That is it for now,
-Jason Miller
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A Modest Proposal
My final project shall be a short story of sorts. I will take two characters from the book (I'm leaning towards Curt and Joseph) and "compare" their lives before Oankali abduction. I will place the time setting in either a year before the war or several days before the alien intervention. A central argument that I would like to make involves both the dark and the light side of human nature. That's why I have chosen to use Joseph and Curt. I feel that Butler wants us to hate Curt so he will be my example of the "dark side." Lastly concerning my research I plan on looking up cultural differences of both men (they were from separate parts of the globe) and using these differences to explain why each character acts a certain way.
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4 comments:
Interesting idea.
Two relevant facts, which you may remember. Curt seems to have been rather heroic (as evidenced by the fact that he collected and guarded something like seven children). Joseph, meanwhile, was suicidal after the war. So Joe, who seems like such a positive character, had his dark side, whereas Curt, who seems so negative, was a bona fide hero. Just thought you might be interested in that.
Jason, I like the idea for your story. It's really interesting and something I would want to read as an epilogue to Lilith's Brood. Joseph and Curt are good characters to pick because of their contrast. I don't know how much research you've looked into but it might be worthwhile to incorporate something from psychology. There are a lot of theories out there about how your past effects who you become. Depending on if you're planning on giving short ideas about the childhood that both of them experienced, Freud and Eysenck would be a really good place to start your research. I think that you could use the information that Dr. Johns pointed out as supporting your good virus evil still. With Joseph it could be about the value of second chances and how it gives people a stronger drive to live. With Curt it could be that he wasn't able to protect the children, he wasn't even able to protect himself from the situation he was in, instead of using this as an opportunity, he used it as the source of his aggression. Just a place to start perhaps. Good luck!
Two main points here. Your research is going to be difficult so I suggest dropping the culture part of it and focus on physcology like kristine said. Doing so can give the reader insight as to why these characters are the way they are. Also, Curt and Joe are both great characters to use, but they have multiple assets to their personality and telling more about how they think and act will help give greater meaning to your story. I think that starting your story just after the disaster on the Earth would be a better setting for your story. You could divulge into their characters before the Oankali were part of their lives. Good ideas and good luck.
I like the idea for your short story I’m just curious to see what the plot will be about. Curt and Joseph are pretty different but what will they be doing on Earth that is interesting enough to be made into a short story? You should try to get your point across throughout the entire story just so that it stays structured and doesn’t go off on tangents. Is your main argument that the bad side of human nature comes out when people are put under pressure and stress? (aka Curt) or are you going to try to get across that people at least try to adapt to new situations? (aka Joe). Also, for your research I think it would be cool if you researched both places that they are from and include something about how their separate cultures affect who they are as people. Whatever you decide I would say just make sure that it is consistent throughout the story. One idea that I have for you that you could include in your plot is if you show both men as very different as we know them to be in Lilith’s Brood so that way you make a bigger statement of them totally changing as people when exposed to the Oankali. You could include for each of them an instance where we see a glimmer of how we know them to be but for the most part keep them very different.
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