After working diligently on the book for days, I have finally finished Wool! YAY! But there's still so much about it I need to say, which is why I'm writing this blog post right now. Earlier I talked about how Juliette is like the ancient Greek and Roman heroes, but this time, I'm here to talk about how she's unlike them.
The one that I find the most important is how she seems to reject Fate. Now, for the Greek and Romans, Fate was something that was so powerful that nobody, not even the gods, could stop. Sure, the gods could screw with the heroes on their journey, but they don't have the power to stop or change the outcome. It looked like Aeneas' Fate was not to settle in Carthage so he moved on and left behind Dido (an excellent decision, in hindsight. She was really crazy...I mean, killing yourself because he's leaving you? Isn't that overkill? Ha...get it? Kill...sorry, rambling...) and continued to sail. Juliette is different though. When it seemed that she was fated to die in the poisonous gasses in the air, she didn't just let that happen! She tried to get into silo 17, away from the nasty air, away from the dead all around outside, away from the Bernard. I mean, sure, arguably you could say it wasn't her fate to die from the poison but it sure seemed like it at the moment, didn't it? At least, it did to me, and this is my blog post so you'll have to deal with it. Or not, you don't have to read this if you don't want to. Your choice.
Anyways, back on topic. Another huge different between Juliette and heroes like Achilles, Aeneas, Odysseus, etc., is that we can see her grow as a character. In modern hero stories we're used to seeing characters develop and stuff but in the old epics, they didn't really do that. It's just said that Aeneas was super pious and a good person, Odysseus just started in the story being super smart, super loyal, and super heroic, and Achilles was just pretty much perfect, even though he cross dressed...well other than his pathetic defeat because he probably could have just worn sandals that covered and protected his heel.
These differences aren't really that major, because even with these differences, all the characters mentioned are still considered heroes. These differences are just because of different expectations of characters in books now. Today, we want to start at the very beginning of the story (though the beginning is just super boring most of the time) while the ancient epic poems would start in media res (IT'S MEDIA, NOT MEDIAS, JUST GOTTA PUT THAT OUT THERE) so we wouldn't be able to get the beginning of the amazing story. But like I said, these differences aren't really that major, because either way, Juliette is just as much of a hero as Aeneas and Odysseus and Achilles.
Congratulations on finishing Wool!
ReplyDeleteI'd argue that a number of books do start in media res -- as someone noted last week, Wool definitely does this (starts with the exciting moment of Holston's cleaning then flashes back to explain it a bit more). You have some interesting points though -- I do like the trend that's developed for heroes to be more dynamic and less flat (I think you can see this pretty well in how superhero stories have become more and more nuanced).
Thanks! And yeah, I also enjoy the trend for heroes being more dynamic. It can make them more likable and can give us more information about the character.
DeleteIn the world of the silos, I might argue that "fate" takes the form of IT, who determine the contours of reality, the range of taboo language, and even "fateful" decisions like who can marry and when they can try to have a child. By pushing against the bounds of the known world, thinking forbidden thoughts, Juliette is pushing back against her fate, as scripted in IT.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about it that way. That's actually really interesting to think about IT as "fate". It can give a stronger tie that Juliette is trying to go against her fate by going against what IT expects of her.
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