Utopias and Dystopias Blog

 Despite Keith's desire to prove himself to his father, we see him defy the wishes of the whole family time and time again. By chapter 9, he finally goes to far and is beaten up for his actions. While definitely a jarring scene, especially considering Lauren's hyper empathy, I immediately thought of the parable of the Prodigal Son. We see things going in a downward spiral for pretty much everything, but Lauren's dad's religiousness seems to go completely at odds with his treatment of Keith. In the bible, the father continues to love the prodigal son unconditionally even though he treats his father terribly. I think this scene shows the trashing of religious principles, and further proves the need for Earthseed in the story.

 In last week's reading, we learned about Lauren's hyper empathy and what caused it (Lauren's biological mom's drug abuse). Lauren's gift is probably going to be a driving factor in the story, but I can't help but notice the similarities between her gift and disbelief in her father's religion and the religious uses of hallucinogens around the world. Having out-of-this-world experiences has been a part of religious ceremonies for thousands of years, and my guess is Lauren will be no different. Even though she's rejected her father's religion, I don't think religion will be excommunicated from the rest of the book.

 One interesting part of Parable of the Sower is the heaven-like status space has in Lauren's mind. Interestingly enough, many in our current society (me included) treat space in a similar fashion. Most scientists agree that humanity must move to space in order to survive in the future. As a result, we see people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos investing in space travel. While under the guise of exploration, there has always been a hint of necessity in all efforts to go to space. Lauren seems to have a similar perspective. We are thrown right into her dream out of control flying (sort of like zero-g?) to her waking up to a starry sky. Space is key from the beginning, and I'm excited to see where it leads us as we read more.

 I'm sure many of you saw Winston's betrayal of Julia coming several chapters ago. After seeing Winston semi-successfully resisting the Ministry, I realized that this book was, in fact, a dystopia and not even Winston could escape. We finally find out what's in Room 101, and I believe it's at this point that Winston fully succumbs to the Ministry. He has lost his humanity, bought into the lies of the Ministry, and proved the effectiveness of the Ministry's methods. While the scene with the rats is quite intimidating (and seemingly effective), I couldn't help but think of it as sort of a letdown. All the tension with Room 101 has been building in the past few chapters, yet its bark three chapters ago seemed scarier than its bite in chapter five. Why would Orwell choose a physical manifestation of yet another torture instead of something even scarier? Granted I can't think of anything better, but I still feel like it's an anticlimax. I guess we'll have...

 Many of you may be unfamiliar with the Milgram experiment, so I'll summarize. In the early 70s, professor Stanley Milgram at Yale conducted a series of psychological experiments measuring the complicity of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to do actions that were against the participant's conscience. While I can't explain the entire experiment, the majority of participants fully obeyed instructions despite the pain and suffering they caused.  I'm confident that the ministry used this susceptibility of the human psyche to carry out their agenda. Even though we have been following Winston for the entire book, I can't help but be disturbed by O'brien's manipulation of Winston throughout his torture. With the Milgram experiment in mind, the thing that disturbs me more is that anyone could be in O'brien's position conducting torture and bending others to their will.

 Even though the end of book two has sinister overtones, I couldn't help but laugh at the speaker who had to change his speech after updated information about Oceania and Eastasia. Because of Winston's position in the Records Department, we get a unique look into state-sponsored media control.  While the very idea of mind control is somewhat comical, it's feasible. As I've progressed through the book, I started to draw more and more similarities to hermit countries like North Korea that have essentially brainwashed their constituents into hating the west and idolizing their leader as a god. It's eery to see journalists' accounts of their visits. Everything from misspoken words to not applauding long enough could lead to imprisonment. While the people of North Korea are most likely in a constant state of oppression, I don't think they completely realize it. In my previous post, I discussed the requirements for rebellion and why there hasn't really been on...