Romanticism Theory Analysis

ROMANTICISM

At First Sight (Novel)

By Nicholas Sparks

Synopsis:

There are a few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he’d never do: he’d never leave New York City; never give his heart away after barely surviving one failed marriage; and never become a parent. Now Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, engaged to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the start of their family. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, a mysterious and disturbing e-mail sets off a chain of events that will change the course of this young couple’s relationship. How well do we really know the ones we love? How do we handle the inevitable doubts, fears concerning parenthood, and stumbling blocks that are sometimes placed in our way? Continuing the story of the young couple introduced in Sparks’s bestselling True Believer, this novel captures all the heartbreak, tension, romance and surprises of those who are newly wed. An astonishing tale about the love between a man and a woman and between a parent and a child, At First Sight is about endings that bring new beginnings . . . tragedies that lead to unexpected joy . . . and, most of all, the magic of everlasting love.

 

Analysis:

In this literary piece, I can say that it is under the romanticism theory approach. It is because the story focuses on the emotions of the text rather than the intelligence. It also shows the love for each other that whatever it is they’ve been through, they’re hearts will still leads them to where they belong. This novel wants to emphasize the true meaning of love by giving us the realizations in life (what is really happening in our lives) also, forgiveness and fidelity to each other, to the person you love. That Love, is the greatest gift among all.  

 

Territorialism Theory Analysis

TERRITORIALISM

Specials (Novel)

By Scott Westerfeld

Synopsis:

The novel in the Uglies series begins two months after events in Pretties, when Tally Youngblood has become a member of an elite group of "Specials" - surgically enhanced super-humans - called the Cutters. The Cutters were originally founded by Shay, who invented the use of ritual self-harm to become "bubbly" and clear-headed in spite of brain lesions used to make her pretty-minded. All of the specials in this group were able to get rid of the brain lesions on their own, and now live in the wild. They were adopted into Special Circumstances and given enhanced senses, strength and reflexes, and are among the youngest agents working for Dr Cable.

The Cutters disguise themselves as Uglies in order to crash a party in Uglyville and search for members of the New Smoke. Tally successfully finds a girl giving out pills which cure the pretty lesions, which she encourages the Uglies to take to the Crims - Tally and Shay's old clique. The Cutters attempt to capture the girl, but she escapes on a hoverboard with David's help. Giving chase, the Cutters are ambushed by Smokies with unusually advanced technology, including infra-red masking sneak suits and electrical weapons. The Smokies kidnap Fausto, one of the Cutters, and leave Shay and Tally injured.

Hearing that the pills are intended for Zane, Tally insists on going to see her boyfriend, who suffered brain damage in New Pretty Town and has been hospitalized since Tally turned Special. Tally discovers that while Zane is free of the pretty lesions, his brain has been damaged and his physical infirmity now disgusts her.

She begins to wonder if she received a brain operation when being made Special which has given her feelings of superiority.

Eager to show Dr. Cable that Zane is cured so that he will be made Special, Shay and Tally break into the city armory to steal something to cut off Zane's tracking necklace. They succeed, but in the attempt, they accidentally destroy much of the armory, putting the city on high alert. Then, they begin to secretly track Zane and the Crims as they journey to the New Smoke, although the pair split up when Tally receives a guide to the New Smoke from her friend Andrew Simpson Smith, an escapee from a reservation of primitive culture. Shay follows the guide straight to the Smoke, but Tally insists on staying with Zane.

On the journey, Zane notices Tally and confronts her about her reasons for following him. The pair kiss, but Tally is still repulsed by Zane's tremors and runs away from him. Tally continues to follow the group to the New Smoke - a city called Diego, which accepts runaways freely, having widely adopted the pretty cure and rejected the rules about surgery, allowing anyone to look how they please rather than following the international standard. Tally is amazed by this, but horrified to hear that Diego is beginning to expand into the wild, clear-cutting forest like the Rusties did.

Tally finds Fausto at a party for newly arrived runaways, but realizes his Special brain surgery has been cured. He had given informed consent before he became special to take a "cure" for having a special brain. Tally only just escapes being forcibly injected. Her escape attempt leaves her helpless, as she jumps off a cliff with only crash bracelets to catch her fall. She is picked up by Diego's authorities and locked up for her lethal strength and weapon-sharp teeth and fingernails, which they insist on removing. The doctors inform her that she has received brain surgery to give her flashes of anger and euphoria, along with feelings of superiority, although they will not change this without her consent. With Shay's help, Tally escapes just before the surgery begins.

Shay and the other Cutters have all been cured by Fausto, but they want Tally's help to protect Diego from imminent attack by Dr Cable, who is blaming the so-called New System for the attack on the armory. Tally assists in the evacuation of the hospital, but learns after the attack that Zane, having just received surgery to cure his tremors, died of complications during the confusion of the attack. Grief-stricken, Tally leaves immediately to tell Dr Cable the truth about the attack on the armory. Just before she reaches the city, she meets David, who took a helicopter to talk to her in time. He tells her that he still believes she can think her own way out of her brain surgery, but gives her an injector full of the cure so that she has the option of curing herself.

