Steven Liu' Multi-Genera Project

Preface

In this project, I have chosen to four books to compare. Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Things Fall Apart, and A Separate Peace. I have chosen these four books because they all have the similar concepts about self destructions or the destructions of society. In Lord of the Flies, the conflicts between Ralph and Jack for shelter, food, protection, and power; and the loss of innocence of the young children which lead to a dramatic chaos. Animal Farm, Snowball and Napoleon fighting for the leadership to fight against the humans, but seems to be no difference from animals and humans. Things Falls Apart shows how Okonkwo built up his own personality which leads him to his own self destruction; and the invasion of the white man causing the destruction of culture, freedom, and society. A Separate Peace uses the idea of Gene’s adores and envy toward his best friend, Finny, which creates a love-hate relationship.

Steven Liu

Mr. Ted

World Lit B

May 28, 2012

Synthesis Essay

In every story, every movie, every novel, eventually, everything in life could be putted together and compared. Although sometimes it may seems that they are completely different things, but if you look at a situation in different angles and dig deep inside it, you can see all sorts of different results; and those results are like pieces of puzzles which we could combine them together and form a whole new picture. In Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, A Separate Peace, and Things Fall Apart, these four novels I have read in the past four years, all of them have a lot of things that we can look upon, compare to, and link together.

First of all, Lord of the Flies. This novel uses the sense of “loss of innocence” to develop the idea of the destruction of the society within the story. Because of wanting to organize the group of young children, they have decided to choose a person to be the leader and lead the group. Eventually, everyone voted Ralph to be their leader. This action of voting for a leader is the sign of the society forming. But later on in the story, the idea of Jack wanting to take over control of the group and owning the power of leadership then separates the group in to two. Under the rule of Jack has brought a total chaos, the children has lost their innocence first by murdering Simon then Piggy. Also, the conch they have found at the beach in the beginning of the story, it represents unity and law in within their society. But in another way, it also represents how the emptiness of the shell could cause the conch to break apart easily; the destruction of society.

In Animal Farm, this whole story was written as a satire of the Russian revolution (Lamont 1), using the idea of taking over power as the major issue of the destruction of society. First the pigs decided to call out all the animals in the farm house and stand for themselves and fight for their freedom. Luckily, the animals were able to work together as a team and kick Mr. Jones out of the farm house. For a while, the animals no longer works for the humans, they work for themselves and enjoy all the result afterwards. But later, Napoleon wants to take over control and used Squealer as his propaganda to successfully persuade the others to let him lead the group. After taking over control, he eventually changed words in The Seven Commandments that they have set in the first place, and used the dogs as his guards and made everyone to work for him. Having laws, forming animalism, and having leaders; this ridicules that there is nothing different before the revolution and after the revolution; this shows how the animals are just as the same as the humans. But after all, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this shows how the society corrupts.

In A Separate Peace is a bit different from the other stories above. It uses jealousy to proceed the idea of loss of innocence and causing destruction on the others. Gene and Finny are best friends, but Gene doesn’t treat him as one. Gene adores and envy on how Finny of being a perfect man. He is jealous of everything that Finny has or does; he wanted to be Finny, and because of his jealousy he is willing to do anything and everything to achieve his goal. This idea shows how Gene was once innocence just like Finny, but because of his jealousy, it creates a love-hate relationship, which then creates horrible destruction of Finny’s future and even putted an end to his life.

Last but not least, Things Fall Apart is an obvious idea on how things fall apart. Because of Okonkwo’s embarrassment for his lazy, wasteful, effeminate father, Unoka, was the major thing in his life that driven him to succeed. To prevent from being someone like his father, he hates everything that he father like. Because of this, he became someone totally different from his father; his hard works and bravery in the war made him the most honorable leader in his clan (Johnson1). But he never knew, after the white man had invaded Africa and lives among the peoples, cultures were brought, churches were built, but it seems like Okonkwo was not able to function in the changes of the society. This personality he forced himself to create since his early childhood leads him to his own self-destruction in the future (Brians 1).These ideas show how the African culture and society falls apart, shows how Okonkwo falls apart, shows how everything falls apart.

Everything happens for a reason. In Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, A Separate Peace, and Things Fall Apart, these four different novels have lots of thing for us to look upon and to compare with. Although they are different stories, but we could easily find the similar personality those main character shares. And all four of these books uses the similar concept of loss of innocence, taking power, jealousy, which all leads to those dramatic chaos and self destruction or the destruction of the society.

Steven Liu' Multi-Genera Project

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Title Page

Table of Content

Preface

Anchor Paper

Book Cover

Letter to Finny

Movie Poster

About Me