disturbing scene that King is able to portray in this scene greatly outweighs the overall story. It is an extremely simple scene, with only two men sitting in a room discussing their views on the current societal state and the issues that they have with it, but the way in which it is portrayed is what brings it to life. The conversation between Ben Richards and Bradley regarding Bradley not being able to afford the proper nose filter for his baby sister that has cancer is difficult to read due to the amount of emotion that it pulls out of the reader. The reader begins to truly understand the grim world that these characters are living in. at this point. Natalie Diaz is able to do a similar job with her book, as

well.
In her book, When I Was an Aztec, Natalie Diaz makes what could be a simple story to tell into an extremely emotional and rather frightening tail on the issue of drug usage and how it has effected her family. Her usage of scene is of immense vitality because without it the reader would feel a sense of perplexity. Not everyone is familiar with the state of drug involvement in today’s society, but she is able to portray it in a way that the reader is able to relate to and even feel a sense of compassion for the story at hand.
While it may not seem evident at first glance, these two authors take a fairly similar approach towards creating the scene that they are attempting to portray. Natalie Diaz utilizes an extremely detailed method to evaluate the prominent drug issue in today’s society. Furthermore, she puts a great amount of emphasis on the imagery to the point where the reader becomes engulfed with what is taking place because of how real it seems. “Your brother will still itch when you are seated at your table. He will rake his fork against his skin. Look closer – his skin is a desert. Half red racer is writhing along his forearm. A migration of tarantulas moves like a shadow over his sunken cheeks” (Diaz, 50). The scene that she presents to the reader here is one of great sorrow. The way that she communicates this scene makes it come alive to the audience in an eerie way. Even if the reader is not familiar with this someone that has dealt with a drug addiction, this scene can make him or her feel as if they are personally seated at the table mentioned with a sudden enlarged fear of tarantulas.
King does this in a way, as well. Why he does not present the reader with a scene filled with society’s troubling drug issue, he is able to put forth an immense amount of detail in the scenes that he creates. Like Diaz, he is able to create a scene that stays with the audience in a vastly eerie way. A phenomenal example of this would be the end of the book when Ben Richards crashes the plane in the Games Building while giving the middle finger to Dan Killian. It is strange how bittersweet that scene turned out to be, and one that the reader will not likely forget.
The main different approach that these two authors take towards creating scene is their views on what is important in the story. King focused his usage of scene on keeping the audience’s heartbeat running at an immense rate, whereas Diaz focuses more on getting emotion out of the reader. Although these styles are different, both of these ways provides a more significant impact to their overall books than their plots.
The connection between these two books matters because they prove that plot-points and character development are not the most essential aspect to a story.

While this is still extremely vital, if the author fails to create a lasting scene throughout the story that the reader will remember, the book is a failure. These books are able to get past the false precept that the plot of the story is the most vital part, when in reality all of the parts of creating a story work together in order to create the final product. However, while a book will fail if it does not have memorable scenes and imagery, it is more possible for a book to do well if it meets these aspects but lacks an intriguing plot. Plots and storylines get recycled at an immense rate in today’s society, but the images and scenes used to make those plots successful are the aspects that deserve more credit than they are typically

given.