Pentadic Criticism

The artifact I am analyzing is the website stumbleupon.com. The website is designed for the user to find websites that fit their interest. The user first selects what types of things they are interested in from a list and after using the site for a while, it gets to know the users interests more. You can discover artists you like, pictures, interesting facts, people, almost anything and all you have to do is click the stumble button.

Agent- the Stumbleupon site
Act- Discovering new websites and possibly new interests
Agency- Curiosity and boredom
Scene- Your computer and the internet
Purpose- To find things you are interested in and to be able to share them with friends.

scene-act yes
scene-agent no
scene-agency yes
scene-purpose yes

act-scene yes
act-agent no
act-agency yes
act-purpose yes

agent-scene no
agent-act yes
agent-agency no
agent-purpose yes

agency-scene no
agency-act yes
agency-agent no
agency-purpose no

purpose-scene no
purpose-act unsure
purpose-agent no
purpose-agency no

From the ratios, the most dominate element is the act.

Ideological Analysis of World War Z

The book World War Z is something that interests me very much. It is a collection of stories about the fictional zombie apocalypse brought together so people know about the emotions and hardships that were faced in the war against the undead. This book looks at every aspect of humanity dealing with the apocalypse from social status, jobs, cultures, and many more. Despite being an extremely well written story, it is an amazing social commentary.
The entire book is social satire. It shows what is wrong in every aspect of society and gives examples of how to change it. On of the my favorites of this is when the book comments on celebrities and people who are extremely rich. Their story starts off with everyone who is upper class staying in a mansion and having a party. The whole story starts off showing how excessively rich the people are and ends with showing that money is not everything and does not actually make you a better person. This is shown because they will not let non famous people into their party because they are beneath them. Also, they act as if they will live forever because of their social status. This ideology is challenged when one of their own becomes a zombie and actually ends up killing everyone in their party.
A huge ideology in this book is survivalism. This is shown in each and every story. Everyone is trying to survive one way or the other and just trying to excape the horrific events that are happening because of the zombies. Some people travel and end up being cannibals because of their situation while others try to end the war on zombies by serving their country but no matter what, the one thing that is on everyone's mind is to survive no matter what the cost.