Feed was an amazing book. M.T Anderson created a book in which you were interested in the characters, and you thought about the moral of the story and how the book connected to your life. The reason this book is so effective in getting you to think about your life is because the characters in this book either remind you of yourself or someone you know. This book was almost a mirror image of our society today. He made the book an allegory which made the book interesting because he was able to be creative and add his own creative symbols to represent the setting we live in and our actions. An effective and thoughtful work of art is one that not only intrigues you but also makes you think. M.T Anderson's way of doing this was reminding you of your self or past experiences with people you know. He uses your own personality and way of life to make you think about the message he is trying to get through.
Another thing he did was while making it seem futuristic and having it be fictional the book was still realistic. Although many of the symbols he used were not realistic the way the story plays out and the interactions the characters have are very realistic. By making the story a tragedy he emphasized his point and showed that not only was this lifestyle making us dumb and ignorant which is a huge tragedy in itself but the repercussions of this lifestyle are even worse. The potential problems on the people around us and ourselves in the future are greater than we can imagine. He also had a character who changes somewhat throughout the book and that made it even more realistic and easier to connect to. We all change over time and realize the flaws and problems in the things we do and sometimes we decide to change as did Titus in the book. M.T Anderson pays a lot of attention to small details like that to make his book more personal for the reader.
Although I think this book is targeted towards teenagers is has a universal message that can be applied to everyones life no matter their age. I think that is extremely important in an art piece. It is okay to target as specific group as long as your message is one that can apply to all people or can make all people think about your message. I think that if he would have made this a film or something digital than it would have defeated the purpose of the book because the book is telling people that digital representation devices are a big contributor to the great amount of ignorance amongst people today.
In this instance I think this piece of art is a mirror but it's deeper than just telling people what they are doing wrong because he does it in a creative way. His book is a mirror of a society today while also being different and interesting. I think art in whatever form it may be can be either a mirror type of piece or "hammer" as long as the art is intriguing and does not bore the viewer and also makes you think on a deeper level then you were before viewing or reading or hearing this art piece. I am not sure I have a preference between the two I think both can be extremely effective in getting a point across as long as you are creatively weave your morals and ideas in to the piece.
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Omar- I like how your post sounded like you were genuinely interested in the book, it made it nice to read.
ReplyDeleteYou basically pointed out the tactics Tobin used to make his book a successful allegory.
I agree with you where you say that although the book is targeted to teenagers, anyone can get something out of it. I said something similar in my post.
To develop your ideas maybe you could use specific examples by using quotes from the book.
To explore this more by thinking about whether Tobin's art would be as effective if it had not been so harsh about the realities of our lifestyles.
You had an interesting perspective in this response- Sandy