Advanced Higher English Assessment: Outcome 1
An Analysis on the use of Setting and Characterisation in ‘Fight Club’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ to Develop Character and Explore the Themes of Violence and Power.
In ‘Fight Club’ by Chuck Palahniuk and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess both effectively develop character through the use of setting and characterisation. In ‘Fight Club’, the novel starts with an unknown narrator who is describing his home in great detail. The lengthy description of the house entails the various complaints he has about his living arrangements, and further on in the passage, how he would feel if it was to be blown up – apathetic, it just happens sometimes. Thus, setting the obscurity with which this character
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The ‘chill winter’ may be a reference to the numbness that these teenagers are feeling when committing such horrendous acts. They are apathetic when committing them and when Alex goes on to mention ‘dry’, it will also be alluding to the thirst that these teenagers have for violence.
The review of the 50TH Anniversary edition of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Lucian Robinson agrees with the fact that Alex and his friends seem to commit such violent acts just to fulfil a bizarre desire that they have. The gang commits these acts sporadically which hints that they are indeed done at will as Robinson says: “gangs maraud nocturnally, carrying out random acts of "ultra-violence" at will”
Similarly, the theme of violence is thoroughly displayed in ‘Fight Club’ through the use of setting and characterisation. Firstly, the author highlights the theme through the use of
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He paints the scene in the milk bar that there is three women at a counter, but there are Alex and his three droogs – this conveys the fact that they can get what they want through numbers alone. The fact that the women are all sitting in the counter together shows strength in numbers, but Alex will be able to penetrate that defence with the help of his friends. The theme of power is portrayed very subtly at times by Burgess, but when the topic of beatings and rape comes up, he displays it both implicitly and
Fight club starts in the basement; it’s trapped and completely regulated, but shifts to a cultural anarchy of vandalism and attacks. Where each members have to pick a fight and lose. It then spreads and becomes more of an army and the members militant. The members no longer take out frustration on each other, but on everyone else. The idea of the fight club become an authoritarian, Tyler its Hitler and the Norton his Goering.
Quentin Tarantino is well known and often criticized for his depiction of violence in his films. Although at times graphic, Tarantino’s violence holds a purpose. This paper will look at two films, Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction, and their depiction of violence and the aesthetics used. It will also look at classic film conventions and ultraviolence aesthetics used by Tarantino.
Millions of people pay to watch violence every day. In today’s society, violence is often glamorized and used as entertainment. And, it is frequently the topic of young adult literature. However, violence is not always shown in a positive light. In SE Hinton’s The Outsiders, the author uses the conflicts of Ponyboy verses other characters, Dally verses society, and Johnny verses outside forces to convey the theme that violence causes more problems than it solves.
The house, similarly to Emily, is a symbol - and the only surviving tribute of the decaying privileged class. By the time the story takes place plenty has changed. What was once “a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with
Through the creation of character constructs and use of textual techniques, Ken Kesey demonstrates how the status quo is challenged throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Within this text, Kesey uses a collection of stylistic techniques to establish how the status quo is introduced, challenged, and how it ultimately withstood the rebellion.
Although the man is talking about the house that he and his son are staying at at the moment, this is also talking about the world as a whole and it is telling about the life that they are experiencing. The passage has a
Alex DeLarge is a vicious fifteen-year-old droog whose thirst for ultra-violence is his main catalyst in A Clockwork Orange. His savage characterization is clearly illustrated through his thoughts and actions in Anthony Burgress’ original novel, as well as Stanley Krubrik’s film rendition. However, while both interpretations follow corresponding objectives, they differ dramatically in the way they are perceived by the audience. The most prominent distinction between the two pieces of work is the way Alex is perceived by the audience throughout the story.
A review of the house itself suggests that an architectural hierarchy of privacy increases level by level. At first, the house seems to foster romantic sensibilities; intrigued by its architectural connotations, the narrator embarks upon its description immediately--it is the house that she wants to "talk about" (Gilman 11). Together with its landscape, the house is a "most beautiful place" that stands "quite alone . . . well back from the road, quite three miles from the village" (Gilman 11). The estate's grounds, moreover, consist of "hedges and walls and gates that lock" (Gilman 11). As such, the house and its grounds are markedly depicted as mechanisms of confinement--ancestral places situated within a legacy of control and
One of the major symbols in the text is the house the narrator and her husband John choose to rent for their vacation. The setting of the story is a symbol of men’s superiority towards women. In the story, the narrator describes the location of the rented house stating how “it is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village [like the] English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people” (pg. 34). The location of the
Although attacks on A Clockwork Orange are often unwarranted, it is fatuous to defend the novel as nonviolent; in lurid content, its opening chapters are trumped only by wanton killfests like Natural Born Killers. Burgess' Ted Bundy, a teenage Lucifer named Alex, is a far cry from the typical, spray paint-wielding juvenile delinquent. With his band of "droogs," or friends, Alex goes on a rampage of sadistic rape and "ultraviolence." As the tale unfolds, the
Analysis of the Themes in Fight Club It is easy to understand how and why many who view Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) would argue that is in essence a critique of post modern consumer culture within America or indeed the western world. After all we are faced with Character(s) Jack (Edward Norton) who seems to gain no cultural sustenance from the world in which he inhabits. More over it seems to do him harm in the form of insomnia.
The classic 1996 film Fight Club is a social commentary about our generation, which is in many ways devoid of spirit and marked by consumerism. It is the story of a man's spiritual journey towards enlightenment in modern society and his attempt to find his place in the world. It stresses a post-modern consumer society, reveals the loss of masculine identity amongst gray-collar workers, and examines the social stratification marked by our developing society. It follows the life of the narrator, who is referred to as Jack, (Edward Norton) as he struggles with insomnia and feelings of inadequacy in his desperate search to find meaning in his own life. The film, although
The political elements of the movie are shown through the politics of violence. The movie focuses on masculinity, violence and gender. It resembles the pathology of individual and institutional violence that fills America, ranging from hate crimes to criminal subcultures. Violence functions mostly through the politics of denial, insulation, disinterest and inability to criticize with self-consiousness. This is the violence that represents society today.
The house symbolically acts as a place of isolation, illustrating the way that if humans no longer have communication with other people it results into madness. The symbol of the house is significant, the house is an isolated place especially near the windows. As the unnamed narrator arrives at the house a servant takes his horse, and he enters the Gothic archway of the hall. As the narrator is lead to Roderick's studio by the servant, he notices the familiar yet gloomy atmosphere. He is put in a room where he describes as large and lofty and "the windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from
The most memorable and significant works are the ones that address problems within society, and this 1996 novel is a prime example of the postmodern era that has left its mark “nearly two decades” after its release(Choules). Although it is hard to attribute one definition to postmodernism, it can be seen as a concept that arose after World War II, characterized by portraying the “capitalistic values of the Western world.” (Philosophy) Turning to destruction and violence to cope with the feelings of inequality, which are still a part of society today, are cleverly included in the novel Fight Club. As the fight clubs grow the sudden commitment to this new ideology of blind allegiance to a leader in order to prove self worth takes control of the men. This new brotherhood and allegiance to one entity causes the men to lose all sense of self direction and to give all their attention to the needs and regulations of Fight