These essays were written by Claudia Bakker.
Beneath The Surface
(Book / film compare and contrast: Flowers for Algernon)
The bromide opinion about clichés is that they owe their popularity to the truth oozing out of their very core. One such saying is that ‘it’s the little things in life that matter’, and when it comes to the book versus film analysis of Flowers for Algernon, not a syllable is untrue about this statement. Daniel Keyes’ novel about a mentally challenged man who finds himself the centre of an intelligence increasing science experiment, thrives on modest details (Keyes, Flowers for Algernon, 1966). To start with the eponymous Algernon, being a mouse, of course, is small in size. Algernon matters in both book and movie, for without the little critter, there would be no experiment. Digging deeper into the core of the plot, the main character Charlie Gordon comes to the realisation that before the operation, when his life was less complicated and he did not comprehend the world he inhabited, he was happier.
THE IRONY OF GREED – How Capitalism Will End The Human Race
“Greed is good.” Gordon Gekko was rather adamant about his statement in the 1987 film Wall Street. Self assurance is not a synonym for being right though: greed is not good. On the contrary; it is devastating to our environment. Greed always comes to the expense of another being, for there is no room for any sentiment other than ‘kill or be killed’, ‘eat or be eaten’ in the business world. With this culture, businesses all over the world have been responsible for the extinction of tens of thousands of species. When allowed to continue, it will be the end of all. Humans are among the few species able to live outside nature; they tend to forget though that nature is still needed to survive.
