illodous
Angels...
Okay - for sando and any others doing In The Wild this year:sando said:
Essay Question: “A significant concern for humanity is its relationship with the natural world and nature’s influence on human behaviour and human interaction. The quality and importance of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, or its response to the absence of natural world can vary across different times and cultures”.
If we were now to deconstruct this question, you would notice it is satisfying the major request of the rubric: to demonstrate how the composer's imbedded values and ideas are shaped by context. An essentially postmodern concept. You are also required to demonstrate skills in discrimination - that is, pointing out similarities and differences between your two texts.
As a comparative study of texts, you are analysing two texts of great similarity - Bladerunner and Brave New World. These texts were and still are, highly influential and thought-provoking, raising similar issues and questions about the relationship between humans and their natural environment. However, they were created at different points in time. Scott directed his in the 80's, whereas Huxley wrote in the 20'/30's.
Huxley essentially created a novel of dystopic fiction - a failed utopia. The world is a tightly regulated, totalitarian society in which the cost of 'perfection' in physical, social and psychological helath and social paramount is delievered at the cost of individuality and self-expression. You cannot criticise the government or the workings of your world.
The world through the eyes of Huxley is near-completely industrial - the natural world with its animals and plants and disease are replaced by a human-created and maintained 'structure' and facade. Why?
Why did he implement the eugenics notion? The Bokanovsky's birthing system? Soma? The allusion to the Marxist theory through the name Bernard Marx? The contrast between the 'cultured' Lenina and the base and untamed John the Savage?
All of these profound ideas link into Huxley's context - the time and events in which he wrote.
Consider that Huxley firstly came from a background of highly respected doctors. He lived in the time when the very first Model 'T' Ford automobile was introduced in America. The world had started to become an industrial playground. Notice how I emphasise STARTED...
Let me now contrast STARTED with CURRENT.
Ridley Scott depicts the present day certaintly with the same depth of bleakness as Huxley - by the use of film noir techniques. Scott is showing what the world has become - a wasteland where natural resources are burned in great sheets of smoke, where the lower castes of humanity are left to squander in the wastes of Earth, and the higher castes are delivered to the Offworld.
Scott sees the world as a place that perhaps was once quite beautiful but is now dead, destroyed. We have overused our natural resources, we have polluted our environment and most of all, we have allowed our pursuit of technology to overcome our search for religious and spiritual meaning. Gameboys and CDs replacing a higher state of consciousness.
We notice in the movie, the notion of a replicant - a cloned human with many of the 'lower' attributes removed. They are heartless creatures with no emotions - neither sadness nor pain, designed with a sole purpose to kill. But is this really true? Look closely at Roy, look closely at Rachael...
We see a pervasion of iconography - the advertisments for TDK, the Asian woman on the billboard, the Coca-Cola sign, the symbolism of Tyrell's building as a Mayan temple, suggestive of technology and progress as overriding spiritual cultivation.
Why?
Scott lived throughout the 80's in which the above were beginning to take effect. CD's were introduced, meaning we could store masses of information onto an optical disk. Coca-Cola arose as a superpower with mass-advertising. Mass-production of goods and a materialistic society was encouraged by the spurt of new automobiles and technological trinkets.
Why did I contrast STARTED with CURRENT? Simple. We are analysing how context influences the composer's work. Huxley is demonstrating what he feels the world will BECOME in the years ahead, whereas Scott is showing what he feels the world IS.
I have merely given you a superficial outline of profound ideas (yes, I understand the paradox) but I implore you to gloss over the ideas I have given you and start doing some more research into them.
Sando and others, while I do feel that you have a strong grasp of textual detail and can supplement with quotes and references, I don't think you are making strong enough statements about The Wild.
Remember - your references and quotes are there to emphasise what you have said, not to form the sole basis of your essay. Look at the question again - '...human's interaction and behaviour toward nature...' (overuse of natural resources / industrial development)
'... Can vary across times and cultures...' ---- Huxley was British, Scott was American. Huxley was from the 20's to 30's. Scott was from the 80's. Huxley wrote about the beginning of industralisation. Scott wrote about the effects.
A good thing to do might be to check out some of the essays in the stockpile on In The Wild. I think a lot of my essays may be in there, plus some of the other members of the community whose ideas are innumerable and invaluable.
40 minutes is just about enough time to pull off a semi-decent essay. They aren't expecting rocket science, but to get yourself a decent mark, they are expecting a deep level of knowledge and understanding.
-Matt
