Feed Blog

I found Feed to be a very interesting novel, but it also seemed very bleak and pessimistic about our future. Everyone seemed to lack emotions, or rather, had very few emotions. Things that had been intimate were now casual things to which no thought was given. Many people expressed indignation, surprise and even anger at the fact that Titus left Violet. While I was fairly surprised at this turn of events, I was not “mad” at Titus for what he did, for I feel that any other person from that time would have done the same thing. They grew up in a society where they were taught to never be attached to someone. Their parents weren’t even together when the kids were first conceived. Sex was viewed as something purely for pleasure and never symbolized anything permanent. With most people in that society, her going into this recession of health would have symbolized the end of that relationship, and they would have moved on. Since will was a part of that group that would move on, he did as he was programmed to do, he moved on to find the next source of pleasure and fun. Violet thought everything should have meaning and that they would be together forever. Even in today’s culture that would be considered rushing, considering they had only been going out for a few months. In this time and day people often go out for a year or more before they decide to even be engaged, but Violet was only with Titus for a few months before she decided that they should be together. This kind of pressure and clinginess is what drove Titus away, he couldn’t stand being with her anymore because everything had to have a second layer of meaning, everything had to relate to them being together forever. She drove him away with her clinginess, so I believe that Titus should not be criticized for leaving her. I also believe that during this whole novel M.T. Anderson scorned free markets and covertly attacked corporations for what they do to the people. I found this to be absurd for the companies have done no true wrong. They’ve done what every person does, they have acted in their own self-interest by marketing to everyone they can. If those people are too weak to deny themselves what the company offers then it is their fault. The company merely provides the goods, it is the people who are too weak and give in and buy whatever the company says. I feel that this also relates back to the housing crisis, in that everyone has criticized the bank for giving out their loans, but have taken none of the blame on themselves or the government. How about criticizing the government for forcing through the CRA in the 1970s? Or the government for revising it in the 1990s to practically force banks to give loans to “disadvantaged people.” More so than the government, however, it is the people’s fault. Those who took mortgages (adjustable rate mortgages normally), failed to pay them, had their house foreclosed then proceeded to claim, “Oh the big mean bank took advantage of me!” No, you were gullible enough to take mortgage you couldn’t afford, just like in the book many people blame the companies without looking at themselves.