1/28/2019 3 Comments Tahereh MafiAuthor’s Name: Tahereh Mafi Dates Alive: 1988-Present Location:Santa Monica, California
Major Works:
Major Themes:
Novel Choice Plot Summary: Juliette is a seventeen year old girl who was born with the power to take the life from anyone she touches, which lands her in a mental asylum for manslaughter after an accident. Her ability captures the attention of the newly formed struggling government called The Reestablishment, the global form of leadership after climate change and natural disasters doomed humanity and its inhabitants. They want to use her abilities to torture and murder rebels or unwilling citizens who commit crimes such as disloyalty against their order. Juliette sees how the world changed after almost a year in solitary, and how its people have changed. She is forced to either partake with the will of the government she is summoned to, or beleive in the hope for a better society and fight with the rebels. All while battling her own crippling mental state trying to regain control of herself and possibly her abilities potential. Analysis of Main Characters: Juliette Ferrar: Locked in a mental asylum for over 264 days for involuntary manslaughter of a little boy. The public only knows of the stigma of her caused by misleading rumors of her supernatural abilities of being able to take the life from whomever she touches. Being in solitary confinement, her mind is starting to shape her into the monster the public labels her as and she is trying to fight back and remain what she was born to be, a human with emotions. It is very interesting to see how Juliette battles her mental state with the use of crossed out thought lines in the book. Through her perspective, the reader sees the smaller, more finer details in a setting that would often be overlooked because Juliette was trained in the habit of noticing everything since she was deprived of everything for almost a year. For example, she counts the seconds between words spoken of a character or counts the number of steps they take. It is indeed an interesting way to analyze the mood in a room but over time it can get repetitive. Adam Kent: As an 18 year old soldier for the Reestablishment, he was brought to Juliettes cell with the intent to see if she was sane enough to be recruited for the Reestablishments’ purpose. He used to go to public school with Juliette and therefore was seen as the perfect candidate for the experiment. Over time, it’s revealed that Adam is in love with her and is immune to her touch. The use of the emotion love does explain why Adam was willing to do dangerous things for Juliette such as get shot in the leg for her, or even point a gun at his commanding officer. However, there is no reason for him to have such a strong feeling of any emotion towards her. He never spoke to her and developed an infatuation with the way she handled herself. Love takes time and effort, but he hasn’t even seen her for years until they were locked in a cell together. Simply, he is mistaking his curiosity and infatuation with her mysterious aura for love. Love is an overused tool to provide reasoning for character action in this story. But, it does provide a calming period between scenes of action. Aaron Warner: Aaron is the 19 year old son of the leader of the Reestablishment and is the commanding officer of Sector 45, therefore of Adam Warner. Now Warner later in the story believes to have fallen in love with Juliette and confesses this to her, after he forcibly removes her from her residence and keeps her trapped against her will, which was stated earlier to be theoretically impossible. But, he has the excuse of not being mentally stable. Warner is mad with power and will do anything to keep it in his grasp. Such as torturing Juliette emotionally and physically. So, manipulating a vulnerable girl to fall in love with him is something he’d take pleasure in. In fact, he isn’t in love with Juliette, he has a greed for her powers. Warner is well aware that with Juliette’s power by his side, he’d be unstoppable in command. Which entices him to become entranced with the possibility of absolute power. Later he finds out he too is immune to Juliette’s power and that just makes him want her more. So in a sense, he’s drunk in love. Warner’s insanity is really what drives the plot as it draws him to make irrational decisions which are the catalyst for the rebel group uprising and attacks. Theme: The most significant theme of the novel Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi is that ones oddities are what make them powerful. The story is about a 17-year old girl by the name of Juliette who was born with the power to take the energy from other people, resulting in their death. Juliette struggles with how she perceives her power; it shifts from being a blessing to a curse. She also struggles with her own control of her supernatural ability. But, Juliette realizes that her power can be a gift, to help save and protect others instead of hurt them. The hand with a lightning bolt represents how Juliette has control over her power and how she perceives it. The thing that is considered peculiar, destructive, or cursed is actually what makes her powerful, beautiful, and a savior to a dying humanity. How did the author’s life influence his writing in this novel? (2-3 paragraphs) The author’s life influenced her writing in this novel by incorporating present-day issues into the plotline. Tahereh Mafi is outspoken when it comes to sexual assault crimes, immigration, climate change, and ethnicity related issues. Multiple posts on her various social media pages voice her opinion on some of these topics. In Shatter Me, climate change is the catalyst to the plotline due to the fact the humans polluted the ground, water, and air so much