Assignment II

Now, where have I seen her before?
Intertextuality is the whole network of relations that makes a text. Simply, the relationship between texts.

Utopia and dystopia works of literature immediately came to mind when thinking of examples to compare. Two famous works, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Anthem by Ayn Rand, show similarities in characters and how the characters are treated in each story.

In Brave New World, a caste system somewhat is developed before each human is even born. In the "Central London Hatching and Conditioning Center," embryos are maintained in certain conditions depending on their classification: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. Alpha's being the highest class of thinkers and leaders, and each of the succeeding not getting as much nutrition in order to assure less mental and physical attributes. The lowest class, Epsilon, are even given a type of shot in order to injure part of their brain, so they can be used strictly for labor without any disagreement. Once born and given a place in society, no person can change that decision.


In Anthem, a system is also used in order to place it's members into society. From birth until the age of fifteen, each child lives together and goes to school together. No families are allowed to develop and no love or affection is shown to anyone. At the age of fifteen each child goes to a ceremony where The Council announces to him and the public which title he will go by and which job he will perform every day. At the top are the Home of the Scholars who together develop new technology together for the society and at the bottom are the Street Sweepers, those who simply clean the streets each day. Equality 7-2521, the main character, had always been treated poorly by teachers due to his intelligence and abstract thinking and also because of a physical flaw this society might say, great height. On the "big day," Equality has high hopes of becoming part of the Home of the Scholars, but is soon disappointed by his assignment of Street Sweeper. Since no one has a voice to change their duty, Equality continues in quiet about his astounding discovery.


In both Brave New World and Anthem, classes are assigned to each person in society and this class can never be changed. Also, these classes are based on physical and mental traits that are either caused by the "leaders" or assessed by the "leaders."


When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare...

The play West Side Story reflects Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet almost to a tee. Romeo and Juliet begins in the city of Verona. Two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, reside here, but are sworn enemies. Likewise in West Side Story, the Sharks and the Jets are two rival gangs living in the same city. Romeo and Juliet's love is exactly like Maria and Tony's love, forbidden. In both plays, the lovers meet at a dance and immediately know they relationship will have to be secret. The Sharks and the Jets, and the Montagues and the Capulets all find out about each relationship and strongly discourage it. Both Tony and Romeo commit a murder of Juliet and Maria's side of the enemies, but this doesn't stop either love. Many other details in the plot of both plays are exactly alike but the themes are also very similar too. The strength of love is portrayed in both. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo kills a member of the Capulets, Juliet's family. In West Side Story, Tony kills Maria's brother. After both of these shocking events, the love between the two couples doesn't change at all and their future plans to be together, even though it's forbidden, remain the same. Also, unreasonable violence leads no closer to peace and separation, but closer to even more violence. Using the examples of both deaths again, if Romeo and Juliet, and Tony and Maria had been sociably acceptable couples in the beginning, the deaths of the person in each work would have never occurred.