"There is a stage in life when a man does not need even to proclaim his thoughts much less to show them by outward action. Mere thoughts act. They attain that power. Then it can be said of him that his seeming inaction constitutes his action. ... My striving is in that direction.”..........Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.........
Every boy has an experience with his friends of doing something that exceeds the limits of everyday lives. Usually, Boys start talking about something stupid or shocking that originally came up just for entertainment, but sooner or later, they start to realize that they are actually planning for such thing to happen. This is a quintessential element that makes the boys to do something crazy, which is very similar how the protagonists in the 'The Body' were put up to a situation of actually finding the body. And after this journey, they start to feel that they have become more of a man than a child.
There were many things the story told us, but the most outstanding scene was when Chris tells Gordie about a teacher who took the milk money. Even though he gave the money back, he was betrayed by an adult and got all the blame for it. This is an impressive scene of Chris's coming-of-age that makes him form distrust against adults, including the repected ones. At this scene, I had a thought that one of the categories that differenciates children from adults could be whether or not he or she has 'trust' toward the society.
Somebody asked me recently, "There must be something you did in your middle school that went over the limits, right?", which was kind of an odd question to give an answer to. The things I thought unbelievable at the time could be expressed as something that doesn't have much value inside it, just as Gordie said in the book, 'The most important things are the hardest things to say'.
Well, as I thought about it carefully, I had such experiences all right, but it really didn't start with my friends. But it did influence my thoughts which became: 'If there is a will, there is a way'. If you want to do something against the rules, it is easy for you to work alone rather than hanging out with your friends from the first place. After having some know-hows, you can start telling your closest friends about the crazy things you did. In retrospect, I shouldn't have told them those things because I figured out that right after I graduated, I became a legend in the school.
Of course, the insaneness of a plan was so insignificant compared to the incident that the protagonists go through in 'The Body'. However, for guys who are stuck in the dormitory everyday can start their adventure with small steps.
(Adding : One thing I managed to do after three years of experience was being able to crack inside the dormitory anytime I wanted, including the times when we were not supposed to enter. Second thing I managed to do was to skip almost every evening self-study times. From seven to nine, we were obliged to stay in the school for self-studying, which I rarely attended especially in my last year of middle school.)
Stephen King is the author who has bright ideas that can make any readers entertaining. Shawshank Redemption was a great story to read, but the new story I recently started, 'The Body', really got my attention. Mainly because it was a Coming-of-Age story, or in German, Bildungsroman. From the definition of Merriam-Webster Dictionary (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bildungsroman), the term Bildungsroman means a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character. The origin of Bildungsroman comes from German, from Bildung, meaning education and Roman, meaning novel. Quintessential example of Bildungsroman are: ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J. D. Salinger, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee’, and of course, ‘The Body’ by Stephen King.
Coming-of-Age story conveys its theme of 'Boyhood to Manhood' usually by changing the attitude or the way of speaking at the end of the story. So far, I haven't reached the point where such dramatic changes in the protagonists' psychological development happen. Yet, I could take a glimpse of the facts that are set for the author to face an eventual change. The main part of the story starts when Vern says, "You guys wanna go see a dead body?". The innocent idea that finding the body will make all four of them heros is a thing that belong to kids, especially when they are kids who are about to enter junior high. This idea would most likely 'fall from innocence' as the subtitle of 'The Body' mentions. Because learning to respect a dead human being is one of the things that teenagers should go through during adolescence. Because adolescence is the time of setting one's view of values, every single experience the one go through could work as a vital part in forming one's thoughts.
In this story, four main characters appear each from different backgrounds. Their roles in the group differs from another and each of them are expected to undergo different kinds of Coming-of-Age. The most expected coming-of-age is Gordon's coming of age. This is because I was deeply resonated by his story of a dead brother. Since he was considered an "Invisible Man' by his parents after his brother died, I believe that his behavior would be different from the other guys when they come to see the dead body. Overall, the first thirty pages of 'The Body' made me feel desirable of reading the book. I look forward how the story is going to show the theme of Coming-of-Age.
