In Mary E Pearson’s thought-provoking and engaging dystopian novel, ‘The Adoration of Jenna Fox’, the narrator, seventeen-year-old Jenna Angeline Fox, has awoken from a year-long coma, with no recollection of her life prior, she is searching for her identity. Set forty years into the future, (the author has not formly disclosed the time frame, however particular descriptions throughout the novel communicate a general outline - for example, antibiotic resistance “by then most antibiotics were useless” and “the last polar bear has died”), the science fiction, medical thriller communicates many important ideas about human nature through various important events, such as Jenna’s bio gel discovery; while trying to reclaim her computer (later to …show more content…
During the important event, we go on to learn that in the accident, Jenna’s body was injured beyond saving. Nevertheless, her skeletal structure was replicated and with a mere 10% of her brain salvaged, full function was restored through additional infused bio gel and an uploaded brain scan. Pearson’s first-person narrative provokes concern and confusion in both Jenna and the reader, despite her mother’s argument that it is “the most important ten percent”, Jenna is not convinced and begins to question whether or not she can still consider herself human, “I don't want five hundred billion neural chips. I want guts”. Linking the concept of Jenna not being considered human to the rest of the novel, it is ironic in that protagonist Jenna, who’s not legally considered human because she’s too artificial expresses more emotion and empathy than biologically human antagonist, Dane, “and what I see in Dane’s perfectly beautiful face disturbs me. Emptiness”. This contrast further assisting Pearson to communicate her overall purpose of the novel - to make readers think about what it is human, by challenging them to decide whether artificial intervention or lack of emotion and “emptiness” makes one less …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Lily (Jenna’s Grandmother) possessed a particular disliking to the ‘new’ Jenna and their relationship is strained, “I don’t hate you, Jenna… I simply don’t have room for you”. During the important event of Jenna’s bio gel discovery, both Jenna and the reader go on to discover that Lily’s dislike of Jenna was established on firm beliefs in that she did not think was ethical nor morally right of Jenna’s parents to artificially replicate their daughter’s body, “ I’m not like your parents. I think there are worse things than dying… They should have let you die”. I believe her opinion may is closely linked to two things she mentioned earlier in the novel, one being her feeling of constant guilt after modern medical advancements during her time as a doctor killed her husband, “And a simple thing like overusing antibiotics created a strain of bacteria so deadly it killed my husband and a quarter of the world’s population… I live with that every day of my life” and the other being her commitment to preserving non-genetically modified plants. On the contrary, during the important event, it is clear Jenna’s parents possess no ethical or moral doubt in what they did to preserve the life of their daughter; “The information is not the mind, Jenna. That we’ve never accomplished
Jenna has a past and memories that make up who she is regardless of the Jenna before the accident. Memories are vital because they make up an identity and every human has an identity. After waking up from a coma, Jenna doesn’t know her identity which leads her to think that she is not human. When Jenna started remembering who she once was, Jenna shaped into her old personality. Jenna shows this when she goes to Lily for help and Lily says, “Why are you telling me this and not your parents? I’m surprised she would ask. Is she testing me? We both know the answer. Because I always have” (Pearson 186). Jenna’s identity makes her who she is. She remembered the close bond she once had with Lily and regained a small part of Jenna Fox’s identity. More importantly Jenna realizes that she still has the same memories she did befor...
Susannah Cahalan never considered her life to be anything other than pleasantly ordinary. She was a young, ambitious journalist working for the New York Post, and seemed to have her life in order. With a promising position at her job and a steady relationship, Cahalan seemed to be at the start of a life of fulfillment and success. She seemed to be completely in control of her life. Unfortunately, things were not at all as they
According to events from the past, history today has repeated itself due to the sustained and increasingly high levels of drug and alcohol use as well as the popularity of casual sex displayed on media platforms. Huxley’s idea of the “utopian” society is manufactured, just as it is being artificially created today; in the modern world, euphemisms are frequently used to cover up the real truths. Similarly, the “brave new world” hid
Laura Deeb’s An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon seeks to rectify post-9/11 notions of political Islam as anti-modern and incongruous with Western formulations of secular modernity. Specifically, Deeb is writing in opposition to a Weberian characterization of modern secular Western societies as the development of bureaucracies through social rationalization and disenchantment. Within this Weberian framework Deeb asserts that Shia communities are in-part modern because of the development of beuorocratic institutions to govern and regulate religious practice. However, Deeb makes a stronger argument oriented towards dislodging the assumptions "that Islamism is static and monolithic, and that
In other words, Jenna isn’t sure anymore if she still is human considering that she has a ninety percent artificial body. In one particular passage, Jenna thinks to herself, “Is one out of five enough? Lily [Jenna’s Grandma] says percentages and politicians can’t define identity, but they’ve defined mine: illegal lab creation,” (Pearson 190). This quote showcases her difficulty and confusion trying to understand her identity. She tries to resolve her confusions by comparing the word identity’s dictionary definition to her own life, but she finds that only one out of the five definitions match. Jenna is unsure who or what she truly is. Additionally, Jenna also questioned her true nature when she learned that her parents had saved a backup of her consciousness in their closet. Jenna asks herself, “Which is the real me? The one in the closet or the one here on the forest floor? (Pearson 197). She is confused who the real Jenna is; the living, breathing one, or the one made of pure consciousness. Jenna is trying to figure out her true self, and is further confused that she has two consciousnesses. In brief, Jenna feels that she has lost her true validity as a human because of her parents’ choice to give her a synthetic
I have chosen to write about Virginia Woolf, a British novelist who wrote A Room of One’s Own, To the Lighthouse and Orlando, to name a few of her pieces of work. Virginia Woolf was my first introduction to feminist type books. I chose Woolf because she is a fantastic writer and one of my favorites as well. Her unique style of writing, which came to be known as stream-of-consciousness, was influenced by the symptoms she experienced through her bipolar disorder. Many people have heard the word "bipolar," but do not realize its full implications. People who know someone with this disorder might understand their irregular behavior as a character flaw, not realizing that people with bipolar mental illness do not have control over their moods. Virginia Woolf’s illness was not understood in her lifetime. She committed suicide in 1941.
