The Prodigal Son

 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"The Nasty" as Political Opposition

Julia plays an important role in Winston's character development. So far, we've seen Winston stray from the brainwashing and mob mentality imposed by Ingsoc with small acts of defiance like buying a journal or giving glances to a co-worker. But in book two, we see Winston's interaction with Julia. From her tearing of the Anti-Sex League sash to making love in the woods, each scene is marked with opposition. While each interaction is small, they coagulate into an opposition mindset. Winston actually states that he's more attracted to her the more men she's slept with, which is definitely not a-ok in the Big Brother handbook. We know Winston is interested in a large-scale rebellion, but seeing his defiance in a different dimension illuminates his character.
Read more

Mob Mentality in 1984: A Mr. Butler Explanation

 One of the most striking parts of the earlier Nineteen Eighty-Four chapters is the two-minutes hate. Even though Winston has already expressed ideological dissent towards the Ministry of Truth, he is swept up in the hate-spouting of his co-workers. Enemies of the state are flashed on-screen to jeers and shouts; items are thrown in blind anger; people resort to negative emotions without thinking. During sophomore history, we saw many examples of this sort of mob mentality. One story I remember specifically was a Jewish man's account of a Nazi rally, and the urge he felt to join the mob. It seems that succumbing to such mentalities is a step away from democracy and towards the dystopia of  Nineteen Eighty-Four . Sadly, we see many of the same behaviors in today's society. From the events on Jan. 6 to occurrences online, many people seem to be succumbing to tribalism and an Us vs. Them mentality. What sort of lessons can we learn from  Nineteen Eighty-Four ? Do you think so...
Read more

Room 101: The Big Letdown??

 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...
Read more