Text Analysis of
THE FUN THEY HAD
by Isaac Asimov Student: Ceban Mihai EN31
Science is a cemetery of dead ideas
Miguel de Unamuno
The story that I want to present and to comment on is entitled “The Fun They Had” by Isaac Asimov. He was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90 000 letters and postcards. Asimov’s most famous work is the “Foundation series”. He also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much non-fiction. One of the most common impressions of the Asimov’s fiction work is that his writing style is extremely unornamented. James Gunn observes that there are places where Asimov’s style rises to the demands of the situation. In addition his stories also have occasional internal contradictions and complicated narrative structure, often by arranging chapters in non-chronological way. According to UNESCO’s “Index Translatiorum Database” Asimov is the world’s 17th most translated author, just behind Arthur Conan Dyle and ahead Pope John Paul II. “The Fun They Had” is the most anthologised of all Asimov’s stories.
The text under discussion is a very unusual one, not because of plot structure or something of this kind but because of the idea, the things that the author speaks about, for us are in a way related: from the point of view of technology in our era. To illustrate the writer’s main point, I have to present the summary of the text. So, it can be done in this way: “The story takes place in the year 215, where teaching is performed by computer – like robots. The protagonists of the story are 2 children, Tommy and Margie. Tom finds a real book in his attic. They are very surprised by the object because the words on the page do not move like the words on the screen of their mechanical teacher. The book describes the school from centuries earlier, where there was a real man as a teacher and a special building. Margie is very curious but her mother calls her because it is time of school. The school for Tom and Margie is at home.”
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I propose to design a book for children 7 to 8 years old. In this modern world of technology, books are set aside in favor of computers and other highly technical gadgets. The innovation of computers has pushed man into heights of advancement but the need for leisure stays untouched in his heart. A good book read at leisure brings this kind of comfort and relaxation and the best time to inspire ...
We see that the author’s primary purpose is to entertain the reader, because at that period it was a challenge to the whole world to write such things. Even in our days it is difficult to imagine such a teacher, a mechanical one, although it can be. The way the author opens his narration, the first sentence says nothing about the genre of the work. It seems that the story is written long time ago, when diaries were used. But things are going unexpectedly into another channel. In this way the author notes that all events of the story take place in the future. So the main theme can be seen from the beginning. For example the theme of: technology, love for school, future children and school, etc. thus to set an example of future technologies and their damage to human being, the themes of the future life and technologies of teaching run through the story always being up to the mark. Moreover, these themes are in contradictory with the central idea, that “machine can’t replace human being and give that love and tenderness to kids”. These questions brings us to the idea of utopism with a kind of rhetoric question: “How Tommy with Margie could read the book so easily, that was written many centuries ago?” May be it is an action that unmasks the real aptitudes of the future children. Speaking about Tom and Margie, Asimov exposes double-nature of the future kids. In one hand future-pupil hate school as Margie does and in another hand some of these children will grow up and influence the technology in a better way like Tommy, who thought that TV screens were better.
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In this way I want to stress the point that however people are, they want to know and to learn things about their past, things that are strange for them. From this point of view the author selects the first main character Margie. She is directly characterized as 11 years old, she hates school, has problem with learning geography. After all, the author tries to produce an impression to the reader choosing such a young girl, a very sentimental one, for such a difficult problem that is presented in this story. In this atmosphere appears and Tommy: a young, 13 years old boy, who find this “real book”. Tommy is a young gentleman, he is very well informed about technology and he thinks he is an adult already. He can be described as a real teenager because he has his own opinion toward books, Tommy knows more than Margie. Between them there is a low external conflict that is settled up by the third person, Margie’s Mom. From the words “My mom…” we can denote that her mother is a businesswoman, she is well taught and her family is well-to-do. This makes us think that Margie lives only with her mother, that’s why she is presented like a mawkish person. At the end of these characterizations I want to present and the fourth personage, Inspector County. He was introduced by the author to emphasize the technology era, he has the role to evaluate, adjust and fix mechanical teachers. For such a short story these characters a not very much, but they brings us to the idea that Isaac Asimov created a vivid true-to-life portrait of the action. People are like robots, but they have feelings and live in peace, but at this time, they haven’t a kind of active and authentic life.
The author wants to bring to us this idea from the very beginning also say from the title, as Jerold Levinson said: “There is a significant dis-analogy between titles of artworks and names of persons, particularly in regard to their roles in the understanding and interpretation of the objects they denote”. At the first view the title expresses a link between 2 worlds: 1. the first, when 2 children speak about the book they found, it was funny – in the future; and the 2. when Margie said that many centuries ago was funny – in the past.
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‘In The Rubbish Tin’ is a harsh short story about a cruel reality, by Apirana Taylor. The story is set out in an episode form, that switches in between three different characters points at the same time in the story. The main character of the story focus, is Phillipa, a young girl who has been left at home all by herself on her birthday by her father Rolf and her mother Ruth. Phillipa spends her ...
The beginning is as spontaneous as the end of the story, because of its genre of science fiction that has the purpose to make “literature of ideas”. As is usual in this genre the author breaks the narration for us, to understand and to think like him or maybe different but at the same point: at future technologies and schools. From these aspects we should take into account and the plot structure. It can be considered as a complete one because it has a short exposition, the climax is described through the whole work the denouement, which is expressed in a short paragraph with incomplete and indefinite action. The aim of the author in this framework is to place the reader within the mind of the personages, that’s why he introduces the III person narration and a dialogue between the main characters. Analysing this dialogue everybody will have the same moods that are in the characters mind, such as delight, meditation, lyrical mood.
The text from a stylistic point a view it’s remarkable for its special kinds of words, especially from technical fields. The author is almost known as an inventor of new words, such as “telebook”. This feature gives to text a lot of emotional actions. Not at last we can see colloquial words as: “sure he is; I betcha” words that show us that children are rather ordinary and look as we look. Also the author uses in this story such features as graphic stylistic devices or otherwise as pointing out the words by using the italic font. He emphasizes the words to make us feel deeper and pay extra-attention to the very phrase like: “his grandfather; centuries ago”. By way of this device he wants to highlight how many years ago it was. A very interesting is presented at the beginning – “diary”. It should be noted that all the events of the story take place in the future, that’s why it seems quite an interesting object for exploration that is what kind of diary it was? Although the words are simple with simple and understanding message, but there such key-words like “Inspector County; telebook; mechanical teacher” that are keeping with the main idea. As a matter of facts the irony is presented by the situation that they speak about us, our period of life, but they don’t know how it is to beat school know, with different schoolmates and teachers.
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Although the book, A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway was not the type of book that had an exciting page-turning story, it can nevertheless be called a classic. A classic has been defined as 'a book that lasts through generations because of its universality of theme, ageless symbolism, word choice and the ordering of detail.' ; This book has a universal theme, several ageless symbols, and a ...
This story written by Asimov makes me to think about the teaching process. I can suppose that the author in order to achieve the perfect harmony between content and style added at the end the key sentence that sums up the central idea. I think that the theme is well chosen, because it has a certain purpose – to warn the reader about the possible future problems. For me it is like an advertising of a poison, a thing that will damage our souls that are something sacred. The author speaks in this way not only about the future technologies, but also about a lot of other things like love for school, love between people, history, psychology, mathematics and IT.
