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Parable vs other dystopias

The society in Parable is vastly different from the ones we saw in BNW and 1984. In the other two ones we read, the societies were highly structured and there was a more direct link between the oppression from the top of the society down upon the rest of the people. However, in Parable the society feels more anarchistic. Where there was an obvious top-down control of the people in the other books, in Parable everyone is essentially on their own. Stealing and arson is rampant in the area and the police are equally motivated by the same greed and are ineffective.  It suffers from the opposite extreme. Rather than extreme totalitarian control, Parable suffers from a societal breakdown.  Along the same lines, you look at technology, which nearly all of the elements we've discussed this year stem from. Again, Parable's world is in decay. There is little to no technology around because of the vast amount of poor people in neighborhoods, and even poorer people making long, often hope...
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The End

 Well, we got the death that we wanted. Jill being the sacrificial lamb of the story wasn't all that surprising, but in standard fashion for the book, the way that it happened was unexpected. Rather than her death being due to incompetence or inexperience in the wild, Jill dies saving the little girl from the pyromaniacs. That was interesting, however, it felt a little detached from the way the story has gone. The story has had a motto of "you can't be a hero," yet Jill's death goes against that. All the previous deaths have either been due to the harsh conditions on the move, or the destruction of the neighborhood. It just all felt a bit off. I'm kind of surprised we never took Bankole's family into consideration. Regardless of the result, they were going to come into play somehow. They were either going to be surprised and confused (maybe resistant), which would've provided an interesting storyline as well, or were going to be dead.   For the most pa...
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How's this gonna end?

 We've already had a discussion on who might/should die first, but with 3 chapters left there is still a lot to be resolved and not much time. With Lauren's discussion with Bankole there's some clarity about what the plan is for their future. He's got land, and Lauren is trying to get him to commit to Earthseed and there seems to be a compromise on starting on his land. Sure, this seems like a good plan for the future, but if there's anything that we've learned so far it is that nothing goes as planned. This probably is the least likely future to happen. It feels like someone is going to die, maybe Bankole since he has "value" to the group, so to speak, with his land. This story has been all about Lauren's loss, and subsequent enlightenment with Earthseed. It would be fitting if Bankole is the one to die. There just seems to be so much ground to cover for them and such little time. I know there's a sequel, but there has to be some sort of concl...
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The Same but Different

 Looking back at BNW and 1984, it's interesting that two novels that seem so different from each other, are both dystopias, and in some ways similar as well. The two books take the dystopian genre to opposite extremes. Society in BNW is always cheery and happy to the point in which it blinds the people from the reality of what is going on. 1984 is quite the opposite. Society is based on fear, and the worldview is dim and depressing. In both cases, the governments control all aspects of society, such as the 6 topics we've focused on. Even though they sometimes go in the opposite direction, we still see the same dystopic result.  The one comparison that I found the most interesting is between Bernard and Winston. I think it's safe to say that we had similar negative reactions to their personalities. Sure, they had the right idea in mind at the start, but then they spiraled downwards as the novels progressed. Both Bernard and Winston are the only people in their societies that...
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So now what?

 It still seems odd to me that the Party is so obsessed with rehabilitating the minds of enemies of the state before they kill them. It seems rather insecure of them. I guess it is their mentality of power and triumph. They cannot allow themselves to "lose" by letting them die with heretical views. Seems like an awful lot of work for reassuring themselves.  We've seen a lot of ways in which the Party tortures their enemies. Room 101 seems to be the final way of breaking their enemies, psychologically or physically. In Winston's case, it is destroying the emotional attachment to his former rebellious self. His last tie to his old self was through Julia, but with the rats set to kill him, he gives in. He finally has lost all sense of his former self. The Party has succeeded at quelling his foolhardy "revolution."  It seems to me that we will see an ending similar to Brave New World. Just like how the world continued onward after John dies, Winston will be kill...
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How many fingers am I holding up?

So O'Brien's a bad guy. I didn't expect that.  It sort of makes me wonder if the Brotherhood is a figment created by the Party to weed out those who might stand against it. Since they already have so much control and already instill fear in everyone so that they don't rise up, it might be unlikely. But they certainly seem paranoid to do something like that. The Party already embraces the suspected existence of Goldstein and the Brotherhood for its two minutes Hate. Just like the constant warfare against Eur/Eastasia, having a set enemy of the state helps to exert control. He is another enemy to use in order to bring people together in support of Big Brother. I wouldn't put it past the Party to have O'Brian's job be to find "heretics" and lull them in so that they can be persecuted as we saw with Winston and Julia. I guess this is what Orwell is trying to do to the reader. We have no concrete knowledge of what is going on in society. It is all so am...
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Up is Down

 We hear about doublethink early in the book, and it's evident very early with the ministries of Truth, Love, etc doing the opposite of what the name suggests. However, after reading the excerpts from Goldstein's book, we see how everything in society follows doublespeak. The Party, in its early stage, claimed to be Socialist. Yet the Party evolved to a society in which it has deviated from the socialism it claims to be. In line with socialist ideas, they took away private property. However, the class divide still remains and the Party members still are more privileged than the proles. It is Socialism and Anti-socialism, in line with the doublespeak it promotes.  The whole basis of the system is based on opposites. Nothing truly is what it claims to be. War and peace in society would have the same effect. War is against Eurasia, though it is also against Eastasia. Even the act of using doublethink is doublethink. It seems perfectly fitting that the first member of the Thought ...
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