Is Difference the Downfall?

There are numerous comparisons that can be made about Eleanor and Park and Feed. One of the most notable ones being the concept of the self. In a world that dictates what a person should look like, how a person should talk, who that person ultimately becomes, there is a loss of independence. Both books demonstrate this theme. In Eleanor and Park both of the main characters have a difficult time adhering to the social norms. Park is more successful at it than Eleanor. But the person Park sees in Eleanor is the one that he is trying to hide. This ultimately attracts him to her and they form a relationship, struggling with societal norms throughout. The ending was a continuation of their relationship regardless of the struggle that the world posed on them. In the end their differences became their strength, in some sense. They found companionship being what they were instead of what they should have been.

In Feed there is the same concept of identity happening. Violet knows things. Things that other people do not. She has opinions and thinks for herself. This is because her feed was installed later in life, not the usual. Whereas, Titus goes with the flow and has his feed installed at the normal time There is the same level of attraction here between the two, though. Titus likes Violet because she is different. That “different”, that inability to conform to social rules is the very thing that makes Violet unique from all the other characters. That is her defining quality. In this book, though, the ending is not as happy. Violet’s difference from the other characters (her Feed tech being installed late) is actually the very thing that kills her. Symbolically, her difference was her downfall.

Violet . Violet and Her Diminishing Brain Capacity.

Violet . Violet and her diminishing brain capacity. She is losing her mental ability, her physical ability. Her malfunctioning technology is creating a massive disturbance in her life, one that will ultimately kill her. Violet is being used as a metaphor of the individual. Her feed is the technology that we use day to day. Our society would not be able to function if we did not have the technology. Her losing her mental capacity is correlated with how we have loss our individualism. We spend hours on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, reading, responding, longing for things we do not have, and wishing we could like him or date her. We have lost ourselves.

A hobby is supposed to be something that we do for fun. Something that holds our time in a that we enjoy without being completely stagnant. These days we, nearly, all have the same hobby, technology! Think about it. What do you do when you come home from work, school? What is one of the top contenders of how you like to unwind? It is the TV in the middle of your living room, the laptop plugged in in the corner, the phone that is sitting in your back pocket, or the game console perched on your entertainment center. We all have the SAME hobby. We engulf our minds in these virtual worlds, where we stop thinking and become stagnant. We are not our own anymore. Just as Violet pointed out, we are becoming more and more simple as time goes on. Why? Because we have loss the importance of self. We have idolized sameness and drummed out individuality. We are lost because we have never found ourselves, just merely copied what we have seen. By being simple we are a reflection of the characters in this book. We are all becoming the same person..

Woah! Just Woah...

Feed by M.T Anderson is quite the book. It makes me disgusted with technology nearly. Anderson tells the story from a first person point of view of a young teenage boy in a futuristic society. The majority of people have this type of microchip in their head that is the equivalent to a super smart google machine running that can understand your patterns of behavior and make suggestions. This boy meets a teenage girl named, Violet and they begin a courtship of sorts. I feel as though every character that has been presented, with the exception of Violet, is the same. They all speak in simplistic terms with an overuse of the word “like”. They are completely dependent upon the interactions of their feed to keep them sane. There is one scene where Titus and Violet go to a party and it is described as people looking off, blank stares, empty thoughts. Looking at pictures that flash by in their heads. Really none of the people that are present are actually present. There may be an attempt at socialization but everything they do is centered around the feed.

How eerie this is. People today are glued to their phones. We look at them as soon as we wake up, check them multiple times a day. We go to work or school and are on technology all day. We go home at night and are met with the TV, tablets, and more cell phone time. We have Xbox and PlayStation and now virtual reality; technology that you nearly live. Before we even say goodnight, we are already using our phone to awake us for the next day. How many goods, services, ideas etc. are we presented with on a daily basis? We are submerged in media sensory from the moment we wake up to the moment out head hits the pillow. How driven is our life by the technologies we created to aid in progression? How hindered is our life by the technologies

we created to aid progression?

"It was supposed to make you feel something."

