Week 10: The Drowned Giant
This short story written by J.G Ballard is one of those works of fiction that leave you with a weird taste in your mouth. The appearance of this giant humanoid in the shores of the town was, at first, an interesting premise to the onset of a fictional story. "Who is this giant? Where did it come from? What role does he play in the bigger picture of this story?" These were questions I asked myself reading through the story. As I moved forward, I realized that The Drowned Giant is not your usual science-fiction short story, but rather a more nuanced commentary on our human flaws and our indifference to the world around us. I was asking myself the wrong questions.
Of course, this curiosity of mine regarding the giant was probably deliberately planned by Ballard, since the way he writes through his narrator tends to put the giant in a more mystified position, often comparing him to the likes of Grecian gods, while the visceral description of the giant's body show that our narrator character has a fascination for the body of the giant that goes much differently from the way other people in the story react to it. In fact, you could make a point that the narrator's character takes the more reasonable approach to the violation done to the giant's body as each limb is stripped away from it by the townspeople until there is nothing left. The narrator seems to be the only character interested in the backstory of this giant character (which I identified myself with, considering the questions I asked myself as I mentioned). I interpreted this behavior of the townspeople as the author's critique of our tendency to violate things that we do not understand or comprehend, our destructive nature towards things that, in theory, should spark our curiosity and sense of discovery. I could also read it as a critique of capitalism since the giant's many stripped body parts were used by different townspeople as ways to attract attention to the town and sell goods. What a waste right? A potentially revolutionary discovery of a new humanoid species, alien or not, being used as decoration for a town park.
I wonder what could have happened if, suddenly, the giant woke up as people were tampering with its body. Would they have done the same atrocities to the giant if they didn't know if he was alive or dead? We tend to do harm to things we deem harmless to us until those things come to bite us back.
What will we do then?
Of course, this curiosity of mine regarding the giant was probably deliberately planned by Ballard, since the way he writes through his narrator tends to put the giant in a more mystified position, often comparing him to the likes of Grecian gods, while the visceral description of the giant's body show that our narrator character has a fascination for the body of the giant that goes much differently from the way other people in the story react to it. In fact, you could make a point that the narrator's character takes the more reasonable approach to the violation done to the giant's body as each limb is stripped away from it by the townspeople until there is nothing left. The narrator seems to be the only character interested in the backstory of this giant character (which I identified myself with, considering the questions I asked myself as I mentioned). I interpreted this behavior of the townspeople as the author's critique of our tendency to violate things that we do not understand or comprehend, our destructive nature towards things that, in theory, should spark our curiosity and sense of discovery. I could also read it as a critique of capitalism since the giant's many stripped body parts were used by different townspeople as ways to attract attention to the town and sell goods. What a waste right? A potentially revolutionary discovery of a new humanoid species, alien or not, being used as decoration for a town park.
I wonder what could have happened if, suddenly, the giant woke up as people were tampering with its body. Would they have done the same atrocities to the giant if they didn't know if he was alive or dead? We tend to do harm to things we deem harmless to us until those things come to bite us back.
What will we do then?
Comments
Post a Comment