One passage from the front matter
Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss. _George Orwell (4 pages after the cover)
Term/concept from the science studies
The first term that comes to mind when reading this passage is seeing devices. Each person has their own set of seeing devices and so some of those issues that no one wants to talk about are a seeing device of one person. I also think paradigm has to do with this passage as well. A paradigm in some way is you don’t know what they know. Well here is a perfect example of you doing know what they know but they also don’t know what you know and no one wants to talk about it. I thought this was a great quote to put in right at the beginning of the book because so much of the book covers the things that no one wants to talk about.
One passage from the novel
“Wait a minute” Evans said. “Global warming is going to raise the temperature, so more moisture will evaporate from the ocean, and more moisture means more clouds.” (pg 235)
Term from the literary studies
In this passage Michel Crichton has started to set a hostile tone. The beginning of this chapter he set the tone as peaceful and sleepy. But suddenly when Kenner starts to talk about the world and what a mystery it is Evans begins to get angry and aggressive because he is a firm believer in global warming. I thought this is an ingenious way of writing because the twists and turns on each page keep the reader hooked as well as making the characters come to life.
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I hope you are feeling better!
ReplyDeleteDid you feel like the extent to which people (Evans, Bradley) were getting angry about being told global warming didn't exist was realistic? I was debating with myself about this--they seemed to get violently mad. Was the strong reaction because Kenner was upsetting their idea of "common sense" or because Kenner was making them look uncritical, uneducated, un-intelligent? Or maybe all of the above. . . I could see the characters getting angry in that sense, but the way their anger was described made me feel like Crichton was exaggerating a bit--making them look more like hot-heads. But I also could think of times I've been in discussion with someone of very different perspective and have gotten more wound up than I'd have expected (for example, with my cousin who was teaching his 3 year old daughter that being gay is evil)...so maybe it is not exaggerated?