Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Blog Post #11: Creative Project
Cloud Atlas Evidence
Prompt:
One
of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an essay in
which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to free
himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over others.
Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power struggle to
enhance the meaning of the work.
Thesis:
In
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell uses the
relationships between the characters in each of the stories to illustrate their
own power and who has power over them. This allows for the exploration of
“variations on the theme of predatory behavior -- in the political, economic
and personal arenas” throughout different time periods proving the endurance of
this aspect of humanity.
Evidence:
1. Henry Goose stole Ewing’s
“emerald from von Weiss” as well as “the buttons from [his] waistcoat” after
poisoning him for an extended period of time (Mitchell 504).
2. Both the Maori and the Moriori
people are the “mongrel race” in the
eyes of the white males (Mitchell 504).
3. The “Maori conquistadores”
asserted their dominance over the Moriori people through brutal violence
leaving “men & women impaled in rows on beaches” and “less than an hundred
pureblooded Moriori” alive (Mitchell 504).
4. Although Ayrs allows him to stay
at his home, Frobisher searches through the “library for treasure” to sell for
his personal gain (Mitchell 60).
5. The apartment manager seeks
Frobisher out to settle the “hefty balance” he owes, causing Robert to leave
the city to escape his own debt (Mitchell 44).
6. Frobisher engages in an affair
with Jocasta, Ayrs’s wife, fulfilling each character’s sexual desires. Almost
every night “J. came to [Frobisher’s] bed at midnight” leading to conflict
between the characters.
7. Frobisher respects Ayrs’s musical
ability and considers him “one of the few men in Europe whose influence [he
wants his] own creativity informed by” (Mitchell 61).
8. Because Sixsmith has information
that threatens the business practices of Seaboard Inc., the company sends an
assassin to put a “silenced bullet […] through the scientist’s skull” (Mitchell
112).
9. Luisa investigates both Seaboard’s
business practices and the death of Sixsmith leading to her “VW’s front bumper
[vanishing] into the hollow sea” (Mitchell 141).
10. Corporations bred fabricants and
certain “embryos […] to labor in uranium tunnels under the Yellow Sea” or work
for Papa Song (Mitchell 324).
11. After attacking and capturing
Zachary, the Kona claimed the land and the “bodies [as] Kona b’longin’s”
establishing their dominance over the Valleysmen (Mitchell 291).
12. The Prescients withheld the
knowledge “’bout what lay b’yonder the
ocean” keeping the Valleysmen isolated and retaining their power over the less
civilized people (Mitchell 249).
Works
Cited:
Mitchell,
David. Cloud Atlas. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004. Print.
"Q&A:
Book World Talks With David Mitchell." Washingtonpost..com. N.p., 22 Aug.
2004. Web. 7 Oct. 2013.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17231-2004Aug19.html>.
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