The whole time I was reading Gemma Malley's The Declaration, I kept thinking of it as a 1984 for reluctant readers--a book that treats many of the same ideas, but is a little easier to grasp completely. In this book, the protagonist and occasional narrator is Surplus Anna. She lives in a Surplus Hall in England in the year 2140, when humanity has discovered the key to living forever. In this new world, overpopulation is an obvious concern, so people are, for the most part, not allowed to have children. When they do, the parents are sent to jail and the children to Surplus Halls where they are trained to be "Valuable Assets," really no more than slaves to those fortunate enough to take Longevity drugs.
Personally, I am a big fan of the dystopian genre, and Malley has constructed an intriguing one in this book. Of course, whenever you read a dystopia, the narrative point of view is really fascinating, because it is very often limited, only showing us certain aspects of the setting. In this book, Malley mostly employs a third person narrator, but she also includes diary entries from Anna's POV. For this reason, I think this book would be perfect for exploring point of view and perspective. More specifically, I'm thinking of activities involving students trying to write from the perspective of characters in this book. They could write from the point of view of the Surpluses, the "Legals," any of the authority figures, certain members of the underground resistance movement.
Are there any other ideas or themes that jumped out at anyone while they were reading this book? For me, perspective is one that I always think of when reading dystopias, but there are sure to be many others!
Haven't read the book yet but I really like your idea of having students write from the perspective of characters in the book - I will be adding that to my arsenal.
ReplyDeleteJust from what I have read and heard about the book I think an interesting topic to explore and get the students thinking and writing about is the concept (benefits and consequences) of living forever and the obsession with youth in modern day society (lots of examples to discuss). Perhaps they could write about whether or not they would take Longevity Drugs if they had to sign The Declaration.