Unseen Dystopia DIRT
Hello Year 12,
I will put 2 blogs up this week (all being well) for literature. First is this, unseen dystopia DIRT. You have hopefully received an email detailing some feedback for your response to the task below. The most common EBI was about thesis statements and 'how to start.' Particular thanks to Ellie N for your candour on this front - I think you even typed 'I don't know how to start these...' which was brually honest of you (and equally helpful for me).
Write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading of dystopian literature.
Think about what the words critical appreciation mean. Critical - means an intelligent '360' analytical look at something - picking apart close details. 'Appreciation', in the context of this literature exam, means you are trying to appreciate how, or rather to what extent, this text matches your understanding of what dystopian texts should look and feel like.
With this in mind...you ought to begin your answer by (briefly) defining what dystopian texts are...and then (again, briefly) establishing whether this text matches the definition you settled upon. Remember, dystopian literature is ultimately an art form - so don;t be afraid to define it in these terms.
Here is my attempt to briefly define the genre and then explain how the extract fits in with the definition. (quick tip - it is unlikely that the exam board will give you an extract which is massively out of the ordinary - so your thesis statement can be fairly interchangeable)
Dystopian literature is borne out of it's antithesis - Utopia. In dystopian texts, typically, a writer explores political or totalitarian power - often in post-apocalyptic conditions. As an art-form, dystopian literature is often designed to turn a lens on a particular aspect of our own society - and to make readers consider the consequences of this in an exaggerated form. In this respect, the extract from The Road by Cormac McCarthy, seems to fit the mould quite perfectly. McCarthy creates a bleak and deliberately sparse tableaux of precious few natural resources and alarmingly dysfunctional relationships.
Then I want you to apply this lesson to a new extract. I don't need a whole additional essay from you - by any means - unless you want to stretch yourself!
Your tasks is to: Write a thesis statement for a critical appreciation of Harrison Bergeron (extract is below). Then write a topic sentence for what would be your first paragraph of your response and as far as embedding and analysing 1 quotation. Just 1 quote analysed - and hopefully with reference to the extent to which this extract fits your (my) definition of the genre. If you could submit this be the first Monday after half term (1st June) via email - we can discuss in our first Teams lesson (to be arranged).
Good luck,
I'm always available to help.
Mr M
Harrison Bergeron
By Kurt Vonnegut
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the
United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.On the television screen were ballerinas. A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
“Huh?” said George.
“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.
“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sash weights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
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