that the world began to die. Plants, animals and crops became scarce as chemical dumping ruined the earth beneath them. Water became acidic and polluted to the point that fish and drinking water became unsafe to consume. Greenhouse gases such as CO2 were so abundant that the seasons no longer exist as chaos became the new order for weather patterns. This prompted the Reestablishment to come into power to promise a new future and provide order for a withering humanity. Their solution was genetically modified foods, population control, and monitoring of food import and export. Mafi wrote this book in 2011, during this time many worried how the polar ice caps were melting due to climate change and would cause coastal cities to become completely submerged in water. Although in 2019 this has yet to happen, climate change is still posing as a massive threat to future generations, which Mafi knows. Genetically modified foods due to the rise in CO2 causing inadequate produce was also beginning to become a new industry during this time. Many people started to question openly how the diet would affect public health and future generations. Mafi was amists all the chaos which inspired her to incorporate it in her writing. Another way that Tahereh Mafi’s life influenced her writing in this novel was how she was often treated differently because her lifestyle was considered peculiar to different people. In the novel, Juliette is treated as less than human due to her ability and its uniqueness. People are afraid of her because they don’t understand her capabilities or fear the unknown which causes them to get angry or upset. Tahereh Mafi being a Muslim and an Iranian-American faced similar judgement from members of society while growing up and even in present day. She wears a headscarf in public due to personal religious reasons, this invites the part of the public who disagrees with her lifestyle choice to have an excuse to shame or just be rude in general to her. Mafi used personal experiences and emotions to write how Juliette would think, act, and react to people’s perceptions of her and her abilities. Often times authors see themselves in their protagonist and base their problems and personalities off of their own experience; which is just what Mafi did. Later in the story, Juliette finds validation for herself when she falls in love with Adam. To be specific, his love of her and loving her complete identity is what persuaded her to accept herself. Tahereh Mafi May have wrote that to symbolize her own experience with her marriage to Ransom Riggs. Riggs is the author to the series Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and is known for being intrigued with what others find creepy or odd. So, the acceptance of his wife and her religion was nothing short of easy for him to understand and love. Just like how in the novel, Adam does not fear her ability and instead loves her more for it. Lastly, Mafi is politically outspoken when it comes to types of government rulings. In the novel, the Reestablishment can be described as an oppressive dictatorship for many reasons. This includes control of media, monitoring and limiting of basic necessities, one absolute ruler, and oppressive laws enforced to the public by military or private police. The book also makes a point to mention that immigration is strictly prohibited. Tahereh Mafi is actually the daughter of immigrants who moved to the United States from Iran in hopes of a better future for their family. By writing how immigration is prohibited, Mafi was probably dramatizing the feeling of not receiving acceptance from society as her parents were immigrants. Mafi also makes a point to disagree with President Trump when it comes to laws on immigration. On her public Instagram page, she has a post dedicated to speaking out against children in detention centers along the Mexican border, exposing her political views. Tahereh Mafi makes a point in her writing to convey how she feels about the American government by portraying it as how she fears it will become, hence the Reestablishment. The Reestablishment also is trying to have an end goal of one universal language, while burning books of the past. Trump is notorious in the sense that he publicly shames people of color for speaking in their native language, which Mafi most likely took inspiration from. She used real-life political issues and traumas to birth the Shatter Me worlds own government. Works Cited “Author Details.” Biography | Epic Reads, www.epicreads.com/authors/105588/tahereh-mafi/. Kellogg, Carolyn. “Ransom Riggs and Tahereh Mafi's Home for Bestselling Authors.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2014, articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/09/entertainment/la-ca-jc-ransom-riggs-tahereh-mafi-20140112. “Not Just for Kids: Author Tahereh Mafi Discusses 'Shatter Me'.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/11/shatter-me.html. “Tahereh Mafi.” Shatter Me, www.taherehbooks.com/#!the-author. By: Isabella L.
3 Comments
Madison Lucas
1/31/2019 10:08:51 am
Do you think that if Juliette wasn't locked in the mental asylum for so long, would she still have turned so crazy?
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Isabella Luis
1/31/2019 12:17:39 pm
Absolutely, Juliette would still have to endure public opinion and harassment all while having it compete with her on thoughts on her self image. If anything, she'd be subjected to more verbal abuse which would lead her to the inevitable insanity, it could just accelerate the procress.
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Kiley Montague
2/3/2019 12:48:38 pm
Was Juliette born with these powers or did she obtain these powers at some point during her life?
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