Dystopian Future in New Life and Other Stories

Extract

[...] 10) The story ends with the main character's renunciation of his life before. He remains living with Marie, the woman who helped him escape from the killers. Now without a chip implanted in his hand, he has become ghost to the rest of the civilized world' (p.107), as if he had lost his identity. He still has the project of getting a hand transplant one day. The two characters think about leaving the Earth to go to Mars. The main character seems to have found a certain serenity, even if the very last sentence of the story remains bitter: often sit on the edge of the Loire; its course, sometimes peaceful, sometimes sad, will eventually carry away my tears.' (p.107). [...]

[...] The counter-utopia therefore constitutes a very dehumanized world, deprived of hope and freedoms. 12) In this story, killing a man for fun seems completely normal for the employer who contacts the main character; men are willing to pay substantial sums to participate, which is completely opposite to the values to which we are accustomed (killing a man is a crime). On the other hand, we see in this story a young woman willing to deliver her companion to a certain death in exchange for money, probably in order to get out of her miserable situation. [...]

[...] Furthermore, the course of the story shows that he is willing to risk his life to obtain the 20,000 euros promised by his employer. The story also teaches us that the main character does not come from France: don't feel concerned by the story of France. My great-grandparents came from another continent, North Africa more precisely'. One can say that the main character is an anti-hero because he has no glory. He is poor and seems completely discouraged by life. He doesn't seem to do anything interesting in his daily life, he also doesn't seem to have a personality or particularly remarkable qualities. [...]

[...] These expressions have not evolved, even though the story takes place in the future, probably so that the reader feels closer to the main character and finds himself in his way of speaking, which is all the more powerful since he tells the entire story in the first person. This also allows to show that the main character comes from a disadvantaged background and therefore does not necessarily benefit from all the technological innovations, he is like stuck in an earlier stage and this accentuates the contrast with the employer who offers him this mission, or with the four men who start to track him. The main character is poor and lives in a disadvantaged environment, without a fixed job. [...]

[...] The main character then becomes a positive hero due to the courage he shows once the game has started. He then seems to regain energy and the taste for life, and he shows ingenuity by discovering that his pursuers find him each time thanks to a chip implanted in his hand that locates him. When he finally cuts off his hand, he shows a true heroic effort to survive. It is therefore ultimately an ordinary man who reveals unsuspected courage in order to escape death. [...]