Monday, September 01, 2008
I am currently in my parent's office now and I am FREEZING.
It is so freakishly cold and I am trying hard to study Handmaid's Tale.
As I look outside at office environment, I begin to draw comparisons between the office life and the Dystopian novels that I have to study.
My parents always said that when they step into the office, they are so caught up with work that they don't notice the time pass by.
It's like stepping into another world, another reality.
With the advancement of human society, are we launched into a subtle dystopia as well?
The rigidity and politics of our world, the indoctination of our youth with what we refer to as education, and the up and coming controversies in scientific progress of cloning and stem cell research force me to have a different take on this world.
Are we lost in our own worlds?
Are there multiple worlds and realities within this world?
Think about this:
How much can we fully know another human being? We are bounded and shackled by the limitations of the human seses, unable to fully comprehend another human individual. We are not granted access to each other's thoughts, and therefore would be reduced to interpreting the other human being's speech and actions.
Hence, we live in our own worlds. Society today merely consists of different worlds interacting together to form a big giant reality.
Like Cheryl said, "I live in my own bubble"
As we go home from work or school at the end of the day, we are in a sense transported from one world to another.
How many people can say that school/work and home are congruent?
Most of us are disgusted and appalled as we read the Handmaid's Tale and Brave New World. Maybe except for Matt, who always makes hilarious comments about being labelled as an 'unman' and sent to the colonies.
But I think the dystopias that both novels create does indeed cause us to look at our own world through different lenses(perhaps through Atwood's wrinkled eye sockets). It is only when we imagine the world scenarios will we be able to compare the present. Comparisons are drawn when we observe the promiscuity of the world state or the plight of the oppressed Handmaids.
"I like to believe that this is a story that I'm telling."I only hope that we will never descend to those dystopias.
Countdown to As:
60 days
12:12 PM
