FOA Naming in Margaret Atwood’s Year of The Flood
The further science advances, the more complex the ethical dilemmas in this field become. We often view scientific advancements, particularly in relation to our health, as beneficial. Health care involving stem cells or other cutting edge technology can save lives. However, although these advances are made with a noble goal in mind and can be advantageous, they do not come without consequences. Margaret Atwood uses diction in her dystopian novel “Year of the Flood” to address the ethical dilemmas that arise in the interaction between scientific advances, healthcare, the environment, and human nature to provide a modern perspective of a dystopian world.
After the protagonist Toby’s mom died, she was forced to drop out of college since her parents had accumulated too much debt for her to stay in school. She left the HelthWyzer compound where her family lived and her mother was being treated, along with her identity. She took a job working at the counter of the fast food chain named “Secret Burger”. Eventually as a result of her abusive boss, she ended up joining a cult called the gardeners. The gardeners are a religious group that was trying to survive “The Waterless Flood” which is the destruction of the human race that their religion claimed would be a result of human corruption rather than a higher power’s own decision to wipe out and fix humanity. The waterless flood is a reference to the Bible story Noah’s Ark where God sends a flood to wipe out the human race because they are living immorally. The gardener’s, who were led by Adam one, followed many rules, which entailed not eating anything with a face, not using the technology that was controlled by the corporations, and foll...
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...econd learning outcome that is present in the novel is: Analyse how audience and purpose affect the structure and content of texts. The Year of The Flood is a novel clearly written for the modern era we live in today. Her dystopian novel targets a western and current audience. Therefore many of the main themes in the novel are portrayed in a way that shows the newly arisen problems of today’s society, for example the health care problems that are becoming increasingly grave as people gradually realize that science does not have the answer to all the needs humans have, and that it have dangerous side effects to the ecosystems and human health. Its main themes cater to today’s culture and extended the problems of government control displayed in most famous dystopian novels, to illuminating the problems that scientific developments have on the future and present world.
As soon as the novel begins, we are introduced to the concept of saving the environment. The book begins with the narrator explaining his life-long dream of helping the world. He says that the cultural revolution of the 1960’s contributed to his ambition. However, as time went on he
In Ray Bradbury’s " There Will Come Soft Rains, " he fabricates a story with two themes about the end of the world. The first theme is that humans are so reliant on technology, that it leads the destruction of the world, and the second theme is that a world without humans would be peaceful, however no one would be able to enjoy it. Bradbury uses literary devices, such as narrative structure, personnification, and pathos to effectively address human extinction. One aspect which illustrates how he portrays human extinction can be identified as narrative structure, he structured the story in a way that it slowly abolishes the facade of technological improvements made by people to reveal the devastation that technology can cause. The story started
This essay will describe Emile Durkheim’s concepts of social integration and social/moral regulation and will explain how Durkheim connects them to suicide. It will then utilize those concepts to analyze the social effects of the Buffalo Creek flood, as described in the book “Everything In Its Path�, by Kai T. Erikson, showing other consequences besides higher suicide rates.
To conclude, because the government was able to use censorship and promote ignorance, they were able control and manipulate their citizens. This novel also has resemblance to our world, this novel is a reminder of how powerful media can become if used the right way, society can be mislead into thinking false things. By promoting ignorance, the citizens started having very bland lives with no depth. People did not talk about ideas and feelings because they were obsessed and dependent on instant pleasure, they will start denying they own feelings because of this. Television and easy access to entertainment made books nonexistent.
Education holds power over determining one’s class. Knowledge and refinement can set one individual apart from another who lacks the qualities of successful individuals. Finances and opportunities distinguish class meaning the lower class has difficulty in obtaining the same conditions of the upper class. Education ultimately dictates success and power in society. Education is taken for granted and should be recognized for the significance it possesses.
Many people change their position on this overarching question: What responsibility do people have when developing new technology? In the texts “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, “the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, and “De-Extinction” answers the questions that it may impose. Each of these texts share one same belief: Society holds heavy responsibility towards technological advancements. Throughout the article, she talks about how the HeLa helped create cures for various diseases, and how groundbreaking they are.
The technology of today’s world is astounding. We have learned how to battle diseases that were once thought to lead to a certain death, we have invented incredible technologies that allow us to communicate with people across the world instantly, and maybe most impressively of all, we are able to create human life. We now hold in our hands the technologies that allow those who may not have been able to conceive naturally to have children they can call their own; children who will enrich their lives in a way nothing else can, and who will continue their names and lives after they are gone. In an age where we have more power than ever to use the bodies and DNA of others for our own benefit, it becomes increasingly important that we remain open-minded and fully understand both the disadvantages and advantages equally and create stricter regulations to control how we as a people progress our civilization.
