The Nether is a science-fiction procedural written by Jennifer Haley; a playwright recognised for her work which discusses the ethics of the arising moral dilemmas surrounding the rapid progression of the internet. Haley sets the play in the near future where the internet, now called ‘the Nether’, has progressed into ‘a virtual wonderland […] provid[ing] total sensory immersion.’ The Nether opens up in an interrogation room where Morris, a young female detective, queries Sims, a successful business man, about his server: ‘The Hideaway.’ The Hideaway is a confidential domain for ‘guests’ who have the proclivity for children. The virtual realm provides them an escape to exercise this proclivity freely and, perhaps naively held, without consequence. …show more content…
Just as in how modern society is controlled with laws and ‘social facts’, and just as how Haley controls the audience through the narrative structure of The Nether, as shown through Morris: Morris: (Reading from a report) And in those moments, standing in the carnage of her small body […] I lift the axe and do it again. And I do it again. And I do it again. Morris censors the audience’s viewership which emphasises the notion of personal freedom. Haley recognises the difficulty in censoring virtual reality. By censoring a person’s virtual world, one censors the imagination’s facilitator of expression, also known as personal freedom – a basic right. The narrative structure of Morris’ voice reading from a report is therefore substantial to the debate as she removes the audience’s freedom of viewership. However, is the audience’s personal freedom restricted through the structure? One side of the argument the play puts forward is yes, however as Steve Waters argues in his book The Secret Life of Plays: ‘Playwrights have other reasons for choosing to have action narrated rather than witnessed directly. …it may be […] (say, a murder or a rape) should not be shown, lest alarm or perhaps excite an
In “Censorship: A Personal View”, the author, Judy Blume, argues that the censorship is the biggest restrictions that turn young people away from books that they are interested in. Blume first indicates that the censorship already existed while she was a kid. She provides her personal experience as a kid toward the curiosity about adult world that she wanted to read from books, but her parents and school were very careful and selective about what books she could read. Blume then expresses her own views on censorship while she likes to write the controversial topics as a writer. She provides her own experience while many of her books were banned because the topics in her book were dangerous to young people, and the censorship proposed the alternative
The beginning of any thought provoking essay will hook its audience using a form of pathos. “Two of his sons returned home from the battlefield whole and healthy. The third, however, came home suffering multiple seizures a day”-(Rorabacher). The quote generates sympathy within us making us yearn to see a welcoming outcome and leaving the audience hooked. Eli Hager’s article follows a similar route informing us that “The state of Missouri sent Harris to the penitentiary in Boonvilee, 250 miles from his home and baby daughter”-(Hager). Again we sympathize with the loss of a family, but not all of the articles used grievance to hook us. In the “Quiet Alarm” the audience is informed of a vaudeville performer who performed deadly stunts involving hatchets, pins, and guns on himself to generate shockwaves in the audience. From these examples we identify how our emotions lure us into these texts.
In the book “The Shallows”, Nicholas Carr develops his argument just as an architect would construct a building. The foundation is laid then in tedious and eloquent manner, he begins an argument that defines the book. Shedding light upon the dangers our society may encounter through the internet, Carr uses personal anecdotes, parallels, ethic and reason based arguments, and disguises himself as an authoritative figure to execute a view changing book.
Ray Bradbury once said, “Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being.” This statement has become progressively true as an increasing number of people rely more on0 technology than they do human interaction. They prefer to depend on the screens in front of them, thus farther removing themselves from society. In “The Veldt,” Ray Bradbury uses foreshadowing and figurative language to convey that separation from family is initiated by dependence on technology.
Potter Stewart once said, “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” Often times, people try to censor works of literature because they feel that they contain inappropriate content that should not be shown to the public. Many have attacked Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver for its controversial content. The Giver is centered around Jonas, a boy who lives in a seemingly peaceful community where differences within people have been eradicated and people have no memories. Each member of the community is assigned a position in society to help the community function as a whole. When Jonas turns twelve, he is selected to be the Receiver of Memory. Only he and his predecessor, the Giver, know the truth and memories of the past. Feeling burdened with these memories, Jonas decides to flee the community altogether. Many people believe that this heart-warming novel contains questionable content that should not be shown to the public. Although some argue The Giver contains explicit sexual content,
Ray Bradbury criticizes the censorship of the early 1950's by displaying these same themes in a futuristic dystopia novel called Fahrenheit 451. In the early 1950's Ray Bradbury writes this novel as an extended version of "The Fireman", a short story which first appears in Galaxy magazine. He tries to show the readers how terrible censorship and mindless conformity is by writing about this in his novel.
Each year, someone is guilty of challenging a book while others are guilty of banning novels from the classroom. The question remains, is censorship necessarily a negative thing? Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a novel that has caused havoc and controversy within the education system. While some critics argue Speak should be “hidden” from students, many believe otherwise. At a glance, this novel contains scenes involving issues of drugs, parents that are disengaged in their child 's life, sexuality, and rape. It may seem understandable that it has been challenged throughout the past, however, while reading this novel, these specific scenes introduce a student to much more than just “inappropriate content.” By censoring this novel from
Technology can be both educational and favorable but, unrestricted, it leads to dangerous consequences. The consequences are even more apparent whenever children are raised with technology and it envelops their life. Eventually, technology raises the children and, in a way, it replaces the children’s own parents. Ray Bradbury’s use of personification and imagery in “The Veldt” help convey the idea that the influence of technology is powerful and controls actions, thoughts, and essentially rewires the brain.
Arizona’s historical development dates back to thousands of years ago. Arizona holds the second largest amount of indigenous/ Native American population of any other state in the United States. One of the first groups of people to live on Arizona’s land was the Native Americans, or otherwise called the American Indians. These Natives came much before any of the Europeans, or the Spanish settlers came to Arizona. There were three main Native American groups that truly began the exploration of Arizona. These groups include the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon tribes. Each of their tribes settled in different sections of Arizona ranging from Northeastern to Southeastern parts of the land.
In the novel “The Catcher in The Rye” Salinger, the author, uses Holden’s interactions to both criticize society as well as reveal Holden’s symptoms of his psychological problems. In the novel, Salinger presents how unsympathetic people can be towards each other especially if you are like Holden, an emotionally scarred male teenager dealing with past trauma. Salinger also shows us that due to those unsympathetic behaviors and the trauma that comes with dead family members.
“the main purpose of Verbatim theatre has always been to challenge audiences into a confrontation with real events and concrete facts, an to prevent their escapism into theatrical fantasy.”
The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”
In his essay “The Net Is a Waste of Time,” novelist William Gibson analyzes the hidden potentials of the Internet in both its vastness and affect on society. He writes this piece at the dawn of the Internet, and during this undeveloped phase, he discusses its multitude of facts as is and will be. As hinted in the title of his essay, Gibson takes the stance that the Internet at its early stages is a waste of time -- an impressively large and complex waste of time -- but a waste of time nonetheless. He is ultimately concerned with how we are choosing to procrastinate through the Internet, and that our growing attachment and dependence on the Internet reveals a “fatal naïveté” (697) about us. Gibson also brings up the true enormity of the Web even at its premature standing, detailing how “the content of the Web aspires the absolute variety. One might find anything there. It is like rummaging in the forefront of the collective global mind” (697). Despite his concerns on what the Web might become, Gibson realizes that at the time of his writing, the Web was at a stage much like the larval stage of a butterfly’s life -- seems unassuming, but as he himself puts it, “The Web is new, and our response to it has not yet hardened” (697), and that there are “big changes afoot” (696).
The murder of John Douglas illustrates how the playwright is punctuated at times with strong, sudden scenes to keep you on edge. Someone