Holen Yee, Period 7, 6/3/22

 

Modern Mythology 2022

• Literacy & Learning

• Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or non-fiction covered in class.

• Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

• How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

Recently, we’ve finished reading the book World War Z by Max Brooks. It is a very enjoyable story about the world’s efforts to defeat a world-threatening zombie virus outbreak told after the fact through firsthand accounts from multiple people involved in multiple facets of the effort to fight the zombie apocalypse. Honestly, I enjoyed reading this story and could see myself really getting immersed into the world that the author has created even if this book was not required reading for school. All of the characters in the book are realistic, even if some are not very likeable. The way that the author creates slang and in-knowledge that is known to everyone that is fighting the zombie apocalypse and introduces it to the readers is also a minor detail that I appreciated very greatly while reading, since it made this all feel so much more real. 

In class, we focused mainly on the parallels between this fictional global crisis and the real life global crisis that we all experienced, the pandemic. We also talked about all these people’s responses to a crisis like this and what it says about humanity. In World War Z, humanity’s initial response to the zombie virus was not the best. The Chinese government, where the outbreak first originated, decided to repress information about the zombie virus and hide it from the public and other countries. This allowed for the spread of the virus to other countries and overall worsened the situation. Another man took advantage of the situation in order to fuel his own greed, putting out a “vaccine” for African rabies, which did not work for the zombie virus. In the end, the situation eventually got so bad that all the countries had to abandon part of their country and the people in those parts in order to retreat and regroup, a sacrifice for the greater good. Not all things were bad though. During this time, some great people emerged, like the American president, who pushed not only for the survival of the people, but for the reclamation of their land from the zombies, so everybody can have hope for the future. 

From this book, I have learned that humanity is a mixed bag. There are some bad people, who take advantage of crisis situations to prey on people for their own gain, and some good people, who risk their own lives and safety in order to try to rescue others. I learned that in crisis situations, I have to be as open, honest, and truthful as possible, so everyone is able to make the best decision possible at that moment. I learned that if the situation is bad, I have to try to make the best of a bad situation.