Paired Discussion – 11/21
Check out my discussion with Caroline over comparisons between YOTF and Butler!
Corporations Blog Update
For our group we’re focusing on the corporations, the technology within society and how society is structured in The Year of The Flood. So far we’ve made three info graphics to advertise some things in the book. Corporations play a huge role in this book seeing how it’s basically what runs this futuristic society. So far we have focused on 6 branches of the corporations, CorpSeCorps, Helthwyzer, Secret Burgers, Scales and Tails, Rejoov and Anoo Yoo. CorpSeCorps and Helthwyzer is what I would consider the two most important ones in this book. The other four are basically just companies that sell products. Helthwyzer would be considered the same as well but it seems that Helthwyzer has a lot more secrets and importance in this book. Helthwyzer in general brings up a lot of questions because there are constantly suspicions about them and their products and even after finishing the book we don’t really get an answer. The authority of the CorpSeCorps is also something that’s intriguing. They basically rely on public favoritism to keep their authority and to keep their products popular yet they are also the ones that are oppressing the people. It’s a fact that they’re corrupted yet people are unwilling to take a stand and allow for this continual corruption in order to keep the current stability they have.
The technology we see in this book may seem odd but it’s definitely not anything impossible. A lot of the inventions we see are things we are already currently experimenting on in society which also gives us the idea The Year of The Flood takes place in the near future. Although it seems like it takes place in the near future, it’s interesting to see how it seems a lot of people especially the Gardners in this case are scared to use modern day technology or at least think it shouldn’t be used. This kind of makes me wonder what happened because we are currently so dependent on technology and it seems kind of odd for anyone to not use technology and resort back to primitive ways of treatment.
For now we’re focusing on the corporations and their products and how to accurately portray them. I’m not quite sure how we would incorporate the societal part on to our website.
The Key to Being Forever Young
https://infogr.am/do-you-want-to-look-21-forever/
Image credit: http://ginva.com/2012/07/cute-and-beautiful-girls-wallpapers/
The Year of the Flood Reading Response 3
Towards the end of the novel we see all the characters come through for each other. It was touching to see how the relationship these people had after 15 years still. Atwood does a really good job portraying Ren and Toby and how their characters are basically opposites of each other in a lot of aspects. Toby would be realist who thinks of what the best way to survive is and Ren would be the optimist. I think the moment Toby hesitated on whether or not to have Ren take the Death Angel showed how dire the situation was and also the core emotions someone feels when they’re deciding between life and death. There’s no doubt that Toby cares about Ren but you can really see she thinks hard on whether or not saving Ren is worth possibly shortening the chances of her own survival. Ren on the other hand is forever the optimist. Unlike Toby and Amanda, she doesn’t think about how she’ll have less food for herself if she shares. We see her gladly welcome the people she has known and how she’s the most affected when their well being is at risk. I think I was most surprised by how Amanda ended up. I don’t know why but I never imagined she would need saving throughout this whole novel and that she would be one of the characters to always be strong yet at the very end we see Amanda in such a fragile state.
I was pretty satisfied with the ending of the book. I was really confused on where this book was headed when I first started it. Atwood constantly jumps between time frames throughout the book and we always have to guess if it’s older or younger Ren or Toby telling the story. I personally think the plot could have been better. There was no real buildup for me to the catastrophe and then all of a sudden everyone was just fighting for their lives. My favorite part was when everyone basically found each other in the end. It was touching to see how being part of the Gardeners had basically built a circle of friends and family for the characters and ultimately that circle of people did mean something in the end.
The Year of the Flood Reading Response 2
As we get deeper into the book, it’s interesting to see how the Gardeners interact with each other and also how their system is built. I really enjoy reading about how Amanda and Ren interact with each other. Their relationship with each other is really sweet, especially in a book where it seems everyone just thinks about themselves. Lucrene’s relationship with Ren on the other hand is somewhat appalling seeing how she basically just severes her relationship with Ren when convenient for her.
I find it somewhat astounding how people trust the Corps even though they seem to do nothing to help the people and instead kill those who don’t agree with what they do. The idea of the Painball system existing in the future somewhat horrifies me. It reminds me of the Hunger Games and how people basically hunt each other and the strongest will survive and eventually be let out. In our current society we would basically be putting serial killers together and letting them kill each other off. It’s kind of horrifying to think that the worst serial killer would eventually be let out into society. It makes no sense to me why we would let the strongest of the criminals out.
I feel like the book needs to expand more on the goal of God’s Garderner and what they hope to achieve in more detail. The book starts off really slow for me because there is no real idea of what these people are trying to achieve or if they’re actually achieving anything as time goes on. It seems as if I’m just reading about their daily lives which isn’t bad but the plot could be better.
