The nice thing about Escape from Spiderhead is that the story is symmetrical. The "who-had-fucked-whom chart" on page 63 is symmetrical in the most literal sense of the term. Otherwise, there were times in the reading that the numbers and shapes of the story made sense. Exact dosages of drugs, the sense of equality in the relationship between each "prisoner", the number of times each person had sex, the two person trials in the workroom...
I appreciated all of the symmetry as well. Although I feel like when conducting experience, symmetry and exactness is necessary, even in experiments with as much extremity as this story depicts.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that there was a fascinating pattern of symmetry throughout the story.
ReplyDeleteOne example that I found to be most interesting, was the fact that Saunders sets up a strong relationship between Jeff and the reader before telling us what horrible thing he did to even land himself in this "prison". This makes us second guess our appeal towards him and plays with our emotions. We now question humane vs. inhumane. Does it make us judge Jeff a little? This occurs for a second time when Abnesti tells Jeff the crimes both the girls committed right before he needs to select which to give the drug to, causing the same effect.