Chicken Little Goes Too Far By Margaret Atwood Analysis

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Rae’s poem “One world down the drain” and Margaret Atwood’s narrative “Chicken Little goes too far” address the issue of “the sky is falling” or “[the] world [going] down the drain”, metaphoric ways of referring to global warming. Both pieces of writing discuss the negligence of human beings in the battle against global warming and CO2 that has caused it. There are many similarities between the two pieces of writing as they both express concern and criticism toward people’ denial to environmental complication. However, there are also a lot of differences amongst them. ‘Chicken Little goes too far” is written in a slightly humorous way in order to mock businesses of ruining the earth in their race for profit. The story also criticises the “stuck-up” …show more content…

In ‘Chicken Little goes too far’, Atwood holds businesses responsible for the destruction of the environment. This is depicted when Hoggy Groggy, head of a large development company, hires Foxy Loxy, an underworld assassin, to “put [Chicken Little] out of his misery” and agrees to pay him an amount that is “the sky's limit”. The author also disparages academics who like to argue about the issue in theory but never attempted to solve them. This is shown through Turkey Lurkey, a lecturer and his comment on the issue: “But there’s data to show it isn’t the sky that’s falling. It’s the Earth that’s rising….. It’s due to natural geocyclical causes and… there is nothing we can do about it.”; and when Chicken Little says that it does not make any different, Turkey Lurkey condemns him and said: “that is a [rather] simple-minded view”. Additionally, newspapers and the general population are to be responsible for the denial of environmental issues. For instance, Henny Penny, a suppose to be a representation of a stereotypical ordinary uninformed person, gives Chicken Little advice regardless of his concern: “Go home, have a beer, do some meditation…Whatever. You’ll feel better tomorrow”. Her remarks also represent that humanity is being too inattentive to the matter: “You sounded the exact alarm last year… and the sky is still in place…” Further expresses the author’s critisism toward the clueless

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