Maxwell Jefferson

Clontz

Writing 39B

6 May 2022

Genre Analysis Essay - Subverting Individual Perspective

     In the fictional post-apocalyptic dystopian story, “The Grandchild Paradox”, David Thron subverts an individual's perspective in order to warn those who view climate change as a lost cause about giving up on trying to fix our current global climate issues. Daniel Thron in his story, "The Grandchild Paradox", starts off with an introduction to our protagonist with the words, "I could kill them" (pg. 1). This right away captivates the reader and has the reader wondering, what happened and who can he kill? Who does he have so much hate for and why? Thron continues the story by explaining the setting with our protagonist and Kimmy waiting outside the gate of a house of ‘a bunch of old grandpas’ who are watching TV and eating ‘MREs'. The next paragraph has the protagonist saying if he had a time machine, he would go back in time and kill them all before they could "fuck it all up like they did" (pg. 1). Kimmy is not on the same page. When our protagonist told her that she would do the same thing, she denied it saying that it would be something that only he (our protagonist) would do. Thorn goes on to introduce our character as a kid who hates the world that he lives in and he puts the blame fully on the generation before him. Then, he and Kimmy get on a bike and ride through town while Thorn gives the readers some imagery about the world that our protagonist resides in. He describes the town as a torn and beaten up city. With moss walls that look like they're going to peel off like paper. Some people of the town share the same feelings as our protagonist. Sometimes babies die from bad water, causing the parents to blame the tops and run to the top and try to kill one of them for what they did. But, as our protagonist admits, that would be stupid. Later in the story, Kimmy begs the question "[s]o hey. What if we have a baby?" (pg. 6). At first our protagonist is more thinking in the moment. But later, he thinks, what if he has a boy, he finds a girl, gets married, has kids. Then our protagonist will have grandkids who would be in the same predicament if not worse than his own. After Kimmy pries it out of our protagonist, he tells Kimmy exactly what he was thinking. Kimmy at first takes it as a joke saying, "well, maybe they have a girl" (pg. 9). saying that sort of thing is more of a boy’s thought process. And when our protagonist doesn't see it as a joke, Kimmy says, "Those old guys in the Tops, you know the worst thing they did? They gave up. They thought it was all inevitable. So they fucking gave up. You hate those guys so much, you gotta be careful you don't become like them, you know? There's only one now. That's the only time you get to say how things are. You know?" (pg. 9). I think this statement is the message that Thorn has set out to give the reader. The only thing you can control is the now. You can't change the past, and you can't directly control the future. You can influence the future, but only with the things that you do in the present. Thorn shows the story through one character's point of view in order to teach readers who are too absorbed with the past, that the only thing that they can control is the present, and nothing more.

     David Thron sent this message with the use of not one but two perspectives. With our protagonist, we are given a perspective of a boy who hates those before him, and blame everything on them. While he’s doing that, he is in a way giving up on trying to fix the problem. He blames them for everything and he thinks that they should be the ones to fix it, not him. He is channeling all of his energy into anger towards the oldies in the Tops instead of putting it towards something that is productive. Some may argue, our protagonist's perspective is the only perspective we need. Readers should be able to decipher the message the Thron is sending and be able to figure out for themselves that this way of thinking is wrong. However, not everyone will be able to figure that out on their own.  With the perspective of Kimmy, we are given the  message the Thron set out to deliver right there in front of us. We can’t get blinded with the past actions of our previous generations. What is important is that we don’t end up like them by giving up. Pretending like it’s a lost cause and that the generations before us are to blame because they didn’t do anything about it when the situation was better. Soon we will become those generations who didn’t do anything because we believed that it was already bad, and we never thought about how it would get worse. So some may then argue that Kimmy’s perspective is the only one we really need. What’s the point in having our protagonist as the protagonist and not Kimmy? The way the Thron writes the story, it’s almost as though we are supposed to see ourselves as the protagonist and empathize with him. We get these strong emotions from him right off the bat and he explains why he feels this way and, at first, the reader sees his side and agrees with him. Now they are the ones who are the problem. They also blame the Tops and place no blame on our protagonist. The readers believe that he shouldn’t be the one to fix it. But when Kimmy comes along, it’s like she is giving a wake up call to the reader as well as the protagonist. This way, it’s as though Kimmy is speaking to us, the audience, telling us that we can’t blame people for the past, the only thing we can do is fix it in the present.

     Cara Buckley, a reporter for the New York Times, covered the actions of young “social influencers” on Twitter and Instagram who are fighting the “Doomer” mindset that the war on climate change is already lost. The article “Ok Doomer” shows that there are people in the world and in our community who believe that the planet is beyond saving. Meaning that there is nothing that we can do in order to stop this global problem. The specific discourse community is relevant to my interpretation of the climate fiction story "The Grandchild Paradox" because the whole reason this story is based in this setting is because the now old "Tops" gave up on saving the planet as they believed that everything was inevitable. As stated in the text "[t]hose old guys in the Tops, you know the worst thing they did? They gave up. They thought it was all inevitable" (pg. 9). Kimmy said exactly what Cara believes, showing the relevance of Cara's article "Ok Doomer". It also ties in with the warning that Kimmy gave our protagonist on the same page, where she said he must be careful not to turn out like them. Our protagonist already views the war against climate change as lost. Lost long ago by the oldies in the Tops. He believes that there is nothing that he can do now to change that fact. But as Kimmy says, he has to be careful not to think like that. Because then the problem will only get worse, and the potential child that Kimmy and our protagonist would have would be in an even worse situation than their current situation as a result of the tops and the generations before them.

     An Inconvenient Truth is a famous documentary that educated Americans and viewers world-wide about global warming. Made in 2006, it’s based off former Vice President Al Gore’s book of the same title. The documentary shows how human-caused climate change will continue to impact viewers in the near future, by showing evidence that it already has. It includes statistics behind how warmer temperatures create super storms like Hurricane Katrina, lead to melting ice caps that will cause oceans to rise and hundreds of millions of people to become climate refugees. His argument is relevant to my interpretation of the climate fiction story "The Grandchild Paradox" because it warns the people of the issues of Global Warming. It's warning people that if we don't change, horrible things will happen. Why would they warn the public if there was nothing we could do about it? The whole reason the documentary was made, was because there is something we can do about it. We can change the path that we are currently on and we can save our planet. An Inconvenient Truth warns us of the dangers of our futures while helping us understand that we can change. While Cara shows the dangers of us believing that it is all inevitable. We can change the current path our planet is on if we all do our part and don't do the worst thing that the old people in the Tops did, and that's give up.

Works Cited

An Inconvenient Truth. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, performances by Al Gore, Paramount  

Classics, 2006. 

Buckley, Cara. “Ok Doomer and the Climate Advocates Who Say It’s Not Too Late.” New York 

Times., 22, March, 2022. Section A, 11.