Response Paper after Reading the Novel Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Introduction
Ship breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi is a novel about a teenage boy, Nailer, who lives in the American gulf coast and is a ship breaker with a low paying job. While scavenging for the copper wiring with his oil tanker, he puts his life on the line on a daily basis. He struggles to afford his protective gear, clothing, shelter, and food. His father is addicted to abusing crystal slide and his son, and his mother is dead, this makes his home a bleak. Pima, Nailer’s friend, and Nailer discover an abandoned ship full of valuables, which seems to be their escape route. Nailer realizes that the ship owner is a beautiful teenage girl, who needs help.
Ship breaker is a riveting tale of adventure in a broken world. The novel is about the nature of trust and family, and sometimes family does not only include blood relatives. Nailer works hard to survive in a broken world. He is a character who is fiercely loyal, and his character has helped him to survive in a challenging world. The characters in the novel are associated with a cataclysmic decline in the society
The novel dwells much on a dystopian world, where Nailer’s world is strikingly undesirable and frightening. The dystopian world in the novel seems to take place in a future society where there is global warming, and climate disasters that alter the landscape of the society. Dystopian novels usually have cautionary tones warning the society of the future consequences of today’s actions. The story in the novel takes place in a post-oil future where major cities are underwater, and climate change has altered the earth. Large companies dealing with conglomerate are fighting for recycled communities while the poor and uneducated communities sell the materials to the companies. The cities are further destroyed and ripped apart by hurricanes. Communities have relocated to the island and abandoned the major cities.
The dystopia is also seen through environmental disaster that eventually leads them to the wreckage of the girl after hurricane 6. Accordingly, environmental disaster is seen throughout the novel where hurricanes keep occurring causing major disasters and ship wreckage.
Dystopia also involves the dehumanization, where people kill each other and do not see the value for other people’s lives. Nailer is caught up in the thought about why he did not kill the girl and take the ships treasure. He thought that if he did so it would have saved him much trouble in the future. He cites that having treasure is more valuable to the girls’ life; he even kills his father in the long run, just to save the girl and have a treasure in the end. Therefore, there is a lot of dehumanization going one, where human beings are not given as much value as they should. He barely has knowledge about Nita but betrays his father for her. After the above, Nailer struggles emotionally after killing two men on his self-defense, and one was his father who terrorized him his entire life. Also, there is a lot of violence that divest Nailers of his rights like the constant abuse and violence from his father; he even sees the shipwreck he discovers as an escape from his father. The actions in the novel are adventurous but quite bloody from time to time.
Revolution is a film by Rob Stewart and is focused on environmental impact, and has elements of dystopia just like ship breaking. It brings awareness to marine life and where the future is headed in terms of the environment. The consequences of watching the film, makes someone aware of the environmental impacts in the future society, while ship breaking is a future setup, where the consequences are taking place in real-time. Revolution can be used to justify the imaginary concepts in a novel by Paolo. He uses evidence to show the changing world, where there will be extinct sharks in future, climate change, environmental degradation, ocean acidification, water and food scarcity and climate change.
Also, the novel is not completely fictional as certain consequences are bound to happen if no action is taken. It is Just like Phillips, K, Dick’s Do androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Which is a dystopian film regarding life becoming a tenuous existence for people who are left behind after war and exodus to different planets. Just like Paolo, both stories reflect of science fiction, philosophy, and science.
References
Bacigalupi, P. (2010). Ship breaker. New York: Little, Brown.
