The Stars My Destination
Introduction
'...The key turned in the lock of his soul and the door was opened. What emerged expunged the Common Man forever.';
The Stars My Destination ~pg 22
Gully Foyle. Uneducated. No skills. No merits. No recommendations. A short description given by the author Alfred Bester of his main character as the stereotypical Common Man of humanity. A man who later motivated himself to become something more than just a 'mere' man. Within the few pages of just the first chapter, Bester had pulled me into the diluted, freakish mind of Gully Foyle.
the Story...
As the story began, Gulliver Foyle was awaiting death aboard the wreckaged ship NOMAD in deep space. It's been six months since the NOMAD was left out to rust. Foyle just happened to be the sole survivor. Until one day, a sister ship to the NOMAD, VORGA managed to cross paths with the wreckage. Foyle did everything he could to send out rescue signals. But alas, his actions were wasted time and effort, for she had rejected him. And thus began his quest for vengeance upon the VORGA.
As his ship drifted out further into space, Foyle had spent his entire time aboard not welcoming death anymore. Instead he was now obsessing himself with the destruction of VORGA. For the first time in his life, Foyle was now motivated. He felt the need to punish and there was nothing anybody could do. He had vowed to himself to fight anything that was a threat towards his plans to destroy the ship that could have saved him.
While floating, into an asteroid belt, he was saved by the Scientific People of the Sargasso Asteroid. A tiny planet that was built by man. Primarily made of rock and two hundred years of salvaged ships. The tiny planet had made a new addition to their planet and population. It's rather ironic that of all people, Bester had decided to reverse the psychological role of scientists on this planet. He had turned the scientists into our definition of uncultivated savages in society. During his stay with the Scientific People, Foyle was forced into their society whether he liked it or not. They had given him a new name and tattoo across his face: NOMAD. Foyle knew he couldn't stay. He still had a score to settle and so he busted off the asteroid with a vengeance burning higher.
After escaping the Sargasso Asteroid, Foyle was then picked up by the Navy and
Some of the most intriguing stories of today are about people’s adventures at sea and the thrill and treachery of living through its perilous storms and disasters. Two very popular selections about the sea and its terrors are The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Longfellow. Comparison between the two works determines that “The Wreck of the Hesperus” tells a more powerful sea-disaster story for several different reasons. The poem is more descriptive and suspenseful than The Perfect Storm, and it also plays on a very powerful tool to captivate the reader’s emotion. These key aspects combine to give the reader something tangible that allows them to relate to the story being told and affects them strongly.
‘It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.’
Just as the fair season was over and the wretched sea started to slam against the hull of the ship, Bradford writes, “they were encountered many times with cross winds and met with many fierce storms with which the ship was shroudly shaken, and her upper works made very leaky; and one of the main beams in the mid-ships was bowed and cracked, which put them in some fear that he ship could not be able to perform the voyage…in a mighty storm, a lusty young man called John Howland, coming upon some occasional above the gratings was, with a seel of the ship, thrown into sea”( Bradford 79,80). Bradford and the colonist must survive the perilous journey to America by battling horrible ocean conditions. They have a broken beam that threatens their voyage to America and a man is thrown overboard. These men and women are in the heart of the most dangerous voyage to America. They have to overcome problems at sea before they even reach land. Most of them don’t even believe that they will even make it to the land. And once they do reach land they are more grateful that they reached land and was finished with the ocean even though they are not in
Guy Montag is a fireman who is greatly influenced in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451. The job of a fireman in this futuristic society is to burn down houses with books in them. Montag has always enjoyed his job, that is until Clarisse McClellan comes along. Clarisse is seventeen and crazy. At least, this is what her uncle, whom she gets many of her ideas about the world from, describes her as. Clarisse and Montag befriend each other quickly, and Clarisse's impact on Montag is enormous. Clarisse comes into Montag's life, and immediately begins to question his relationship with his wife, his career, and his happiness. Also, Clarisse shows Montag how to appreciate the simple things in life. She teaches him to care about other people and their feelings. By the end of the novel, we can see that Montag is forever changed by Clarisse.
When viewing the atrocities of today's world on television, the starving children, the wars, the injustices, one cannot help but think that evil is rampant in this day and age. However, people in society must be aware that evil is not an external force embodied in a society but resides within each person. Man has both good qualities and faults. He must come to control these faults in order to be a good person. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding deals with this same evil which exists in all of his characters. With his mastery of such literary tools as structure, syntax, diction and imagery, The author creates a cheerless, sardonic tone to convey his own views of the nature of man and man’s role within society.
