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Ulises Celestino
Stephan Topf
ENGL114B
26 March 2014
Land of The Free Home of The Brave?
The United States of America is often said to be the Land of The Free and The Home of
the Brave. However, with all of today's technological advancements and media outlets, it seems
as though Americans have been deprived from their freedom. America depends on its big
brother like control system in order to execute its control mechanism. The Postmortal, by Drew
Magary, is a dystopian novel. The Postmortal addresses many aspects of todays society in
America. It addresses a number of society's social groups and social issues. By doing this, Drew
Magary attempts to make a call of awareness to the audience.
John, the main character in the novel The Postmortal, is a reflection of what society was
going through in the book, as society faced a change in life when a cure for aging was found.
Johns mixed emotions and experiences were a reflection of our society. As well as being an
address to society, The Postmortal is a critique and call for attention to the public. Its intention is
for the audience to open their eyes and realize that the world around them is being corrupted by
the media and the government. The infamous cure may resemble a number of things, one
being moral. There are certain events that occur throughout the book that resemble issues in
todays American society. With every experience, an issue is addressed. With a subliminal
message, The Postmortal does a great job at not only addressing these issues but as well as
demonstrating their potential effects or consequences. This leads up to the call of awareness
aspect.
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According to Kersty Hobson, the freedom produced by advanced liberal government is
conceived as a form of mock freedom or illusory freedom. What does this mean? To begin with,
the media: television, radio, online sources, in the United States manipulate certain aspects of the
news that it portrays. As argued by Douglas Kellner, US administrations have also used
spectacles of terror to promote US military power and geopolitical ends, as is evident in the Gulf
war of 19901991, the Afghanistan war of fall 2001, and the Iraq war of 2003.. In The
Postmortal, society is decomposed due to the cure for aging. As the text progresses, the world
around the main character John is massively changing. The Postmortal subliminally pointed to
many of the world current downfalls. This is the call of awakening or a warning to the American
public.
The media in America often portrays certain aspect of the news differently. Often times
exaggerating stories and statistics and other times leaving out important information necessary
for the audience to draw their individual conclusions. It is done in order to convey a certain
message and demonstrate a particular idea. For example: on September 11 there was much
information being broadcasted about what had occurred. There were many ideals and attempts to
explain the chaos that was occurring. Before September 11, 2001, people of the middle east were
not portrayed as they are now. The media is to blame for this, it is responsible for creating these
stereotypes and influencing its audience to believe they are accurate. It is now inserted into the
minds of Americans that people of the middle-east are associated with terrorism and even
destruction. The Postmortal alludes to the September 11 terrorist attacks when Drew Magary
states that the attack on Dr. Xs apartment, one of the doctors condoling the cure for aging,
reminded him of the 911 attacks.
As The Postmortal progresses the sense of sanity in society seems to become less
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evident. Groups are formed as a strategy of the survival of the fittest. Such as groups that are
being formed, or are already formed, in society in America. One very big group/organization in
modern time is the Westboro Baptist Church, which is a religious group that is against all
unethical conduct in the world. One big movement they are against is gay marriage. A church
similar to the Westboro Baptist Church in the novel is the Church of Man, which is a group that
was formed in the book in order to keep a sense of comfort and moral value.
Through deep analysis, it was apparent that the Church of man was a portrayal of the
Westboro Church. The Westboro church is known mostly by their opinion on ethical conduct.
They are especially against homosexuality. In The Postmortal the Church of man is against the
greenies. The greenies were a group that was against the cure. The greenies resembled the
activists fighting for the rights of the gay and lesbian. The cure itself resembled government law
and social structure. According to CNN, The church has been actively involved in the anti-gay
movement since at least 1991 when it sought a crackdown on homosexual activity at Gage Park
six blocks northwest of the church. In addition to anti-gay protests at military funerals, the
organization pickets other celebrity funerals that are likely to get it media attention. Similar to
the book, the Church of Man began a movement in order to eliminate the greenies because they
were ethically wrong.
Religion is thought, by some, to be a simple and effective form of control. Without
religion there are no codes to follow and no words to live by. In other words, religion is a form of
control. Without religious values there is no second thought, nor is there a fear of consequence
for unacceptable behavior. There is a saying that goes, religion is a simple form of control. the
cure, in other aspects, resembles religion. The consequence of its absence reflects on all the
negativity that occurs in The Postmortal. A study conducted by Rodney Stark, author of
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Religion, Deviance, and Social Control demonstrated that the suicide rate decreases when
observing Catholics, opposed to when observing non-religious person. This is because the
Catholic Church does not allow its members to commit suicide. In the Catholic religion it is the
greatest sin to take ones own life. The Catholic Church justifies this by saying that god gifted
everyone with life and that by taking their own life, one is denying their gift. This same principle
