Anil’s Ghost Portfolio
Violence is a theme seen throughout the world in all forms of media and literature. As a society we are exposed to violence so much that people’s biggest fears are that they will become fully desensitized to the violence. Many are at this point where violence is as emotional , but some forms of violence are still so disturbing they transcend all levels of desensitization. Some examples are exhibited in Anil’s Ghost. By Michael Ondaatje. All forms of violence are disturbing, but some, even if they seem pretty tame when explained are increasingly disturbing when put into context of the novel. Though, many see violence against a character who a reader is emotionally invested in is very disturbing. The most disturbing
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Random acts of violence are dotted throughout the novel adding to the theme of death, spontaneous death. The italicized stories seen spontaneously popping up in the novel are testaments to the random acts of violence that were experienced in Sri Lanka, all take an effect on the reader, but none are as blunt or effective as the list seen in the middle of the book. A young women walks to the school everyday to work and sees the same group of boys, but one day she shows up at the bridge and randomly the boys are gone, She says, “She is ten yards from the bridge when she see the heads of two students on stakes…...she doesn’t know or care”(Ondaatje 174). This scene is not just disturbing for the fact that there are heads on stakes it is most disturbing because of how she reacts when she first sees the heads. She passes …show more content…
The stories ability to paint a picture of the scene, give life to those who are dead, and convey Anil’s thought process makes this story excel. Though, the story does jump around and is hard to understand the writing style is very concise and is easy to understand. Every sense is explained, and this adds to the emotion of the story. The extreme detail makes the story intensely disturbing in some areas. Ondaatje's writing style instill a theme of death in the story not only relating to the random murders seen throughout the book, but also by giving life to the bodies that are being examined in the story. There is a scene in the book where a leaf falls into the ribcage of sailor and represents the beating heart. This small detail helps reinforce the fact that sailer and the other bodies in the story are real characters and actually effect the story. The novel only asks for your attention because the story requires a lot of it. Every sentence builds a scene then it quickly changes. This is also the case when we have a chance to listen to Anil and Gamini’s rambling thoughts, and dialouges where it’s mostly medical related each is different, but it alway involves dark humor. While Anil is visiting Gamini he goes on one of the rambles in the book by saying, “I mean, I know everything about blast weaponry. Mortars, claymores, antipersonnel mines which
with that "somebody" being the author (Foster 95). This reveals an important element of violence in literature, because it shows how violence, unlike other elements of a story, connects the internal events of the story to the story itself and ultimately the reader and author. When reading literature one of the goals is to understand the story beyond its literal meaning, and this
When violence manifests itself in a story, it is almost always in the form of a metaphor. The death of a person is usually to start/end issues and to add a twist to the story to shock the
Automatically, the reader knows that serious issues are about to be discussed and that the outcome may not be positive. This novel challenges the material ideology discussed above. It does this by bringing the issues to the forefront and reporting on them in a fictitious yet realistic manner. The reader is not led to believe that the ending will be happy, he is supposed to expect the consider the harsh realities of the world throughout the piece.
In Raiders of The Lost Ark, the violence is abundant from beginning to end, - a death tally of 63 (allouttabubblegum) -- but we accept it because it is always the “bad guy” getting hurt -- a greedy guide is skewered by a bed of nails, a relentless thug is chopped by a plane propeller, and numerous Nazis meet their comeuppance by having their faces melt off (Raiders). The violence is often gory and realistic. According to the study,
In every great piece on literature there always ends up being a scene with some sort of violence. In the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini there are a couple of points that include violence that help carry the plot and contribute to the overall meaning of t there are a couple of points that include violence that help carry the plot and contribute to the overall meaning of the work. There are two scenes in particular that really show this concept such as Hassan’s rape and the fight between Armir, Assef and Sohrab. Both scenes are not just there for show, they carry the story along and show what the characters personalities and how they contribute to the plot.
Violence affects people in many ways, including how it can desensitize cruelty by means of images in the media and exposure, and how this affects our society as a whole. Violence is defined by, “the unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force”. In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah we see a boy go from innocent into a soldier killing hundreds of people a day. Issues of violence our throughout our culture today, like the effects of violent movies and games in adolescents. Ishmael Beah went through something a boy should never go through, a world full of violence that left an impact on him forever.