Historically, there have been many efforts made in searching for the origin of animal instincts. We are quite familiar that many scientists made diversehypotheses and theories to seek the fundamental key that reveals the enigma of innate properties of animals, including those of humans. However, when we try to scrutinize where these extreme properties come from, our observations focus on how animals or, according to Richard Dawkins, genes struggle themselves to maintain their existence. But in this lecture, the speaker confirmed the existence of the gene that was set to age and eventually, kill animals. I believe the existance of such gene has a great value in the field of medical science and philosophy.
In the field of medical science, gaining control over the 'aging gene' could be a innovative and laudable method to extend human's life span. As the speaker said, the research team has already made exemplary remarks on testing the chemicals that prevents the 'aging gene' from coming in effect. More and more the idea of longer life span becomes pragmatic, the expectation on the new medical technology The slow progress of aging not only increases the human life span, but also mitigates the severity of age-related diseases such as heart attacks, dementia etc. Of course, increased life span engenders more population. So this leaves the econmists to adequately set the changed labor market's supply-demand equilibrium. Depending on how stabilized the new equilibrium is going to work with the augmented population, it could make a dramtic increase to our social prosperity or it could lead to the all-time losing game of abject poverty.
The field of philosophy also is anticipated to have a interesting debate toward this heresy. In the book 'Selfish Gene', Dawkins proposed the idea of the 'replicator', the initial molecule which first managed to reproduce itself and thus gained an advantage over other molecules within the primordial soup. Today, Dawkins postulates, the replicators are the genes within organisms, with each organism's body serving the purpose of a 'survival machine' for its genes. But the basic question that an acute person can ask is 'Why does the aging gene exist if human body is designed for the survival of the genes?'. There, I believe, we can come up with two theories. First, the aging gene might actually exist for animal's 'survival'. Second, the aging gene is an exception of the theory 'selfish gene'. This also leads to the debate dealing with the meaning of generations and death. So the existence of aging gene triggers diverse debates in the field of philosophy. (I would post another writing dealing with linked topics)
To sum up, aging gene gives our society a huge influence not only for the existence itself, but when we try to understand and manipulate the gene for advanced application of medical science. Also, when humans actually achieve the ability of controling the aging gene, there would be negative effects just as many as the positive effect. Whether or not we could overcome the anticipated negative effects in the gene manipulation would eventually make the real-life application possible or not.
Everybody has his or her innermost desires. Right at this moment, people might be wishing for a better job, a better exam score, or they could be just hoping for small things such as that tomorrow will be Sunday again. But it always strikes me that some desires are not meant to remain only as desires, for they can be poisonous, dreadful burdens for a person to carry with, especially when they are never achieved throughout one's life time.
When you fail to grasp the opportunity that was right in front of you and realize that the train has departed long before, you start to live in your past so the future seems to have no meaning. Desires that used to make your heart beat with conviction, passion, and confidence suddenly leads you to self-accusation, tormenting and eventually, unacknowledged death. Therefore, the only way not to get dismissed from the society is to never lose your focus on your goal and be acute to opportunities.
This might sound depressing and pessimistic for a ambitious high school student to say, but learning how to look at things squarely in this competitive world makes you to think clearly and work hard. This is the truth that any individual in this world has to face to become a mature part of this society. By realizing that opportunities that the world give you becomes more and more scarce, you start to struggle desperately to avoid yourself from accidentally falling on your knees.
This book conveys a dark message. But its ability to resonate with its readers is outstanding.
JUDGEMENT ::: POINTS
How vividly described the story was ::: 10 / 10
Its influence toward the world ::: 9 / 10
How effectively the theme was conveyed ::: 9 / 10
How much sympathy did it draw from its readers ::: 9 / 10
How the story was flawlessly organized ::: 9 / 10
TOTAL : 46 / 50