Lemuel Gulliver describes a wildly fanciful dream from a perspective that, when analyzed, illustrates his conceited character and ignorance at his surroundings. Throughout his dream, Gulliver expresses how much more civilized and privileged his race is compared to the Yahoos, yet does this in a factual way that does not hint at contempt. Similarly, he does not seem to realize how abnormal his situation is throughout the dream, and casually remarks on each aspect of his environment without actually paying attention to details or what is really going on. Despite how seemingly self-absorbed Gulliver appears in his account of his dream, at the end he does reflect on his own life compared to the Yahoo's, and he makes the connection of how closely related his species and their's are (Swift 2473). This connection gives insight into Gulliver's mind, and shows that Gulliver may possibly be more aware then he seems.
Image if your home was destroyed and everyone you loved was gone and the only person you knew was your ex. You then go to find him because you slowly started falling in love with him. You go to a deserted spaceship were there is a deadly disease that causes people to go insane, but when you get there you have been tricked and he is not there.
...nplugged and becomes "The One." He is freed so he can bring freedom to the humans in the "visible world" or real world.
Giving up one’s previous idea of a truth is a challenge of pride for the human race. Just as the prisoner was “pained and irritated” to come upon this new
In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels, satire is ever-present: in plot, character and setting. Dystopia and utopia set the story, with grotesque added to sharpen character facets. The title character narrates the novel, and all actions are told through his point of view. His voyages expose him to extraordinary and absurd circumstances, used as fodder for mockery, and all throughout Gulliver’s travails society is ridiculed, and a bitter light is cast on humanity. Character growth is not spared: in the beginning Gulliver is much one-dimensional, and as he changes, Swift uses his growth as another ancillary conduit to let loose more satirical prowess. In the world as painted by Swift, Dystopia and Utopia are not what they seem: all through the changes happening in the novel, corruption and deceit brings rewards; moral rectitude brings emptiness and misfortune.
Houyhnhnm’s Land is a society unique to Gulliver’s adventures because he encounters not only horses reigning over society, but also that these supreme animals think more rationally and intellectually than the Yahoos and even Gulliver himself. Gulliver’s stay in Houyhnhnm’s Land represents the “perfect”, but emotionless and detached conventions of utopia. According to Dr. Joyce Hertzler’s The History of Utopian Thought, utopians hold a false view of society so that when developing their “perfect” social order they think nothing of “…over-riding natural affections and balking natural desires and impulses” (304). Life is really nothing but a systematic social order if devoid of all emotion, causing one to question the “perfection” of utopia. If one looks beneath the surface of the Houyhnhnm’s culture, one will find that Gulliver’s final journey does not describe an immaculate society, but rather a visionary world, meaning a world that is purely speculative and out of reach.
make my way to the frost coated back door, illuminated by the green and red
Gulliver's Travels reflects characters to the reader in numerous inventively nauseating ways. Quick uses his imaginative revamping of every day life to make the meanest, most clever, dirtiest tirade of the whole eighteenth century. Throughout this novel, Swift utilizes amazing misrepresentation and parody to make a figurative association between the distinctive societies experienced on Lemuel Gulliver's excursions and about his own particular society, reprimanding his general public's traditions.
The last fragments of her memory she gathered was a deafening scream. It was the middle of winter, in the blackening hour. The ship shook turbulently. The windows shattered violently- cardboard boxes swayed through the starboard and the port, while fruits ricochet across the dining room. The roaring wind and the malicious thunder competed over each other. There was no escape from the malevolent waves that tore the ship in two. Hazel screamed for help until she lost consciousness.
In conclusion, the Titanic’s sinking is among the many great and tragic accidents to occur at sea. Not only was it the biggest and most luxurious vessel at the time, it was also the most ill-fated cruise ship as it sailed its first and last voyage. Along with the sinking, more than half of its passengers would be buried at sea. This introduced a new idea that people began to understand even the greatest technology is not perfect, and there is no such thing as an “unsinkable ship.” Its rediscovery and production of the movie years later would reawaken the desire to know all that happened on “that fateful night”. The Titanic will continue to lure people for generations to come, since every generation is able to take something different from its tragedy.