English Essay, intertextuality

Essay by macky888High School, 12th grade June 2004

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Childhoods End and Columbine Whose Fault Is It

My reading of "Childhoods End" by Lance Morrow did not influence my understanding of the issues raised in "Columbine: Whose Fault is it?" by Marilyn Manson. It did not influence my understanding of the issues in Manson's article as Lance Morrow's article did not persuade me to think any certain way about the issues presented. Lance Morrow did not "bias" or "influence" my position on violence or guns, and hence didn't influence what I read in Manson's article.

The article "Columbine: Whose fault is it" describes gun violence in today's society. Whilst Manson probably wrote it to stop people from blaming teenage violence on his music, there are also many other meanings and issues aside from this. It goes pretty deep into discussing violence in our world. It says that "we applaud the creation of a bomb whose sole purpose is to destroy all of mankind", and that "America puts killers on the cover of Time magazine.

Although Mr Manson does state that times are not becoming more violent, just more televised, the fact is that media coverage has the potential to brainwash children into believing violence is "OK". It can sway them towards pulling the trigger on a gun, because they've seen it so many times on TV. This is what Manson tells us towards the end, "kids are growing up more cynical; they have a lot of information in front of them." "There's nowhere to run." So really, this shows that violence is on the rise, and it's the medias fault. They're practically 'teaching' us how to be violent. "The media, since their inception, have turned criminals into heroes".

We try and find a reason to justify killing. That may be by blaming it on "evil" music...