Group blog for Science, Technology, and Society under Sir Ernest Sunido. University of the Philippines Diliman, 2nd Semester AY 2013-2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Reaction Paper for The Twilight Zone's "Time Enough at Last"
2013-71244
I must say that I understand Henry Bemis in a great level.
Well, not that I am being purposely hindered by others from reading my beloved books, but I have a big desire to grasp time--well, all of it. I have a problem with time management and I can't seem to do much about it. Time, right now, is my natural enemy, and I'm losing the race against it. If only I could have all the time in the world... to do everything I want...
Isn't that what this episode showed about? Henry Bemis is a man who only wanted to do one thing--that is, to read books--but the people around him wouldn't let him, and all he wanted was to be alone and be free to read, without being restrained by anyone, not even time. The way his dominating wife ruined his book of poetry struck me cruelly and I sympathized with him (and I also sympathized with the book--those babies shouldn't be treated that way--whoever does things like that to books should be burned alive! Just joking.).
Then suddenly an H-bomb exploded, killing everyone in the world, except for Bemis, who was reading inside a bank vault. This was the time he finally became alone--no, lonely. He was about to commit suicide then if it weren't for him seeing the library (a TOTAL book paradise, free to feast on to your heart's content!). But then his glasses fell off and shattered. It was over.
It's ironic how the old (the books) battled with the new (technology) and how Bemis preferred the former, but when books were left to themselves (he got what he wanted), losing his glasses made him realize that he still needed technology to read his books. Also, I'd like to add that part about human beings' tendency to "self-destruct"--they made an H-bomb to kill themselves, and Henry Bemis tried to commit suicide. And of course, the lesson "be careful what you wish for". Well, I still wanted time after watching that (I don't have glasses so it wouldn't matter... okay, I know that's not the point).
If I were to make an adaptation fitting for the present, I would make the same flow of story, the same bookworm character, but I would make him hide in his special underground place (with food) as he reads his books, then I will make a nuclear bomb exterminate all mankind. He still continues to read on his gadget (yes, he'll be using e-books) but then it loses battery power. Alone, with limited food supply and no more e-books to read, he still spends the rest of his time buried alive with time, but with nothing else to do. It's morbid, I know, but that's the best I've got.
Still, having enough time is a wonderful thing.
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