Bang Bang Bang Bang (Second Reading Assignment)

Chapter 5 Response

     Intertextuality is (or how I think it is) the interaction between texts of two different works of literature where one is influenced by the other in some way.
     Brave New World and 1984.  Very different, right?  Well, ok I guess they do share the whole "dystopias/utopias aren't always as great as you would think" feeling (wait, who ever said a dystopia was any good in the first place?).

     In Brave New World, John the Savage is read in many of the works of Shakespeare (do I smell a triple intertextuality opportunity?).  He is so well read that he has even gained a strong sense of morality and virtue just from reading.  As he learns that the new world is a place of promoted debauchery, John desperately wants to be nothing like the denizens of this new place full of such disgusting infirmities.  John even becomes enraged and destroys some precious Soma when he is asked to take some (and become more like the masses by losing his emotions temporarily).  John yearns for independence from the government of this brave new world and even a return to older ways (such as those found in Shakespeare).
    On to 1984.  Winston is not so different from John the Savage.  He also wants independence from his presiding government that is Big Brother.  He even exercises his simulated independence by being in a relationship with Julia and committing other crimes such as thoughtcrime.  Winston could even be seen as wanting to go back to the ways where people were free to think for themselves.  Though the two governments are different, both have a very strong hold on the lives of their citizens (be that Soma or suffering).
     The endings of both works are actually a little similar as well.  Conformity and then death.

Chapter 7 Response
*Spoiler Alert*

     It just so turns out that there are quite a few pieces of work in the U.S. that allude to the Bible.  And Then There Were None is no exception to this.  In this novel by Agatha Christie, ten house guests are invited to Soldier Island.  Each is invited for different reasons, some come because of the promise of money and others to reminiscence with old war friends.  To the point.  One by one, each house guest is killed off.  However, the first couple of deaths don't seem as though they would be murder (an overdose and a suspected suicide) and so the house guests are mostly ignorant of the murderer who is now on the loose.  As people die off the remaining become less ignorant.
     Towards the end of the novel, Justice Wargrave is killed by a bullet to the brain.  The doctor of the guests examines the body and points out a red mark on Wargrave's forehead to indicate that he had been shot.  What we don't know is that earlier Wargrave had convinced Dr. Armstrong to help him fake his own death so that he could move freely around and search for the murderer.  Convinced, Dr. Armstrong helps the ex-judge fake his death by having Wargrave place a mark of wax upon his own forehead and then examining Wargrave's body and pronouncing him dead (so many hims).  After a few more real murders (well, everyone except Wargrave himself) Justice takes his own life by making a complex device to take his own life by shooting himself in the head (he uses an elastic band and a handkerchief, come on that's kinda complex).  This leaves a "real" red mark upon his forehead.
     Hold on, a red mark on the forehead of a murderer...  What was that biblical person's name who killed his brother?  Oh right, Cain.  So this makes Wargrave the first murderer, but neither the first sinner nor the first punished.  This links Wargrave to Cain, making both evil men and murderers (despite the fact that Justice Wargrave was a judge and has a strong sense of justice).