This is a blog kept by students of Written Expression IV at ISFD 30. Enjoy!

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Meat and prejudice

     That teens are sarcastic and sometimes evil or ironic is not new, but what happens 
with discrimination and disregard of those who are different.  The Winning award Bison Terry perfectly brings the latter concepts into awareness in the short story ` They are made out of meat´ in which two ageless aliens analyse human beings found in planet earth and  as teenagers do, the aliens are tormented by `the other´.  Later, as the story develops, meat becomes an issue.
     After making a deep search throughout the Cosmos, one of the aliens is going to tell to his comrade the analysis results of this new specie.  The most noticeable feature is that they are made out of meat.  This piece of information comes as a shock to the other alien and every detail of the new specie´s achievements and abilities only increases the unconscious disregard of all possible distinguishing feature of the new `other´.
      Adolescence is a time when prejudices come up to the light as easy as words come out of the mouth and although the age of the aliens remains unknown, many of the attitudes they have during the story, resembles what teenagers actually do in front of new ´others´.  If taking these ideas into account the story becomes enjoyable and it makes ponder the reader about human behaviour

9 comments:

  1. "...but what happens with discrimination and disregard of those who are different". I think there's an interrogation mark missing here, minor mistake, but I can't find any other! Good review!

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    1. Oh I was thinking to ask about that! If it is a question there is an interrogation mark missing... and if it is a statement the idea is incomplete.

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  2. Hi. I think that there is a problem with the aspect of the verb "go" in the following sentence, "After making a deep search throughout the Cosmos, one of the aliens is going to tell to his comrade the analysis results of this new specie." You should stick to the present simple, as you have been doing so far.

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  3. A good choice to keep on the present tense would have been the collocation:" is about to tell...". Thanks for having noticed!

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    1. I´m sorry but I don´t understand... why in the future? Remember that both phrases "is going to" and "is about to" refer to future time. And I think that the alien actually "tells" and shares the information with the other one. I agree with Mariana, if you are just retelling the situation you should stick to the simple present tense.

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    2. By the way, I liked the title! Wise pun!

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  4. Hi! I think that the first clause can be organised in a different way. As you have well suggested in another comment, we have to take into account the end-weight principle. Although you may do it on purpose, I think that the subject is too long for being at the beginning... and the "not new" fact may loose its effect (or its power). You can use an anticipatory it.

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  5. Hi Alejandro! If you want to refer to "organisms", you should use "species" since this noun can be both singular and plural. "Specie" has a total different meaning.

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    1. Anyway, I'm not sure about the possesive of "species." Is it "species's achievements" or "species' achievements"?

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