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.
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I agree with your post, and it was very well-written! I think that by reading your analysis, I would enjoy reading that book. I believe that being rich isn't everything and you should never let your money change your personality or character. It isn't wise to look down upon somebody else because you may really need them in the long run. Survivalism plays a huge role in society now from any aspect especially life and business. I would like to see your development of this assignment. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI think that this does sound like a great novel to read. I really believe that with proper citations and summary, you could make a really deep paper using the ideological criticism method. The thing to criticize would most likely be, the will to survive or maybe the life of the wealthy against the life of the poor, or anything nice! :)
ReplyDeleteEither World War Z or Robot Chicken would make an interesting topic of analysis; both the book and the cartoon are satirical in nature, and you seem to enjoy that kind of subject. If you choose Robot Chicken, I would pick an episode or two, not the show as a whole; that will help you focus on one specific angle, instead of a whole bunch of them. Actually, you might want to do the same if you choose World War Z; you said it was written as a collection of stories and commented on a lot of different person/government/society flaws, so you might want to pick just one story. (And on a personal note, I love zombies, so…hint hint! That’s who I’m rooting for!)
ReplyDeleteI would use the ideological or the neo-Aristotelian method of criticism. I personally would go for the ideological, because then you get to explore just what exactly the creators are trying to convey, which is always interesting. However, considering the satire, neo-Aristotelian might be fun too; satire always intends to have a very specific effect, and if you pick this method of criticism you get to look into just how well the jibes were received, and whether they’ve had the desired impact or not.
Steps…if you choose Robot Chicken or World War Z, pick an episode/chapter that interests you; that way you can find out something that you really want to know, and it will be more fun. Choose your story early, and give yourself time to really look into it (I should take my own advice). Identify what you need to, be it a dominant ideology or the influence of the five rhetorical canons on the artifact, early; that way you have an established framework to follow.
I think that this book is a very interesting artifact to analyze because it challenges the ideology that survival is the most important aspect of life. With some good examples from the book which is present in this post this could make for a great paper.
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