Film and book composers are showing their concerns for the future by over-exaggerating the future. They are showing us faults that our world has by exaggerating the consequences of our actions. ‘Ender’s Game’ written by Orson Scott Card is a novel about militarism and ‘The Island’ directed by Michael Bay is a film about the will to live. Although our world right now is doing fine, dystopian literature serves as a form of criticism of the current systems in society that place restrictions on freedom. Some major problems in our world must be fixed.
Card uses ‘Ender’s Game’ to show us his concerns for the future by showing the effects of our faults in the present. One of these faults is how citizens are expected to conform to uniform expectations, which is shown in ‘Ender’s Game’. “It was not his fault he was a third. It was the government’s idea, they were the ones that authorized it – how else could a Third like Ender got into school? And now the monitor was gone. The experiment entitled Ender Wiggin hadn’t worked out after all”. In Ender’s world, there is a two-child policy in place with an extra child only coming from government authorization. “It was not his fault he was a third” infers that it is not normal to be a third, which in the context means the third child in a family. Ender’s parents had to conform to uniform expectations, which has examples in the present world such as the one-child policy in China. In this quote, Card is critising the uniform expectations, which restrict freedom.
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This is the same in Bay’s ‘The Island’ in which, residents of the facility have a proximity rule when they are of the opposite gender. The shot of the proximity warning coming up on a tablet shows that Bay is trying to show the audience how uniform expectations can restrict our freedom. The technique used to show the dystopian characteristic of uniformed expectations. The shot is symbolism where the symbol is used to represent the effects of containing genetic engineering projects in a monitored environment. An example of restricting us away from the opposite gender is a private single sex education system where only one gender is allowed at the school. In the shot, Bay is critising the single sex education system by exaggerating the effects of it on a genetic engineering project.
Card criticises different things in ‘Ender’s Game’. One of which is the way a figurehead is worshipped by the citizens of society. “They had us cold, outnumbered and outweaponed. The only thing that saved us was that we had the most brilliant military commander we ever found. Call it fate, call it god, call it damnfool luck, we had Mazer Rackham”. In this quote, Card is criticising how Graff is calling Mazer Rackham god therefore worshipping him. There are examples of this in present day society such as Cristiano Ronaldo, often regarded as the best soccer player in the world. “Call it fate, call it god” is a hyperbole due to the exaggeration used when explaining the impact of Mazer Rackham. Card is criticising it due to the way it restricts our freedom.
Similarly, Bay also criticises the way that we worship a figurehead in society. In ‘The Island’, it is the way that the genetic engineering projects worship the island. “I’m going to the island, we're gonna have so much fun. But I need to see you guys out there, you can do it. I won!”. The lines “I’m going to the island’ and the line ‘I won!” is inferring that is a good thing to move to the island. It also infers that others also want to go due to this person’s emotion of winning the lottery. In the film, the island serves as a representation of a figurehead that everyone worships. Therefore, Bay is critising how we worship a figurehead in society.
In ‘Ender’s Game’, the last thing that Card criticises is that we fear the outside world. “Look Ender, I’m sorry if you’re lonely and afraid. But buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know. With as many ships, for all we know”. The line “Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know” gives the citizens of that world something to be afraid of and there are real life examples of this such as the fact that South Koreans are scared of an attack from North Korea. In this quote Card uses Graff’s dialogue to show his concerns that we fear the outside world due to the restrictions on freedom.
Bay also criticises this in ‘The Island’. “What if we are contaminated? Then we’d be dead. There’s no contamination, that was a lie”. For the genetic engineering projects they have had a memory implant placed so that they believe that the reason that they shouldn’t explore the outside world because of a worldwide contamination that they were saved from. In this quote, Bay effectively uses dialogue so that Jordan 2 delta and Lincoln 6 Echo can come to terms with the fact that the outside world is in fact not contaminated. This is Bay critising how we fear the outside world due to the restrictions on freedom.
In conclusion, dystopian literature can serve as a form of criticism of the current systems in society that place restrictions on freedom due to the way Card and Bay used ‘Ender’s Game’ and ‘The Island’ to criticise the restrictions on freedom in modern society. They have done this by exaggerating the effects of conforming to uniform expectations, how people fear the outside world and how people worship a figurehead in society. Therefore, in conclusion, dystopian literature can serve as a form of criticism of the current systems in society that place restrictions on freedom. Some major problems in our world must be fixed.
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