Less Than Zero is a debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It is a novel that is geared toward mainstream than literary fiction audience. Although Less Than Zero was loosely adapted into a movie in 1987 by 20th Century Fox, Ellis argued that there was no connection between the film and the novel except for the title, names of the characters, and the location of Southern California. By 2010, Ellis wrote his forthcoming novel Imperial Bedrooms the sequel to Less Than Zero. Overall Less Than Zero is a genre of fiction. The novel time period is set in the 1980s, a decade often remembered for its materialism and consumerism, as seen in the explosion of blockbuster movies and the emergence of cable networks like MTV and music video. Less Than Zero revolves around Clay, a rich young college student who has returned to his hometown of Los Angeles for winter break. Throughout the novel, Clay describes his progressive alienation from the loss faith in his friends, and his flashbacks on important events. Both Clay’s parents are divorced, and consumed by the facet of the pretentious Hollywood life. As for Clay’s two younger siblings, they often criticize and frown upon Clay’s life. Clay spends time with Trent, a successful model, embarked on a series of drug fueled nights of partying. While partying, he tries to track down two high school acquaintances, Blair, Clay’s ex-girlfriend, with whom he tries to get back together during winter break and his best friend Julian, with whom he has not spoken for months. In between parties, Clay flashbacks to his parents and grandparents, of the times he felt together as a family. Ultimately, Clay tracks down Julian, and learns about Julian’s dark secret. After attending a concert with his f... ... middle of paper ... ...seen when Clay visits his relatives in Palm Springs. Images of gothic television shows, weather and reptiles are exemplified when Clay flashes back his memory of Palm Springs. Clay remembers the time he stayed with his grandfather at Palm Springs who was drunk and asleep while his parents were out to party. Clay flashes back, “That night while my grandfather slept…I watched a rerun of ‘The Twilight Zone’ that night and took a walk…the palm trees were trembling…no cars passed and I thought I saw a rattlesnake slither into the garage” (Ellis 138). Essentially Clay’s flashback sets the gothic theme of eeriness and unknown element of fear placed upon Clay. The television show The Twilight Zone itself includes elements of monsters, superstition and childhood nightmares. As Clay embarks outside, the gothic theme is further shown by the continuous eerie weather, that the
There are many similarities between the war experiences of Kurt Vonnegut and the character of Billy Pilgrim in his novel Slaughterhouse Five. Several similarities between them are shown in the letter from Kurt Vonnegut to his family dated May 29, 1945 (Vonnegut, Armageddon in Retrospect 11-14).
Though described as “dull in his invented hide” (28) by “Uncle Tom in Heaven,” Zero is actually quite complex in his desire to articulate his ideas about his brief life with Susan and his life eternal. His complexity is compounded further by his paradoxical nature, especially his simultaneous existence as a “real” man and as a fictional product of Susan Smith’s brutal imagination. As an eternal symbol of the oppressed and abused, he could be said to maintain a symbolic reality regarding the existence of external forces acting against the oppressed, stripping them of the extent of their free will.
As a native of Texas, Lendol Calder graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1993. Calder is currently a Professor of History and African-American Studies at Augustana College and is presently working on an analysis of the thrift ethos in American history and culture with a team of scholars organized by the Templeton Foundation and the Institute for the Advanced Study of American Culture at the University of Virginia. He is a scholar of the history of American consumerism and this interest led him to study the progression of consumer credit in America when little else had been published on the topic. Calder draws from some of his own experience with consumer credit in the form of a department store credit card he and his wife obtained early in their marriage to purchase what he says was “a suite of furniture costing twice as much money as we could have scraped from our bank account.” (p.5) Most of his presumptions, however, were discarded in his explorations of the “peaks and valleys of consumer credit” (p.16) due to the fact that most common sense beliefs about the history of credit are in actuality a myth. In Calder’s Acknowledgments, he gives thanks to his parents for coming to his aid and saving him “from having to do some unwanted personal research into the subject of debt.” (p.xiii)
Symbolism plays a vital role throughout Tom Walker’s tale. Set in the early to mid-18th century in the New England area, Irving uses the location’s landscape as a basis of symbolism throughout the story, as well as to represent the main character. The murky morass environment of the swamp in which Tom Walker meets the devil represents his soul which, like the swamp fog, is clouded and thick with greed. The swamp areas of the New England areas were also used as a stronghold by the Native Americans against the Europeans during the Indian battles. Ironically, this same area in the story is seen as the devil’s stronghold, which symbolizes the prejudice that was still prevalent in the...
