Essays on Bereft

Reproduction in the News

Introduction Science and technology are marching forward into the brave new world with increasing rapidity. The proverbial Moore’s Law, prophesying the doubling of the speed of computer chips every six months (Moore’s Law), remains true to this date. As a corollary, increased use of the computing power and consequent technology allows medical science to unravel mysteries hitherto opaque to man. The biggest mystery to man has always been the mystery of procreation. As with most things man did not understand to begin with, he gave procreation a divine status. Children were literally the gift of God. However, ...

Introduction

People put different things into their bodies every single day, and people are even less concerned about what the food they eat is made of; nutrition is nutrition. The artificial dye content in food is a cause for concern, there are some people that are clueless as far as what artificial food dye is harmful. There are many kinds of artificial dyes that are found in foods such as Red 40 Allura Red, Citrus Yellow and Blue along with Green. These artificial dyes are very dangerous, and have been known to trigger different reactions within people. Some have been known ...

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 features a dystopian future wherein “firemen” are given the task of burning subversive books that challenge the governmental establishment. In this world, reading is outlawed, as the current mode of thinking is anti-intellectual, and bereft of learning or knowledge. The protagonist, Guy Montag, one of the firemen, has his ideas about his job and the world in which he lives in challenged by an intellectual love interest. In the novel Logan’s Run, another dystopian future sees the protagonist, a law enforcement officer called a Sandman, tracking down those who do not voluntarily kill themselves at age ...

In Anthony Vidler’s The Architectural Uncanny, he describes modern city architecture as cold, unfeeling, completely bereft of time or place. When an inhabitant lives in the city, they do not gain a sufficient understanding of where the buildings come from, or the intention behind them. Ideally, city architecture forms a “memory map” of monuments that allows citizens to form an image of a city that they can recognize as familiar and protected. This is done through monuments, which are “agents of memory” (p. 177). However, modernism twists the memory map to make people forget as well as remember – it erases ...