Arriving at Special Circumstances headquarters, Tally finds Dr Cable and the Specials have taken control of the city. Dr Cable knows that Tally was responsible for the attack, but has chosen to use the attack as a way to seize control over both this city and Diego. Tally tricks Dr Cable into stabbing herself on the injector, and is imprisoned underground for a month, watching the feeds as Dr. Cable slowly loses her grip on the city and the cure begins to spread. Diego publishes scans of Tally's Special body, calling her a "morphilogical violation," and the world is outraged by Dr Cable's "secret" experiments on unconsenting teenagers.

Eventually, Tally is taken as the last remaining Special to be "despecialized", but she resists the surgeons and breaks out with Dr. Cable's help, becoming the only true Special left. She returns to David, still waiting at the Rusty Ruins, and realizes that her other friends have all found their places in the New System. She decides that she wishes to remain in the wild, free from surgery, and with David she will form the "New Special Circumstances", ensuring that nature is protected from mankind's excesses.

 

Analysis:

In this literary piece, I can say that it is under the territorialism approach for the story shows the relationship between ownership and the construction of one’s self. In the story, The Specials here shows ownership on the Cutters who are surgically enhanced humans in order to control them (intangible in the aspect of controlling their minds through brain lesions). In the later part of the story, it gives us the perception that the main character (Tally Youngblood) struggles on herself as to what she’s going to do in order to save the other Cutters as well as herself from the hands of the New System and the unjustly judgment of others.

 

 

Structuralism Theory Analysis

STRUCTURALISM

Looking For Alaska (Novel)

By John Green

Synopsis:

Looking for Alaska opens with a brief perspective on the main character and narrator, Miles Halter’s, social status at his high school in Florida. His parents, unaware of his limited to no friends, throw him a thoroughly awkward and unattended goodbye party before he leaves his home in Florida to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year. When his parents ask him whether he is leaving because of his lack of friends, he denies that question and uses Francois Rabelais’s last words: "I go to seek a Great Perhaps" as his argument for leaving home at such a ripe age in order to seek said perhaps before he dies.

Soon after arriving at Culver Creek, Miles meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin. The Colonel soon provides Miles with his very own nickname: "Pudge," supposedly ironic as Miles is tall and slender. The friendship between the two roommates leads to an introduction to the Colonel’s friend, Alaska Young. Alaska is described as an attractive yet emotionally unstable girl. Pushing aside the moments of her rage, Pudge develops his first crush. The eve of his first day at Culver Creek, Pudge is grabbed out of his bed, duct-taped, and tossed into a nearby lake by the "Weekday Warriors," a group of rich, stuck up, Birmingham-area students of Culver Creek. The "Weekday Warriors" earned their title because during the weekdays they stay at the school, while over the weekends, they get to go back to their "perfect, air-conditioned lives in Birmingham." The tossing of new students into the school lake is a customary prank, the duct-taping, however, is not, leading the Colonel to understand that this was not just an ordinary prank. After taking part in a prank war with the weekday warriors, the Colonel and his friends become closer to one another. This leads to a brief relationship between Pudge and Alaska. Then, that same night, he finds himself woken to Alaska's troubled crying. Both the Colonel and Pudge aid her in her escape of Culver Creek. To where or why is still unknown to them. They then fall asleep.

The first chapter of the "After" shows, The Colonel and Pudge Found out that letting Alaska go resulted in her death. Devastated, the remainder of the book revolves around the Colonel and Pudge try to uncover the hidden mystery behind her disappearence and death as well as Pudge and his gang planning one last prank in Alaska's honor. In the end, they find out that she had gone to see her mother's grave, as Alaska felt responsible for her death and had visited the grave every year on the anniversary of her mother's death. As a result of her heavy intoxication, she then crashed into a patrol vehicle and died. The story ends with Pudge's religion final paper, a final goodbye to Alaska Young.

 

Analysis:

In this literary piece, I can say that it is under the structuralism approach for the story is content based. It also had a signifier and a signified. The signifier here is the female character named Alaska. It is because her name and her personality contradict each other. Though her name seems so cool, in contrast, she is an emotionally unstable girl. On the other hand, the signified here is that Alaska Young acted as an emotionally unstable towards others for she was ashamed of herself because she think that she was the one to blame for the death of her mother. Alaska here symbolizes darkness wherein everybody goes through in life.

American Pragmatism Theory Analysis

AMERICAN PRAGMATISM

Upside down (Film)

Synopsis:

In a world that consists of two planets existing one on top of the other, joined by an enormous tower, Adam (Jim Sturgess), who lives in the Below world, sees The Lottery on television, a show that offers people from their world the chance to live Up Top, in luxury and safety.

The girl announcing the winner is his childhood sweetheart, Eve (Kirsten Dunst), and he decides to reconnect with her. In order to do so, he gets a job at the Transworld Patents and Inventions Department, where his plan is to sell his greatest invention and move into the world that Eve inhabits so he can find her.

 

Analysis:

 

In this literary genre, I can say that is under the American pragmatism literary theory for it has the collaboration of science and technology, beliefs and ideals of the characters and the environment they’re living in. The movie shows practicality in the characters.