Pretties
I am reading a dystopian novel in class that is called “Pretties.” A dystopian society is an imagery place where everything is as bad as it can be. A girl named Tally has a dream of becoming a Pretty. A Pretty is a person that has surgery to the cities liking, to make them look gorgeous, popular and perfect and they are put into groups by what happened in their pasts. Tally is a “Crim.” Tally first had gotten caught trying to get the cure for being pretty-minded. Next she was threatened by Dr. Cable who had treated her into telling on her friends when she lived in the Smoke. Then her best friend had gotten mad at her. After that day, Zane and Tally had escaped the cuffs, from when they had gotten arrested, and there friends from the group, Peris and Fausto, had jumped out of the hot air balloons on to hoverboards. Fausto and Zane had jumped around the same time; Tally lost her best friend forever, Peris, who chickened out. When Tally jumped she jumped into a reservation where she couldn’t get of the land. On the land these people tried to kill her. Then when Specials visited the land she stole one of the hovercars’ and went to the ruins, which are just the woods. There she found out that Zane was sick and half of his brain was gone. Also she found out that the pill she took really did work it just gave her the placebo effect. Then they were caught by the Specials, this was because they had put a tracker in Zane’s tooth when he went to the hospital. So when they had gotten caught she found out that her best friend Shay was getting revenge on her for not sharing the cure with her, so she became a Special and now Tally had to become one as well.
An allegory is a story that symbolizes something else. The allegory that I think that is in this book says “Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you at least have to grow your own brain. Otherwise you might as well be living on a reservation, worshipping a bunch of bogus gods.” (Westerfield 309) What this says to me is that if you don’t use your brain anybody could tell you anything. My Career Preparation teacher has told me, “If you find a fool bump once if you find a good fool bump twice.” This just simply mean use you head. The people that Tally met on her trip to the ruins lived on a reservation and they were worshiping the specials, which you could say that they were bogus gods.
An allusion is a reference to a well-known person place or thing or another work of literature. One allusion that is in the book says “And kisses are a better fate than wisdom.”(Westerfield Part II) This quote comes from E. E. Cummings “since feeling is first.” This allusion is in part II in the book. “It's better doing something on the spur of the moment than it is to being wise after the event.” (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091026162114AAvMo2v) This means that choose wisely what you do because it might seem right in the moment but in the long run is it going to benefit you? Tally chooses her boyfriend to take the cure with her instead of her best friend. In the end of this book it turns out that her best friend wants and gets revenge on her.
Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule to expose something else in a work of literature. One satire that is on the back of the book is says “Now she would have to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life – Because the authorities don’t intend to let anyone with this information survive. One reason I think this is satirical is because instead of the authorities putting her in jail they would try to kill her because she knows too much. When people turn sixteen they get surgery and they’re memory is erased. But Tally figured out if she stayed bubble or exciting, she could escape being pretty-minded (Perfect mind good thoughts and no arguing). But the specials don’t want people to know that their minds have been erased and if tally knows then she could tell her friends and they could tell their friends. Another reason I think this is satirical because people don’t usually choose between fighting for what they know and fighting for their lives. People usually make decisions on what food to eat or what to wear. This is very ironic because these are kind of like to different subjects. But like that book says “If you don’t at least grow your own brain you might as well be living on a reservation worshiping a bunch of bogus god.” (Westerfield 309) Do you think that this is ironic?