Aldous Huxley’s, “Brave New World,” explores the roles of people in society, morals concerning sexual activity, and other controversies in our reality. One of the principal characters in the novel is ‘John the Savage.’ John is a unique character in the story because unlike the other characters in the book, his emotions and morals were similar to those of the majority of our society. He felt emotions in a way others did not, and his morals can be regarded as ethically right (for example, he did not consider sex to be meaningless; in fact, he considered it an intimate act. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, John develops into a corrupt and barbaric man- the novel even finishes with the image of John whipping both himself and others, eliminating our prior perception of John’s character. This paper will analyse the themes and importance of the final moments of “Brave New World,” and explore how a person’s sexual experience is heavily experienced by their environment.
Although the book has many stories to tell, all with something in common but yet with a different feature, the point of the book was to not only educate the world about these situations but to also give us real scenarios that we all can relate to in some sort of fashion. This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
“Paper Pills” is connected to the first story of Anderson’s book, Winesburg, Ohio, when the narrator describes Doctor Reefy working “ceaselessly” ...
One might ask Bethany Hagen, what her inspiration was behind such a unique novel her first response took her back to her childhood. Hagen grew up reading Jane Auste...
Certain words mean more than what is set down on paper. It’s the background of the words that is important. The reason of why the term is being used in the text is the true meaning of the word. In the Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson, there are several definitions throughout the book. The words curious, lost, hate, empty, human, identity, and forever are all defined throughout the duration of the story. All of the words are being defined for a reason, all of the words have significance to the story. They are all connected in different ways and all mean more than just what the definition says. The words human, identity, and forever are each defined at some point during the story, and they are interconnected and important to the text
In Aldous Huxley’s novel, “Brave New World,” published in 1932, two idiosyncratic, female characters, Lenina and Linda, are revealed. Both personalities, presented in a Freudian relationship (Linda being John’s mother and Lenina being his soon to be lover), depict one another in different stages of life and divulge ‘a character foil’. Lenina and Linda are both ‘Betas,’ who hold a strong relationship with the men in their lives, especially John. It can be stated that John may partially feel attracted towards Lenina, because she is a miniature version of Linda, in her youth. They both support the term of ‘conditioning,’ yet also question it in their own circumstances. Nonetheless, they both are still sexually overactive and criticized for such immoral decisions. Linda espouses it from her heart, while Lenina supports the process partially due to peer pressure and society’s expectations. Both female characters visit the Reservation with Alpha – Plus males, and both find a common feeling of revulsion towards it. Linda and Lenina are similar in many ways, yet they hold their diverse views on the different aspects of life.
De Beauvoir Simone. “The second sex” Ch.1. 2009. Science Fiction Stories and Contexts. Ed. Stephen A. Scipione and Marisa Feinstein. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, n.d. 119-34. Print.
The first of the many ideas conveyed in Carr’s article is that the brain is malleable like plastic. To explain, the professor of Neuroscience, James Olds, says that “nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones” (Carr 4). This means that the human brain changes the way it functions according to the information manipulated by neurons. In the novel Feed, brain malleability is involved in the climax of the story. The feed works as a computer chip being directly inserted into a person’s brain. The climax of the story occurs when Titus and his group of friends get their brain chips hack. Before the attack, Violet, one of the main characters, never questions the society she lives in. However, after her brain chip is affected, her thoughts and brain functions rewired and from then, she starts to reflect on society. Given the climax of the story, the novel illustrates how even a brain chip cannot stop the natural malleability property of the human brain.
Haraway’s cyborg is a blending of both materiality and imagination, pleasure and responsibility, reality and the utopian dream of a world without gender and, maybe, without end. We are all hybrids of machine and organism. The cyborg is our ontology, a creature in a post-gender world with "no origin story in the...