Discovering Elements of Fiction through Movies and Literature - Essay Example

Jerry Ciacho November 30, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and has been recognized for playing abig role in starting the environmental movement. Basically, the book focuses on her findings through research and investigation and how she forms a clear and fixed perspective based on her discovery. She shows her feelings and beliefs on the environmental issue regarding pesticides and artificially made products. She lets her readers know how we, humans, are the very ones who are responsible for the damage of the environment, the Earth and life itself. She researches and exemplifies to the readers how chemically and artificially produced pesticides are affecting us in ways we cannot see now, but will surely be evident gradually and eventually. In my opinion, I strongly agree with her. Artificial and chemically based products are very harmful not only to the environment, not only to flora and fauna and the different wildlife in this Earth, these products are also harming the very people making and manufacturing them, humans. I believe that we should just remain faithful to the natural and organic ways. It is a lot safer, without risks. The problem is that our world now overlooks the flaws and the dangers of using these kinds of products. The many consequences that are slowly becoming evident in our surroundings are still being ignored and neglected by most people. They continue to use them, not knowing that the little damage and destruction is accumulating. These chemical deposits are building up everywhere. In the chapters of Rachel Carson’s book, she tells the cause of the ill health which is from strong artificial toxins from pesticides. Humankind has permanently infected the earth and we are infecting ourselves. Rachel Carson then encourages us to look at the proof for ourselves. She says, “We have been traveling a road that seems easy but will end in disaster,” and that humans are creating chaos at a speed too swift for nature to heal. All the illnesses and the diseases that she describes in her imaginary town in America she says, “has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them." I think that if people want to save the Earth and to save their lives, then people should start looking into what they are using more often and more deeply. People should become more aware, more cautious about what kinds of products they are consuming because no one knows what kinds of effects certain chemicals might have in their bodies. This book has opened my eyes and has made me realize the real terrible situation of our Earth and that we are the very people who are causing the destruction of humankind and that to save it, we should do something and act quickly before time really does run out. This book gives a lot of lessons and insight about the actual reality of the situation of the environment we live in today. Vertigo an Alfred Hitchcock Film In one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous and prominent films, Vertigo is a mental detective movie. Directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock himself, this film focuses on and is centered around the protagonist, John Ferguson, known as Scottie. Scottie is a detective. The first part shows him and another police officer running after a criminal on the rooftops in the city of San Francisco. As they are running and chasing after the criminal, Scottie slips and almost falls down into the ground but he grabs onto a gutter just in time. The other police officer then attempts to save him. He reaches out with his hands to help him up but Scottie, because of his latent acrophobia, or the fear of heights, is paralyzed and does nothing. He is in shock and does not move at all, which results into the death of the officer, as he slips and falls to the death. Meanwhile, Scottie’s old college friend, Gavin, learns about the incident in a newspaper. After some thinking, in an attempt to murder his wife and make it look like an accident, Gavin devises a plan, taking advantage of Scottie’s acrophobia. Scottie, not knowing Gavin’s plan, falls in love with a woman he thinks is Madeleine, Gavin’s wife. After Madeleine seemingly leaps to her death, when he is not able to prevent her from jumping due to his acrophobia, Scottie blames himself and has a nervous breakdown. Just then, he meets another woman who looks and acts exactly like Madeleine, her exact copy. He falls in love with this woman named Judy and recovers from his nervous breakdown as they spend more time with each other. In this part of the movie, the protagonist seems to be getting what he wants. He has finally gotten back the love he once thought he lost. However, it is later revealed that “Madeleine” and her are the same and that Judy was only hired by Gavin to be a perfect look-alike of Madeleine as the real Madeleine was murdered by Gavin himself. Gavin was the killer and Judy was the partner in crime. In an attempt to get rid of his demons, he brings Judy back to the place where “Madeleine” seemingly jumped and died. Scottie tried to go after, not Madeleine but Judy up those same steps; but the real Madeleine was the one who fell after Gavin broke her neck and threw her from the top. Scottie re-enacts the scene, but an accident kills Judy, an ironic end for the woman who initially poses as the victim of the same fall. The movie ends when Scottie looks down at the body of Judy. He is stretching his arms as if he is about to jump and die with her. The end of this film shows how the actions of the protagonist leads to him losing what he wants. His own actions, his own mistakes, deprive him of his love and once again, he loses her. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a best-selling work of fiction written by Junot Diaz, a Dominican novelist. The story is basically the narrative account of the life of Oscar Wao, a Dominican who grows up in New Jersey. He is obsessed with science fiction and fantasy novels, but is unlucky with love due to the curse that has plagued him and his family. It later talks about Lola, Oscar’s sister and the struggle she faces. It later introduces the relationship between Oscar and Lola’s grandmother. The end reveals the fate of the different characters of the story: Lola, Oscar, Beli and Yunior. Essentially, the whole story has several fundamental themes. The first one is the most prominent. It is the curse of fukú and its counterspell, zafa. Yunior, the narrator of the story, attributes the disastrous and luckless family history of Oscar as the end result of fukú. This curse began with Abelard, Oscar’s grandfather and ends hopefully, with Oscar. The fukú is a symbol for the problem every family brings especially those who are immigrant families, with which this story deals openly. Yunior says that Oscar’s story acts as a zafa or the counterspell. The symbol of Fukú and zafa has a connection with the idea of coming across new worlds and the restrictions of the world you come from. This theme is built up by Diaz all through the story. The faceless man is another sighting that is seen by the characters through the whole novel. Abelard’s wife has dreams of the faceless man standing on top of the beds of her husband and children. Beli, Oscar’s grandmother, also sees a faceless man sitting in a chair just before she discovers she is pregnant. Oscar himself later sees this faceless man as an old man in a chair when he is taken away to be beaten in the cane fields. This faceless man that is seen right before trouble happens, might be fuku in the visible form or it might just be a symbol for the different warnings that could have prevented their troubles, but were overlooked. The Mongoose and the comic books/science fiction books also play a big part in the novel. These might have been a manifestation of zafa, the counterspell in the lives. Just as the mongoose is seen everytime and saves the characters as they face troubles. The mongoose was transfered to the Dominican Republic, at the same time as Oscar’s family was driven out of the Dominican Republic. Diaz, the author,also mentioned the significance of the mongoose as an alien as it produces an ethereal quality to its help and assistance. The science fiction that Oscar loves and is obsessed with connect to the idea of a story as self-fulfilling and has the power to move people and create an impact just as Oscar’s story is. There are evident implications as well that this imaginative and whimsical aspect of the life of Oscar is an influential way for him to be able to communicate with others and to their troubles. The novel tells the readers again how much an essential piece of Oscar all this is. It is very much part of him that fantasy and science fiction have identified Oscar as an person. Works Cited Carson, Rachel, and Louis Darling. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Print. Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddese. Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, 1958. DVD. Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. Print. Read More