As much as society does not want to admit, violence serves as a form of entertainment. In media today, violence typically has no meaning. Literature, movies, and music, saturated with violence, enter the homes of millions everyday. On the other hand, in Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison, violence contributes greatly to the overall work. The story takes place during the age of the enslavement of African-Americans for rural labor in plantations. Sethe, the proud and noble protagonist, has suffered a great deal at the hand of schoolteacher. The unfortunate and seemingly inevitable events that occur in her life, fraught with violence and heartache, tug at the reader’s heart-strings. The wrongdoings Sethe endures are significant to the meaning
The main purpose of the article written by Gerald Jones is to change the public perception of violent media for kids. He argues for this by saying violent media can actually have positive effects on young people because a violent media help the young people to gain self-knowledge and sense of potency through heroic combative storytelling. In addition to this, when young people are growing, watching a media action full pool of blood, killing, stabbing, screams of agony and pleas for mercy help them pull out of the emotional trap by plunging themselves into violent story. Jones also believes that violent media are a positive influence on children because pretend to have a superhuman power helps children defeat the feeling of impotent that inescapably
Society has been subjected to many violent acts over the course of its history. Although violence is immoral and wrong, somehow people everyday condone and commit violence for countless reasons. Many Hollywood films glorify mindless violence to their advantage and captivate audiences through its entertaining shock value and rake large box office profits. Car chases, crashes and glorified gladiator sword fights are all familiar scenes in which violence is portrayed in an unrealistic glamorised manner.
In the play, Macbeth, Macbeth has just been told his wife has died. “She should have died hereafter: There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this pretty pace from day to day” (Shakespeare). Macbeth reaction is surprising, given the fact that his wife has just died. His reaction shows the consequences of prolonged exposure to violence does to an individual. Violence in the media can leave negative impact on people’s moral compass. In fact, violence in the media can lead to a negative influence on behavior, desensitization, and aggression.
Violence is a concept which can be felt more aptly than defined. The word ‘violence’
Hemingway's "The Killers" illustrates that unexplained violence is an integrated part of society. To acknowledge the cruelties of life is to come to terms with horrifying events that can not be denied. A person may lack the maturity to cope with everyday life if they do not realize that evil can exist in any given society.
Many parents seek to have children’s literature which contains violence removed or banned from all access to young children. They complain that the subject matter of these books is too much for children to handle. The parents do this as they believe it to be a form of protection from the dangerous world we live in. they know all too well that what is expressed in the books is happening in reality.by reading these violent books it evokes a sense of fear or the need to harm oneself or others. Therefore stopping the chance of them reading these books is shielding them from the hurt and pain which it is associated with. Literature and media are the main reasons for violence in the
Death is inevitable in every person’s life, but death in these character’s lives is easily predicted to be early, and this represents the sadness and sorrows in the innocence of war. There are many ways to die, and war is the saddest way for that to occur, but at the same time,
The devastating tsunami is a great climax and an example of how death is unexpected. In this part of the story, Senior’s town is decimated by a deadly tsunami killing many people that were near the coast; the tsunami struck the beachfront houses, Elliot’s Beach, Marina Beach, and others (Rushdie 8-9). The author uses this as an effective allusion because he uses the example as a shocking reminder of the real tsunami that struck Chennai in 2004. Since this is an allusion to a real tragedy, the reader can understand just how unexpected and devastating death is. Although this is not the climax of the story, no death in this story felt as sudden as Junior’s death. The author describes how Junior was becoming weaker by the day and how Junior felt his ankles would soon give way, and unfortunately, Junior broke his ankle as he fell on his head by accident (Rushdie 8). Although Rushdie presents the reader with various hints of Junior’s demise, the reader could never predict Junior would perish the way he did. As a result, Junior’s death is the most significant and unexpected. Since the tsunami and Junior’s death are terribly sudden, the reader understands that the author is trying to show that death is impossible to predict or