blog for today

So...I can't remember...were we supposed to write about an example where we felt we couldn't be ourselves or whatever as we actually are? Anyway, the best example I have of a time where I felt like that was when I went to Sycamore. Lots of really smart people go there. I never felt very intelligent and in fact pretty much got the idea that I was one of the dumber kids around. My grades were okay, I was terrible at science, was in the lowest math level (and got Cs), and was just average at like everything else. So it was kind of a shock when I went to other schools, like in Hong Kong and here, and kind of found out that apparently I wasn't that dumb after all. This sort of doesn't relate to the poem because the poem talks about how we fear being too good at something more than being terrible at something and that example of mine is more about the other way around. But I've never felt like I was too good at something to the extent that I fear it or whatever, (not that I was ever really afraid of not being intelligent, it wasn't a good feeling, but I wasn't afraid or anything), so oh well.

The Veldt

The veldt is more similar to Brave New World than 1984. It has technology and the concept of a house used to increase pleasure and decrease work. However, unlike Brave New World, the people in it still have negative emotions and it is these emotions that control the story. In Brave New World it is the outsider that tries to kill people and feels emotion. In this story, the 'insiders'- the children who embrace the technology- are the ones with the strongest negative emotions and kill people. (Not that the parents don't have 'dark' emotions either- also a difference). Also, the Veldt reads more like an attack on technology rather than a portrayal of a dystopia, since the psychologist and the parents are free to turn off the house and believe that the house is wrong without any negative consequences from outside society. The negative consequences come from their children, who are addicted to the nursery. This is not like a dystopia, where the way of life is a certain way and one isn't able to deviate from it that easily. Also, apart from the fact that the nursery has unleashed the children's darker side (like the Party does in 1984- turning the kids into spies), this is not like 1984 much.