Analysis Of Philip K. Dick

It only takes one word to process the word language in a person’s mind, and that is purely the language that he/she speaks. Language is the immediate translator of communication. Author Thompson Olusegun Ewata writes in his book Business Communication for Academic and professional Purposes that “Language is a vehicle that we use in presenting ideas, thoughts, feelings, opinions to the world” (Ewata 2010). In other words, language is how people share with others all of the information they are processing. Science fiction author Philip K. Dick expands on this relationship between language and communication in his novel The Penultimate Truth, by demonstrating the connections and flow of information from the above-ground and below-ground people.

Philip K. Dick’s novel, Time Out of Joint, is set in an artificially created town from the 1950’s in a dystopian 1990’s society. Published in 1959, Dick’s novel was met with criticism from those who feared the Communist threat of a third world war. In making “time out of joint” in his novel, Dick blurs the line between fiction and reality by distorting narrative structure and employing the symbolism of words to satirize 1950’s American society’s willful ignorance and fear of the unknown. As power and moral authority shift, the reader questions the postmodernist novel’s world, instilling a sense of doubt and curiosity.

In the book Everything I Never Told You, there are many different elements and techniques used within the book. The technique that I want to go into more depth on is the use of symbolism. I specifically want to focus on the symbolism in regards to Lydia, Hannah, and Nath’s love of astronauts and space.

Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” is a marvelous and unusual text. Within the first part of his book, also called C.V., he explains his life experience up to the day he finishes the book. King expresses his life with multiple literary elements that assist the readers on imagining his life of adventures, catastrophes, fears, and loves. Following are three of my favorite passages that caught my attention.

Throughout Dick’s life, he has not shown compassion towards anyone besides himself, taking everything and everyone for granted. With the use of amplification Capote is able to represent how Dick just viewed Perry as an easily-manipulable piece in his little game never showing true fondness towards him as Perry believed he reciprocated towards him, thinking they were together in the long run: “Goodbye, Perry. Dick was sick of him--his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice” (Capote 214). This use of amplification is exceptionally valuable in proving that Dick cares about no one besides himself and will do anything for his own benefit. Dick shapes Perry into a killing machine in

A Long Way Gone shows how over time one’s character can be changed completely due to circumstances. For example, A Long Way Gone gives an understanding of how the most innocent children can become the most outrageous killers. Survival plays a very huge theme in the book because of the situations Ishmael had to go through. . Ever since Ishmael escaped from the chaos that was happening in Mattru Jong, Beah mainly had to focus on his survival every single day. Such an incident happened in Chapter 4. “Things changed rapidly in a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to,” (Beah, 29). In Chapter 10, the boys are given meat at night

The human mind is a malleable and dishonest contraption. Perceptions of past events can be easily damaged and changed into completely new memories, whether on purpose or by fault of recollection. Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” asks whether this flawed system of neurotransmitters could be used as an advantage for the human race by mapping and implementing false memories. This way, people of Earth can experience anything they put their mind to (pun intended) even if such an experience would be impossible for them for any reason. This futuristic premise, while first asking whether the mind is as malleable as this prediction suggests, also begs the question of what truly counts as an experience. If one completely believes a memory is true, has physical evidence, and believes the event is not only possible but has been achieved, the line between a false and true memory blurs into subjectivity.

A vengeful man, a native, and a man seeking enlightenment board a whaling vessel; this isn’t a joke, this is the United States of America throughout history and the members of the Pequod. Moby Dick is not just a tale about a whaling venture gone awry, it is a metaphor for what America was and is. The Pequod represents the country and government, while the 30 crew members (Melville 430; ch. 126) represents the United State citizens. This would have not been possible to consider in Melville’s time, but it is a true testament to literature being a living text. Melville wasn’t only writing about America in the 1800’s, he was writing about the natures of humanity, and the future of our society.

To truly understand mental processes and behaviors of humans, and to write about and fabricate these behaviors in a realistic fictional manner, is truly an astonishing talent, one which is seldom found. Among this rare breed stands Tobias Wolff, Oxford and Stanford educated novelist and short story writer, who is revered as a great modern American writer because of his deep understanding of the human psyche and his ability to design characters so emotionally complex that their hearts beat within the pages of his work. Even without a particular unifying theme amongst his short stories, Wolff remains a pervasive figure in the realm of American literature. He does not need an overlying theme to integrate his short stories; Wolff’s powerful understanding of the human condition and his ability to give his characters pure vitality are enough to thrust him into the realm of literary greatness, where his stories will likely continue to thrive and prosper, even

Moral power held by literature or art has often smashed against some form of material power and censorship. For instance, books against the ideas of the Nazi regime such as Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” were burnt in the Nazi’s book burning of 1933 and The Bible is currently banned from North Korea. Authors have therefore been pressured into finding a method to avoid the strict restrictions forced by material power. In this paper, I will argue that Philip K. Dick was able to criticize the government and the situation of America in the 1960s, without suffering consequences, thanks to the generation of a time shift in his novel and the construction of a parallel between story and history hence manipulating the line between fiction and reality.

The novella “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville is a 1924 ‘sea story’ that has underlying allusions to Christ and the bible as pointed out by many critics. Many have found that Billy’s life resembles the plight of Christ, as well as Adam, while Captain Vere is meant to stand as God, and Claggart is left as the role of Satan. These underlying character molds ultimately contribute to the novella as a whole and explore the dilemmas of their Bible counterparts.

In the novel, A Moby Dick, Pip is a young African American boy, who has almost no power on the Pequod. Pip only makes a handful of appearances in the novel, which leads the reader to ask: why does Melville include him in this novel? Pip normally serves as an entertainer for the crew and cleans up the ship. However, after being left in the ocean for hours, he forms a special bond with Ahab. Through their time spent together Pip positively affects Captain Ahab, which is why he is included in the novel.

The excess use of guns, booze, and too many drugs to count easily sums up the life and writing of Hunter S. Thompson. During the 1970s, American literature and journalism changed in a way that no one would have ever been able to predict. The years following turned the table and effected generations to come in a new writing style that many authors and journalist now adopt. The life and writing of Hunter S. Thompson had great influence on the creation of gonzo journalism, politics, and American culture.

Many have the desire to control the uncontrollable, or change the unchangeable. This idea is shared through many novels and movies; one of those being Herman Melville’s Moby Dick-a narrated voyage of a whaling ship, the Pequod, and its captain, Ahab, whose one desire was to kill the great Sperm Whale, Moby Dick. As his whaling journey continued, still unsuccessful, Ahab’s character began to change. Many adjectives could be used to describe Ahab’s changing character, but three specific ones are as follows: obsessive, conceited, and manipulative. Ahab’s one desire changes him from an obedient captain to a madman.

Herman Melville, in his renowned novel Moby-Dick, presents the tale of the determined and insanely stubborn Captain Ahab as he leads his crew, the men of the Pequod, in revenge against the white whale. A crew mixed in age and origin, and a young, logical narrator named Ishmael sail with Ahab. Cut off from the rest of society, Ahab attempts to make justice for his personal loss of a leg to Moby Dick on a previous voyage, and fights against the injustice he perceived in the overwhelming forces that surround him. Melville uses a series of gams, social interactions or simple exchanges of information between whaling ships at sea, in order to more clearly present man’s situation as he faces an existence whose meaning he cannot fully grasp.