In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedict rant about marriage for most of the beginning of the play, while Claudio raves about how wonderful it will be being married to Hero. Yet in the end, Claudio exchanges his marriage to Hero for an opportunity to bash her in public, while Beatrice and Benedick marry despite that they were mortal enemies for most of the first three acts. How did the situation swing around to this degree? Beatrice and Benedick had been using the most extreme metaphors to demonstrate their scorn of each other and of marriage, and Claudio had been doing the same to demonstrate his love of Hero. Not only did none of these three characters mean what they were saying, but meant the reverse, and the people that plotted to bring them together or pull them apart plotted because they understood on some level what each really wanted.
Morgan, J. The biology of horror: gothic literature and film. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
Are material things really that important? Is being rich really going to solve all your problems?
As shown above, George A. Romero’s cult classic work “The Night of the Living Dead” came with its handful of drama. As well as, Romero’s subtle references
“You’ve just crossed over into The Twilight Zone” says Rod Serling before every episode of The Twilight Zone. A show that leaves it’s viewers in a macabre state. Instead of drawing a conclusion like most shows, the show usually ends mysteriously. It utilizes similar elements as other short half-hour shows, but goes about it in a different way. This outlandish style is seen in literature, more specifically short stories, as well. Even though other short stories employ the same literary devices, “The Beast In The Cave” by H.P. Lovecraft is uniquely mysterious because of the story’s suspenseful plot, compelling diction, and, most important, overshadowing theme.
In Less Than Zero, cocaine addiction tests a group of three friends against the backdrop of glamorous, 1980’s Los Angeles. I chose this film because I’ve read the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. While the movie differs quite a bit from the book, it still touches on some key points about drug use that Ellis speaks to in the novel. At the beginning of the film, Clay, Julian, and Blair have graduated high school in Beverly Hills. Clay chooses to leave and attend a prestigious university. Blair (Clay’s girlfriend) stays in Los Angeles because she is too afraid to go to school. Julian’s father gives him a large sum of money to start his own recording studio. By Thanksgiving, Clay returns to Los Angeles to find Julian and Blair sleeping together. At
Zero awoke to find himself standing, it was not something he was familiar with and he searched his memory for any recollection of it happening before. Quickly he discovered that large parts of his memory were missing, gone were the seemingly endless data bases of information. Quickly he sent out feelers trying for a connection of some sort but he drew a blank. It seemed that where ever he was now, had limited connection capacity. Instead he used his visual feed to survey his surrounding, it appeared he was in some kind of desert of discarded parts.
Success: Accomplishing Your Dream Completing the "American Dream" is a controversial issue. The American Dream can be defined as having a nice car, maybe two or three of them, having a beautiful, healthy family, making an impact on the world, or even just having extra spending money when the bills are paid. In the play "Death Of A Salesman," by Arthur Miller, the "American Dream" deals with prosperity, status, and being immortalized.
The setting gives the reader a sense that terror awaits. This story shows this by talking about the lighting
Who is John Galt? John Galt is the ideal man. Ayn Rand illustrates the embodiment of the lost virtue—the human mind— in John’s character through his juxtaposition against the modern “man”. In the collectivist society portrayed in Atlas Shrugged, men are punished for using their only method of survival—thinking. John Galt utilizes his mind to create achievements and prosperity. By vowing to live his life only according to his own selfish ends, he earns the right to live freely to delight in this virtue. This highest virtue is the value he holds of his own life—a demonstration of his eternal love to life itself.
In 2008, Rudra Sabaratnam, the CEO of the City of Angels Medical Center, committed health care fraud when he attempted to extort money from Medicare and Medi-Cal. He was wealthy, yet, his greed for more money led him to cheat the taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars, depriving the people who actually need the help and money. The greed that Sabaratnam had was partly caused by the profit seeking capitalist system. The desire for wealth in capitalist society leads to corruption and causes a divide between the rich and the poor, so perhaps a system that supports equality and fairness is a better choice. The Eastern-European expression,“Capitalism is man exploiting man; communism is just the opposite,” summarizes one of the main ideas in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s aversion to a capitalist society is a motif that appears in several of his literary works, but in The Grapes of Wrath he attacks capitalism constantly and he exposes the poverty, cruelty, and greed found in our capitalist system. By emphasizing the wealthy’s insatiable appetite for profit, which forces the migrants to face hardships, Steinbeck accentuates the inequitable aspects of capitalism, and promotes communism as an alternative.