Monday, October 27, 2014

Blog Post 8: English 325, "Feed" Joshua Zaborowski

For this week’s blog post I will be concentrating on the novel “Feed” by M.T. Anderson. This has to be one of my favorite dystopian novels that I have read. What really stood out to me in this novel was how in a few scenes in really related to everyday issues that teens deal with today. The first example was when Titus didn’t want Violet to know about his friends “manufacturing.” This is an easy situation for readers to relate because they are one of three parties in this case. They are either the one having the drugs hidden from, the one hiding the drugs for their friends or the friends doing the drugs. Most to all readers of this novel will have a situation to relate to in this case, which makes for a great classroom discussion that can go into whether or not Titus was doing justice for Violet or his friends. This leads to many different avenues to bring into the classroom. Another theme that was brought that was intriguing was educational value. This was brought up when Titus and the crew went to the hospital. It was explained how nobody valued the educational process because they had already knew everything and could contact purely through thoughts. (Example: Violet knew how to write with a pen, which was very abnormal) This is a good point to bring up to the audience because it shows them that people with access to everything they need without even thinking about, still think about the educational process in a sense. It should in a sense show students to be grateful for their opportunity to become more intelligent, especially when others don’t even get an opportunity to become educated. This stand-point is of course coming from a future teacher. This theme could also be taken other directions as well. The last theme I would like to cover is friendship and change. Throughout this text it showed how friendships change, develop or are diminished due to live events that occur. This is a true case for any time period or any friendship; which makes it easily relatable for the reader. Titus and Violet started out becoming good friends, but as the novel developed their friendship was diminished. Titus was even so selfish at one point to delete Violets memories that she had trusted him to keep. This was the turning point of their friendship because Titus had lost interest/faith due to Violets fading “feed.” This may seem a bit harsh; however this should show the audiences that pre-caution should be taken in the “trust” factor for the friends you choose. The reason I bring this up is because it plays the devil’s advocate for good classroom discussions. It will allow students to bring up their own thoughts and feelings, which will allow for a better understanding of the novel. This is my overall goal when rating this text. This is why I bring up these types of themes and topics. Lastly I would definitely recommend this book over so many other dystopian novels and would rate this text a B+/A-. 

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