Depictions of Violence in Ship Breaker, and the Children Shall Rise, and Oil and Dread

Xu Yuan(Tracy), XUYD1303

English 105, C. Knighton

October 31, 2014

Depictions of Violence in Ship Breaker, And the Children

Shall Rise, and Oil and Dread

        Violent scenes usually add entertainment value to a story. In Ship Breaker, written by Paolo Bacigalupi, "And the Children Shall Rise" and "Oil and Dread", written by Caroline Adderson, the authors use violent scenes to build on the overall themes by making them seem more clear and believable. Violence shows the worst side of many characters in the three stories, and reveals a great deal about their living conditions, frustration with their lives, and the problems that they face. Violence in the three stories range from minor children arguments to murder.There is also violence committed for a purpose and violence committed without one, which will be discussed in this essay. Showing violence in the stories allows Bacigalupi and Adderson to reveal information about characters and the conflicts between characters, which make the overall theme more obvious.

        In Ship Breaker, there are many scenes of violence. Nailer's violent father, Richard, is a drug and alcohol addict who does anything for money. In fact, Richard murders people and does not feel any regret at all and he abuses Nailer very often. Even though Richard is caring to Nailer sometimes, Richard's life is so influenced by greed and drugs that he loses all of his love for anyone else in his life. When Nailer saves Nita from his father Richard, Richard becomes very angry at Nailer and “His (Nailer’s) father would really gut him if he ever got a hold of him again; it didn’t matter whether they shared blood or not.” (Bacigalupi 274). This shows how dangerous and violent Nailer's father has become because a father should never think about killing his own son no matter what the problem is. This kind of thinking by Richard also causes Nailer to finally lose his respect for his father when he says that, "if they (people) cover your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family. Everything else was just so much smoke and lies" (Bacigalupi 274). This shows that Richard's violent behavior causes Nailer to have negative feeling about his father and forgets about the importance of family love. In the end, Nailer has no choice but to kill Richard in order to survive. Nailer, who is supposed to be the innocent protagonist of the story, commits a murder. This adds irony to the story by showing anyone can do things that are extreme when they are in a difficult situation and that Nailer is not an exception. Violence is repeated again and again throughout the story and the only way to end that violence in the end is another murder because Nailer kills his own father (more violence). This storyline full of violence gives the story a very dark feeling and makes the conflicts in the story seem more realistic. If Richard is not as violent and crazy as he is in the story, then Nailer would not have a good excuse to kill Richard, and the tragedy would not occur. The tragedy of the murder of Richard is very important because it shows the theme of the dangers of having violent family. Even though the violence in the story can be very serious, it helps make the story more interesting to read and makes the overall theme very obvious and clear.

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