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(2015
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2015 (Index) Essay 2: Personal / professional topic |
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Nina
Shaver
Beautiful Destruction
For
this essay, I will be going off of my future presentation I did on the
symbolism behind beauty being equal
to destruction. Throughout the class, we have seen this symbolism a lot. The
beauty I talk about is more of a sublime
which is beauty mixed with chaos. This can be seen in the texts,
The Time Machine,
Parable of the Sower, and
“Somebody Up There Likes Me”, as
well as the short film,
Elegy, we saw in a future-vision
presentation.
In
Parable of the Sower there is a sense of the
sublime in it. In a literary sense,
sublime is this idea that
incorporates beauty with terror and destruction. We can see this through
Lauren’s eyes when they get to Bankole’s property. The others are distraught by
the fact that the place is in ruins and Lauren sees the beauty in it by
realizing that it can be changed and shaped into something new. Crops can be
replanted; houses can be rebuilt, and built. Work can be found not far in
cities. Through destruction comes beauty. In this text we also see fire. Fire is
symbolic of new life, new
beginnings. It is also symbolic of
destruction. The fire they encountered on their journey to Bankole’s property
was both beautiful and destructive. They admired the fire when it was far in the
distance but as it closed in on them, it took everything in it’s path and had it
caught up with Lauren and her group, it would have consumed them as well.
Sublime can also be seen in
The Time Machine. In this text, the Eloi are extremely beautiful but at
the same time they’re very delicate and have a childlike innocence about them.
However, they are also sub-par when it comes to intelligence. To me this is a
quip by the author, H.G. Wells that beauty leads to lack of intelligence, which
in itself is destructive. We can see this when the Eloi are essentially being
treated like cattle by the not so attractive, yet highly intelligent Morlocks.
The Eloi have no mental capacity to truly escape the Morlock. Sure they sleep in
houses in large groups each and every night but that doesn’t stop the Morlock
from venturing into the compounds to deliver food to their soon to be prey. The
Morlock, though not attractive, are much more intelligent in that they have the
perfect food source. Another aspect of this text that shows beauty as
destruction is when the time traveler introduces fire. The Eloi were both
fascinated and mesmerized by this substance which they’d never seen before. The
time traveler’s friend Weena wanted to run into it and play with it not knowing
that it could hurt. The Morlock found out how dangerous this beautiful fire was
when it blinded them and they subsequently went running right into it.
We see beauty in a different way in
“Somebody Up There Likes Me.” There
is less chaos and destruction in this text and beauty is not viewed in the same
light. In this text, machines and computers, are described with more human
aspects such as being sexy whereas people are more so viewed as the machines.
Boyce actually has a project where he was developing a set of lips that the
computer could talk out of. The only destruction that is shown in this text is
that Mickey is stress tester for computers. He essentially sees how much stress
the computer can take before it dies. Upon seeing this, Dante and Boyce are
shocked. Dante describes the computer as slowly dying an agonizing death as if
it’s a living creature. He is destroying these beautiful things and that is in a
way chaotic and somewhat sublime.
The other beauty in this text is Boyce’s garden of paradise. It is described as
lush with vegetables and fruits hanging overhead. Hummingbirds are zipping
overhead and the yard is vibrant and green due to Boyce’s homemade irrigation
system.
In
Elegy, we definitely see beauty
as destruction. Throughout the film, there is nature all around. Nature in
itself is beautiful, but it has taken over the world, slowly destroying it. In
the beginning of the film, the main character is looking at newspaper clippings
telling of the deadliest new plant in existence. He puts on a gas mask and makes
his journey, fighting for his life along the way. When he reaches his
destination, he opens a metal capsule that he’s been carrying the entire time.
This causes the two men that chased him to drop dead. He then pulls out this
beautiful bright red rose and places it on the grave of his beloved. After a few
minutes, he takes his gas mask off and falls dead on her grave as well. Though
this rose was symbolic of beauty, it
was also symbolic of death as well
thus beauty leading to destruction. I believe the red coloration of the rose was
a warning sign much like bright colored insects and snakes that it was pretty
yet poisonous and deadly.
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