Critical Appreciation of an Unseen Text example essay
I wrote this essay for my A2 English Literature mock examination and was marked 30/30
Grade obtained at the end of the course: A*
L.Barlow
Example of a Critical Appreciation of an unseen text
Ursula LeGuin’s “The Lathe of Heaven” is typical of dystopian literature of the
Twentieth Century, exemplifying an environmentally degraded society. This is evident
from the opening of the passage which presents ideas of power and overwhelming
fear. The title in itself indicates a dystopian society; “Heaven” is loaded with religious
connotations of a pure and holy place, contradicting with the physical destruction of the
society written. The idea of a society being presented as pure and good on the surface
set against the contemptible core acts of the society is typical of the dystopian genre.
This is aided by the date the text was written; by 1971 the world was in the midst of the
Cold War and the US were beginning to come out of Vietnam after severe and
unpopular use of napalm. From assessing the text it is evident that LeGuin is
condemning the War, in particular nuclear warfare- for example in 1962 the world faced
imminent nuclear war which was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fear in which
the world was confronted with is mirrored in the text. Therefore the reader can gather
that the typical dystopian themes of brutality, totalitarianism, destruction of nature and
fear are present in the passage.
The opening of the extract sets the tone for the rest of the passage; the
asyndetic list “current-borne, wave-flung” presents the idea of being controlled by
something much more powerful and overwhelming than the protagonist. The fact these
are the very first words of the passage establishes the tone of fear and overwhelming
power, which is typical of the dystopian genre. LeGuin uses the extended metaphor of
a jellyfish under the control of the sea to convey the protagonist’s feelings and
experiences in the society in which they are living in. The use of sibilance in “jellyfish
drifts in the tidal abyss” exemplifies the passivity of the character compared to the
dominance of sea. In the opening the LeGuin uses the motif of light versus dark in
order to represent that there is a battle of wills; “the light shines through it and the dark
enters it”. This could be a metaphor for a rebellious protagonist going against a
totalitarian state, which is an idea particularly prevalent in dystopian literature of the
Twentieth Century. The notion of a totalitarian state is alluded to when the protagonist
says, “tugged from anywhere to anywhere”. The word “tugged” is a violent action which
the author marries with the repetition of “anywhere” in order to convey that the jellyfish
is subservient to the sea. This is highlighted further when it is expressed “for in the
deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther”- the contradiction of the words
“nearer and farther” shows that the “sea” puts its creatures in a perpetual state of
confusion in order to make them submissive and reliant on the power of the sea. This
is a metaphor for the methods of control oppressive regimes use in order to exist.
LeGuin further emphasises this idea through the syntactical positioning of the rule of
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