Reading Response – 11/14
On Thursday, Professor Brundage posed the question, “Is Year of the Flood a feminist novel?” While I don’t believe that the characters themselves would be labeled as feminist, the novel itself may be labeled as such due to its evident eco-feminism. While reading YOTF, the God’s Gardeners reminded me of this article, “To Be Feminist is to Be Vegan.” The God’s Gardeners do not believe that animals should be killed for most reasons (not even an ant should be crushed) and when animals are used for food production (i.e. Pilar’s bees), they are to be humanely treated. Eco-feminist vegans believe that animal meat and food production is vis-a-vis to female struggle for bodily self-control, as “the female of the species often experiences more prolonged abuse, including an ongoing cycle of forceful artificial insemination (mechanical or manual rape), physical abuse of her mammary glands, and invariably being separated from her young.” It is similar to how patriarchal forces control reproduction through availability (or lack there of) of various reproductive services. While I believe that animals used for food production should be treated more humanely, I do not believe that veganism is needed to be called a feminist as this article calls for.
Technology Diary
Video games are underrated. We all grew up hearing stay away from the T.V. and stop playing video games, those things will rot your brain, the violence will corrupt you… all that jazz, but what people don’t know is that video games can actually be good for you. I grew up playing Super Mario on my playstation and attribute my killer hand-eye coordination skills to all those hours spent in front of the t.v. Video games taught me how to drive, how to play tennis, and were definitely an outlet for stress.
What people don’t know is that certain video games can increase spatial skills, motor hand skills, and memory improvement. They can also be used as a form of therapy, they improve speed and accuracy. If researchers can figure out what it is about video games that can lead to all this improvement and manipulate that aspect so that it can be incorporated into something that doesn’t carry any bad side-effects (I’ll admit, video games aren’t all good.) then this may be tool in improving brain activity, etc. In the long run, improvement of all these skills can impact the work fields and the people that are brought into certain fields. Video games of all sorts are no longer gendered, and if video games can improve spatial reasoning and memory, then maybe in the future girls who have highly developed these skills will be more inclined to go into fields that incorporate those aspects.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/video-games-good-for-us_n_4164723.html
Technology Diary
In China, there is a system called Rent-A-Boyfriend where Chinese women rent boyfriends in order to please their parents. In China, finding a partner before a certain age is very important so parents are constantly pressuring their daughters, especially around Chinese New Year’s or Chinese Single’s Day when women come home to see their parents. In response to this pressure, women have been shopping for men in a public online marketplace. Women rent these men from sites like Taobao, similar to our eBay and Amazon.
“According to The Shanghaiist, the price of renting a polished, charismatic boyfriend for a day doesn’t include things like transportation, dining, accommodations and other fees. But, for a minimum of three days, these strapping young men will take trips back home to meet the family, chat with the parents, go shopping with them and attend various family gatherings. A hug, hand-holding and a goodbye kiss on the cheek or forehead are on the house. In some cases, the rent-a-boyfriend service prices can be highly detailed. For example, dining with the parents can cost a girl 50 yuan ($8.21) an hour; shopping or seeing a movie can run her 30 yuan ($4.92) an hour, plus concessions.” (http://www.ibtimes.com/rent-boyfriend-business-booming-china-women-hire-fake-beaus-please-nagging-parents-1465308) This system may seem like a form of prostitution, but it’s not, because men aren’t being solicted for their bodies they’re just being solictied for their time. But, if the rental boyfriend makes a move on his female employer she is given a full refund and is encouraged to report him to the police.
It’s interesting to note the pressure that is put on women by their Chinese parents, pressure to fit these traditionally gendered roles. According to ABC News women who aren’t married by the time they’re 27 are considered “left-over” women and are going to “expire” soon. China is a country that holds true to its traditions, but in our modern day society women shouldn’t be pressured to get married or start a family by a certain time or even at all. IN addition to the pressure of their parents, the Chinese government is also outwardly open about their disdain for women who are past the age of 27 and are single. What’s funny is that the Chinese feminist agency released a statement saying that women who are past the age of 27 and are just partying and having one night stands have amounted to nothing and they don’t deserve anyones sympathy. The pressures from the Chinese culture act as if being single is against the law.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/lauren-walker/2013/03/a-talk-with-one-of-chinas-rent-a-boyfriends/
The Year of The Flood
The Year of The Flood describes this uneasy relationship between science and religion. The God’s Gardeners are an eccentric, eco-friendly, seemingly religiously oriented group that may be the future of religion. The Gardeners respect science and don’t believe the creation story should be taken literally, a belief that’s not very common in this seemingly Christian group. In Atwood’s dystopian society, the Gardeners are a group that evolved as a means of survival in a society that is shaped and driven by futuristic technology. As our present day society “goes green” and ideals are shifted to finding this perfect balance between nature and humanity, it’s not too far-fetched to believe that science will soon be playing a central role in the religions of the future, maybe even to the extreme. Today there are religions that possess similarities to Gardner’s, such as the Green Bible, a bible that is printed on recycled paper, uses soy based ink, and is made of renewable cotton linen. This bible focuses on environmental issues and teachings, so that the assessment of how “good” someone is related to how good they are to the environment.