applies for creating life. Creating life artificially is also viewed as sin in the Catholic
Community.
This leads to the topic of DNA modification and genetic enhancement. The Cure is an
obvious demonstration of this. Doctor Otto, the inventor of the cure in The Postmortal, created
the cure in order to cure autistic children. Only to find out that the cure stopped the childrens
growth process. In the Jewish religion it is believed that life is carried in the blood and should
only be carried in the blood. This principle is already being broken. Genetically modified
organisms better known as GMOs are foods and other produce that are genetically created or
modified. Groups against GMO such as the people over at www.nongmoproject.org, may be also
seen as the greenies of The Postmortal, the greenies were a group of anti-cure activists. This
would mean that the government would resemble the Church of Man. The greenies were referred
to as greenies because green usually resembles organic and natural things rather than
genetically modified organisms.
The United States government dominates its public with power by the numbers. Although
they are often under scrutiny and many people, seem skeptical about their form of governing and
creating government law, they created facades in order to seal their true intentions. The church of
man was demonstrated as a large growing industry, similar to large food producing corporations.
They seemed to have the money and resources to dominate completely. If there were to be
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exposure and truth to these companies, it would be evident that their intentions are malicious and
solely seek power and money. The United States large food companies dominate over the
natural organic harvest that is being produced within its borders. What does this mean? For one:
the United States exports and sells massive numbers on genetically modified organisms annually.
This not only benefits the big corporate companies running these industries but as well as the
American economy by bringing in millions each year.
The Postmortal refers to the branding of children. Although the United States does not
typically brand children, they are very enforcing about the way they keep track of the United
States people. This is considered by many an invasion of privacy. Although most of the things
that Americans view as an invasion of privacy are generally security operations for safety
purposes, many do not view it as that. The first amendment gives americans the right of
freedom of speech. These rights are sometimes taken from Americans. This is an issue that can
also be found in The Postmortal.
In The Postmortal there is a speech that is given by the president of the United States
when he legalizes the cure. However it demonstrates that there are other countries that do not
want the cure legalized, thus causing them to separate and alienate themselves from the world.
This could represent the disagreements of races and cultures in American society. The
identification of race or skin tone has always been a huge issue in society, yet it is never strictly
addressed universally. Similar to The Postmortal, different races and cultural groups are either
excluded or exclude themselves in fear that they will not belong.. The borders drawn universally,
and even within countrys own borders are at constant debate about law and public matters.
John was a representative of society throughout The Postmortal. He was given many
perspectives and personas. John was given a mixed and hypocritical personality. This was done
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in order to demonstrate the insanity of society and how once its social and redundant lifestyle
code is broken, it decomposes and becomes nothing. It is possibly religion that keeps society
adhere. It may be media or it may be the government inserting fear into its citizens. These social
issues that need to be taken more into account by the public. The Postmortal served as a guide to
reconsider what Americans are going through today.
It is time for the American public to realize that the structure which it has been given is a
mere illusion of what a true free lifestyle consists of. There are two things that are guaranteed
to everyone; life and taxes. Americans are guaranteed freedom and protection, but freedom and
protection often lead to the invasion of privacy. With technology advancing by the day, ways to
monitor individuals no longer becomes something from science fiction films. With the
abundance in telephone usage monitoring and tracking can even be done by the average person.
In an article called, Proliferation of tracking technology reaps security benefits, sparks privacy
concerns, Cellphones can be located by determining their position in relation to cell phone
towers which intercept the phone's signal although this method is less precise than that using
GPS. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) can connect with a phone using radio waves over
a relatively short distance and can be used indoors even when a cell phone signal is
unavailable..
The messages were clear: terrorism, hate, war, religion, media, government, privacy
invasion. After reading The Postmortal, a number of ideas and question arose. It is more than a
simple novel, it is a call for awareness to the general public. It questions things that we have put
into theory for many years. It question structures of society that the government has created for
the public, in order to keep it under control. It questions morals and ethics. It questions life and
death and its true significant value.

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Work Cited
Hobson, Kersty. "Beyond the Control Society." Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32.2 (2010):
252-261.

Kellner, Douglas. "9/11, spectacles of terror, and media manipulation: A critique of Jihadist and
Bush media politics." Critical Discourse Studies 1.1 (2004): 41-64.

Long, Edward V. The intruders: the invasion of privacy by government and industry. Ed. Hubert
H. Humphrey. Praeger, 1967.

Proliferation of tracking technology reaps security benefits, sparks privacy concerns."
Securityinfowatch.com Mar. 2014. General OneFile. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

Stark, Rodney. Religion, deviance, and social control. Psychology Press, 1996.