Conclusively, dystopian texts are written to provide a warning about future times. Authors and directors use a variety of techniques to put their idea forward and have an impact of the audience. Rules that the chosen texts exhibit include that citizens have a fear of the outside world and all citizens adhere to a strict set of rules, but there is a main protagonist who scrutinises the governments or society’s nature. The rules that authors and directors use to put forward their messages of the moral issues human cloning and relying too much on technology and instinctively perusing traditions are evident throughout all three texts.
Mary Shelley’s Sci-Fi horror known as Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus has become a classic novel in history. This dark tale touches on every subject of humanity. One of Shelley’s biggest themes is a big question in the science world we live in, nearly 200 years after publication of the book. That question being can science go too far, is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Shelley uses the plot of her story to serve as a warning to readers to be careful when dealing with this imaginary line. Shelley’s tale of a mad scientist and the repercussions he suffers from his experiment is a timeless story. As technology is being pushed to the brink of morality in the modern day, this question has become a huge part of the modern world of science we are living in.
In canadian poet, novelist, and literary critic Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, exists a plethora of themes, characters and plots, that pool together to bestow upon the reader meaningful novel. taking place after a long-feared waterless flood (or plague) has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life, the book gives little details about the whens and wheres, leaving the reader in a suspenseful and curious position, grasping every little detail that will provide a better insight to the unfamiliar setting of the story. The second of the MaddAddam trilogy, following The Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood is a tale of mankind’s struggle to
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley tests the motives and ethical uncertainties of the science in her time period. This is a consideration that has become more and more pertinent to our time, when we see modern scientists are venturing into what were previously unimaginable territories of science and nature, through the use of things like human cloning and genetic engineering. Through careful assessment, we can see how the novel illustrates both the potential dangers of these scientific advancements and the conflict between that and creationism.
The novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood provides a dystopic vision of the outcome of unregulated pursuit of knowledge and control over nature. It is unlikely that the scenario portrayed in the novel would ever occur beyond fiction. The reason being the United States and many other countries already have regulating agencies and oversight commissions that would prevent scientists such as Crake from ever developing his ideas into reality. Atwood incorporates realistic experimental methods into her novel, which eventually lead to pigs being able to grow human organs, and creating “pigoons” that appear to be more horrific than Frankenstein himself. Consumers are the ones to decide what is put to use and what is not. There is a fine line between benefiting society and damaging society. This novel illustrates what may happen when that line is crossed a thousand times over; a horrific image. Atwood takes many of today’s scientific ideas with the potential to benefit society and turns them into tomorrow’s nightmare and creates a false paranoia. However, without new scientific advancements or technology, there will be no hopes for those who are in critical health conditions; therefore, we should overlook the arbitrary ethical proclamations of certain groups of people, for genetic technological progression is the only key to the sustenance of the population in terms of being able to be cured from the infestation of nature.
Throughout history there have been many dystopian societies, societies with major flaws. In these societies actions occurred which caused harm to the citizens such as murder, destruction of property and other unfortunate consequences. These events are often portrayed in novels to point out the consequences of these societies. The novel Legend by Marie Lu contains events and situations based on historical occurrences such as World War II, North Korea and Tiananmen Square in order to point out societal flaws in real dystopian societies.
Dystopia represents an artificially created society to where a human population is administered to various types of oppressions, or a human population lives under the order of an oppressive government. The novel Fahrenheit 451 and the film V for Vendetta both effectively display this dystopian concept in their works. The nature of the society, the protagonist who questions the society, and the political power that runs the society are examples of how the novel and the film efficiently capture the main points of a dystopian society. The authors of the novel and the film use their visions of a dystopian future to remark on our present by identifying how today’s society is immensely addicted to technology and how our government has changed over the past decades. Furthermore, the authors use our modern day society to illustrate their view of a dystopia in our
Since the beginning of scientific research, the information discovered has led to many technological breakthroughs and advancements at a rapid pace. The velocity of the incoming discoveries may allow one to overlook the powerful emphasis we as humans hold over human life itself. While human research has been developing an understanding of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) since Friedrich Miescher isolated the double-helix shaped molecule, efforts in recent decades to map the human genome have instigated a great amount of opportunity to the potential manipulation of the basic elements of life. This potential had escalated to a reality by 2001, as the first genetically altered babies had been born and were confirmed by scientists to be genetically altered. These successful operations have sparked a mass overflow of possibility and further technological advancements with regard to human genetic modification (Whitehouse). While there is an enormous amount of potential in human genetic modification, there is an equal amount of controversy that questions the ethics of such practices. For example, should the ability to modify a child’s genetic code be viewed as a technological possibility, or should it be a social obligation to ensure that all children are disease-free? Should it be the parents’ right to modify their unborn child’s genetic code to whatever they wish or see fit? Or should the fetus hold the right to live a life without genetic modification? There are many valid arguments for both positive and negative aspects of human genetic engineering. To make a claim concerning the ethics of human genetic engineering, one must analyze each potential point in order for their opinion to hold validity.