Author Archives: Chris Ramsaroop

District 9 Movie Response

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The Movie District 9 had a few similarities with some of the books we read in class. One of the similarities it had to Caves of Steel was the fact that the aliens from the movie had their own place to stay, the same with the spacers. Humans and the aliens from the movie didn’t get along well with one another the same as how they didn’t get along with the spacers in the book. It took one man named Wikus van de Merwe when he was becoming an alien due to exposure to an alien substance to understand the way humans were treating the aliens and actually grew to accept them and let them live their lives in peace. Elijah from Caves of Steel also grew to accept spacers when he was partnered up with Olivaw and grew to understand Olivaw better. The movie can also be compared with the book Dawn. In the book, the only way to travel to different rooms is if you were an Oankali. In the movie: District 9, the only way to use an alien weapon was if you too were an alien. Lilith from Dawn and Wikus from District 9 were turning into one of the creatures slowly, and they were able to use anything the aliens had with ease. In some ways the movie also had some similarities to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as well. In the book, the bounty hunters were getting rid of the androids that were coming in from another planet. In the movie, there were soldiers who wanted to eradicate the aliens. Lastly, there was one character by the name of Rick Deckard from the book who started to grow to accept androids.

Reading Journal #6 – Dawn

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“Sensory arms, we call them in English. They’re more than arms -much more- but the term is convenient.” It focused its attention on Lilith and spoke in Oankali.

“Do you think it would help if he saw a demonstration?”

“I’m afraid he would be repelled.” she said.

“He’s an unusual male. I think he might surprise you.”

“No.”

“You should trust me. I know a great deal about him.”

“No! Leave him to me.”

Reading this passage, made me think a lot about what Nikanj had to say about Joseph that he was hiding from Lilith at the time I read it. I wonder what more to Joseph’s back story there was to it. Perhaps she knew as well but she wanted to forget about what might have happened in the past and try to mold him into a better more suited person than what he was in that community with the others. She did get info on the guy, but how much necessary? The whole point is to gather the best kind of people in order to survive on earth, Not everyone liked Joseph and Lilith when the rest was awakened, that sometimes they got into fights and no one was trusted that easily. Perhaps the unusual part of Joseph is that even though he’s scared of the Oankali at first, he automatically accepts what’s needed to be done, and gets it done quick.

Reading Journal #5 – Dawn

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Octavia Butler’s Dawn is really an interesting book. The main question while reading through it is “why?” Why are the Oankali (an Alien race who have little to no facial features except for tentacles shaped around the eye sockets and no eyeballs) helping Lilith, a human who’s been imprisoned by them for around two years. She’s been by herself for a long time considering that her husband and only son have been in a fatal car accident that left them both dead, and with Cancer being in the family genes, her family suffered a great toll. However thanks to the Oankali, they cured her Cancer and made her live longer. The goal for the Oankali was to have Lilith train other humans in order to survive in the new world they’re going to be exposed to. My main question is still “why”? They never answer Lilith’s questions when she asks them, but they examine her without her consent. It feels like one of those horror movies where the main villain is usually the one you end up trusting the most because of how nice they are to you, only to get back stabbed. They act really nice towards even with doing what they did, but who knows? They’re not answering anything she’s asking, so they probably are hiding a secret from her.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Reading Journal

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One of my favorite parts of the book was probably in the middle of Chapter 9, when Luba Luft claimed that Rick Deckard himself was an android. First when she said that if there were any androids among her, she’ll be glad to help and Rick said that’s one indication of her being an android (when one android doesn’t care what happens to another android). This is when she told him that he was probably an android, just because it’s his job to kill them. She also asked if he took the Voigt-Kampff test himself and he responded with “I took the test when I first started with the department”. She said afterwards that perhaps it was a false memory that was given to him and that perhaps he killed a human that looked like him and took that human’s place without his superiors noticing. At that point even I began to question if Rick Deckard was actually an android. Even though he is a bounty hunter, I don’t believe it was mentioned why he was a bounty hunter in the first place. Maybe he was implanted with false memories to make him believe he was one.

Caves of Steel: Reading Journal Close Analysis

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In Caves of Steel, it showed the building trust of human (Elijah Baley) and robot (Daneel Olivaw). The passage I chose was as follows from the Ending of Chapter 1:

“No, Commissioner.” He drew a deep, sighing breath. “What’s my Partner’s name?”

“R. Daneel Olivaw.”

Baley said, sadly, “This isn’t the time for euphemism, Commissioner. I’m taking the job, so let’s use his full name. Robot Daneel Olivaw.

In the beginning of the story, the Commissioner hired Lije for the job which he didn’t want to accept at first only because of one specific thing. His partner, was a robot. Lije couldn’t trust that robot anywhere near his family or even around him thinking that Daneel would end up backstabbing in the end. From a rough start where even Lije’s wife told him that she scared of Daneel (when at first she was okay with him since she never realized he was one till the news report). Lije began to lighten up a bit about having Daneel as a partner. Being with someone for a long time no matter what they do would make the trust grow and seeing as to how Daneel was almost like a human even when he wasn’t but was trying his best to be for Elijah, made Lije think that he shouldn’t judge someone right away because they’re different. Just give it some time and it’ll eventually work out. Especially when Daneel didn’t understand something such as the bible, Elijah took the time to explain it to him. In the end, they both learned each other’s customs from one another, solved the murder case and walked arm in arm.

Chris R – Reading Journal #1 & 2

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Reading Journal #1

The world of Caves of Steel and our world are pretty much different from one another in almost every way. In the world of Caves of Steel, Men have a more dominate role in the community to make income compared to the women who stay home and take care of the children. The robots pretty much also replace humans in the labor force such as running a shoe store for example. The humans (referred to as “Earthmen”) think that one day the robots will take over and there will be no way in obtaining money since the owners of the shops would want to have someone working with no pay. Second, is the overpopulation that the earth has and not being able to find a way to keep the number down. Another thing that I realized when reading the book was the fact that Elijah had no idea of the changes that go on in the outside world (such as rain or what not). Maybe since they’re always in the chambers that he hasn’t seen the phenomena called rain. When traveling to another area (in the book’s case the area is called Spacetown), it’s a custom that you take a shower in order to remove the city dust from you. Also, you’re not allowed to carry a weapon when in the area. I can understand this, but in Elijah’s case, he’s a cop. A cop should always have a gun in his possession.

Reading Journal #2

The scene that really stood out to me the most while reading this book was the last part of Page 97 (this was of course before reading ahead) but out of everything I read, I just keep going back to this scene non-stop. It was the scene where Elijah and R. Daneel Olivaw was having a meeting with Dr. Fastolfe as well as commissioner Enderby over the trimensional personification about the murder of Dr. Sarton. This was where Elijah stood up from his seat and mentioned that Dr. Sarton wasn’t dead and he points straight at R. Daneel and stated that he was in fact Dr. Sarton, that there was actually no murder case. This was where so many thoughts kept rushing into my head. The one specific thought that came to my mind was the fact that he was using this as an excuse just for his wife. He probably said this so that way the case can be solved and that way he wouldn’t have to worry his wife anymore because of the fact that they won’t be living with a robot in the house anymore. As well as that he can stop his wife from trying to talk him out of his job to find a new one and lose his current position. Another thing is the fact that the Earthmen can stop spreading rumors about the fact that Elijah was cooperating with a robot ever since the scene at the shoe store. The theme and motif this would probably relate to is the Spacer/Human Relations, because everyone is scared about a robot living in the environment, and since Elijah wants to get this case out of way as quickly as possible shows that he doesn’t want to be working with any robot.