Main Ideas & Objectives |
Exigency
Ella Minnow Pea was published in 2001. Although it was a time not nearly as dominated by technology as the present, social commentators were predicting the supposed inevitable obsoleteness of books. Now, in 2018, it is apparent that books will never become obsolete. However, the early 2000s saw shifts in the use of technology, specifically by young people, that frightened many people. Ella Minnow Pea does not revolve around the technologies of 2001, in fact, residents of Nollop do not have access to telephones or the internet. Instead, they write letters to each other and believe themselves to “elevate language to a certain prominence unmatched by [their] vocabu-lazy American neighbors” (Dunn 10). An underlying message throughout the book is that technology is inferior to the human mind. With technology comes a more limited vocabulary and undeveloped skills for manipulating language. Ultimately, an argument is never made in the novel that words are in fact a type of technology, but rather that a lack of technology strengthens the power of words. The reiteration of this idea is likely the exigency for the novel.
Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea. MacAdam/Cage, 2001.
Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea. MacAdam/Cage, 2001.
Comparison
Comparisons could be made between Ella Minnow Pea and George Orwell’s 1984. In a totalitarian society governed by absurd and unfair laws, words hold power. The destruction of language in both novels (the removal of letters in Ella Minnow Pea and the implementation of Newspeak in 1984) takes power away from the citizens. The respective Council and Party gain control of their people through the legal authority over language and words. Both novels prove the challenges of a limited language and the importance of free speech. Although these ideas are presented in a more lighthearted and whimsical way in Ella Minnow Pea, the cautionary tale about totalitarianism should be taken just as seriously as in 1984.
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