Young love, what a force to be reckoned with. It is never given the attention it deserves but is merely shoved off as immaturity. Thought to be the result of overactive hormones and little life experience. It is a strong and powerful force that catches youthful hearts. The feelings are real. They are strong and hit like a train. One day they aren’t there and the next you cannot stop thinking about that one person. It is unthinking, feeling love. The kind that creeps into your thoughts and finds its way into your dreams. This love brands the heart, forever leaving its mark. Even in adulthood this young passion is never forgotten.

Eleanor and Park shows the force of that love. The book is finished but they are not. Eleanor and Park have prevailed. They have beat the odds. Separated, not together, but still loving each other, passionately through all the chaos and heartache they have endured. They are the “shouldn’t be together” couple. That post card with those three unknown words. “I love you”, is what I presume that they be. Eleanor did not say it once throughout the book and when Park read those words it describes Park as having a weight lifted off his shoulders. She loved him. Through the year of silence and heartbreak, she loved him. And he never stopped loving her.

“Or maybe she was just more afraid of being like everyone else.”

Park is waking up. He is starting to see through the shallow social stigmas that have governed not only his life but that of his classmates and his family. He taking the path less traveled, beginning to see the hindrances of adhering to social constructs of who the self is. Society is being represented by Tina, Steve, Cal etc. They are the “rule enforcement”, making sure that anyone who deviates from the set persona is rejected. Ensuring that they are disliked, pushed out, deemed unworthy. Outcasts. Too never be accepted, but always wanting to be. If this is the punishment for being different, then by using the fear or rejection, society or Tina can control the way you behave and act. The fear is their power.

It feels as though Park is beginning to realize this though. He is beginning to understand why Eleanor wears the flamboyant clothes and ignores the bullying. Eleanor has it all figured out. She is the rebel without even knowing. She will not let Tina or society ever know that they have won. I think that’s why she hated it when Mindy gave her the makeover. She kept saying “it’s not me”. Park knew he had always been different. He knew that he would never fit in with the cool kids or be Mr. Popular. So, he shut down himself and was like a robot following a program. Automated. Doing what protocol dictated but never really being himself. That is why Park wore the eyeliner. It was a statement of self-expression, or rebellion against the rules.

I think that is what attracted him the most to Eleanor. Once he started to see the cracks in her armor, he began to understand that she was different and almost proud of the fact. She was a reflection of what he wished he could be. She showed him what courage was. And he loved it, reveled in it, couldn’t get enough of it. He saw the beauty that was individuality. 

A Beautiful Enigma

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell is a book written on the perspective of two high school teens that cannot fit into the mold. Whether that mold be from parents, their peers, or even themselves. Let me begin with Park. He seemed to have had a normal childhood growing up. Loving mom, a dad who was around, and an annoying younger brother. This is the surface however. Park has a soft personality, quiet and quirky. He is intelligent. He is weak though. Not just in the physical sense but in the emotional and social sense. Almost cowardly. This aspect, this very thing is what he dislikes the most about himself. Every time a situation arises and he cowers, he thinks of his father's commentary. His father sounds like a stereotypical man's "man". Drives a stick, calls his son a pussy, has an adoring wife. These are the characteristics that his father is looking for in Park and Park exhibits near to none. Park is dormant. He is maneuvering through his life, taking the path of least resistance. Alive but not really living.

Then there is Eleanor. She is fiery and not meaning her hair. She has not lived a pampered life, nor had a normal childhood. Yet I find her to be alive! She feels everything. This makes sense since her nerves have been on edge for most of her life. I find her hypersensitive but at the same time laid back. She has in intrinsic insight to see things for what they are instead of what everybody may pretending they may be. Her most aspiring quality is her ability to stand out, continually. She never tries to fit in. She merely just is.

The beauty of the two is that Eleanor is bringing life to Park. She is teaching him how to feel and in return he is teaching her to trust and to love. She is teaching him courage and identity without him even knowing it. This is the beauty of love and the human connection. Although they are very different creatures, they find solitude in each other for the attributes that each lack. A beautiful enigma.

More about the characters? http://www.shmoop.com/eleanor-and-park/characterization.html