Sierra Mannie
16 October 2014
Dr. Whittington
English 451
Mercy, Mercy Me: The Environmental End Game in High-Rise According to the World Wildlife Fund, habitat loss is the greatest threat to the sustainment of species. Whole populations of animals dwindle to nonexistence without habitats that possess the space and resources to support them. Like all habitat destruction, the vices of human consumption are at its root (World Wildlife Fund). In High-Rise, however, not only does human evil instigate this destruction, but this destruction’s primary and immediate impact rebounds immediately onto its perpetrators. The end is near as the action of High-Rise draws to a close. It is no secret that the ecosystem of the high-rise, elements …show more content…
By the end of the book, the men have inflicted their own damage upon the state of the high-rise, and their continued time in the high-rise inflicts damage upon them in turn. The story begins with Robert munching happily on the seasoned hindquarters of an unfortunate Alsatian, reflecting on the last three months of his life within the high-rise (Ballard 13). At first he is a happy bachelor, content with his work at the medical school, and enjoying his sexual and personal freedom. As his environment degenerates and he spends more time within the high-rise than outside of it, however, he becomes more sexually cruel; the end of the novel finds him a voyeuristic accomplice to the orthodontist Steele in his random acts of violence, and physically filthy being, whose bad hygiene he hopes will act as pheromones to maintain the attraction of the women he’s collected, including his own sister with whom the novel hints he has an increasingly sexual attachment. Laing considers the state of things his “good fortune,” as “it no longer mattered how he behaved, what wayward impulses he gave way to, or which perverse pathways he chose to follow” (Ballard
16 October 2014
Dr. Whittington
English 451
Mercy, Mercy Me: The Environmental End Game in High-Rise According to the World Wildlife Fund, habitat loss is the greatest threat to the sustainment of species. Whole populations of animals dwindle to nonexistence without habitats that possess the space and resources to support them. Like all habitat destruction, the vices of human consumption are at its root (World Wildlife Fund). In High-Rise, however, not only does human evil instigate this destruction, but this destruction’s primary and immediate impact rebounds immediately onto its perpetrators. The end is near as the action of High-Rise draws to a close. It is no secret that the ecosystem of the high-rise, elements …show more content…
By the end of the book, the men have inflicted their own damage upon the state of the high-rise, and their continued time in the high-rise inflicts damage upon them in turn. The story begins with Robert munching happily on the seasoned hindquarters of an unfortunate Alsatian, reflecting on the last three months of his life within the high-rise (Ballard 13). At first he is a happy bachelor, content with his work at the medical school, and enjoying his sexual and personal freedom. As his environment degenerates and he spends more time within the high-rise than outside of it, however, he becomes more sexually cruel; the end of the novel finds him a voyeuristic accomplice to the orthodontist Steele in his random acts of violence, and physically filthy being, whose bad hygiene he hopes will act as pheromones to maintain the attraction of the women he’s collected, including his own sister with whom the novel hints he has an increasingly sexual attachment. Laing considers the state of things his “good fortune,” as “it no longer mattered how he behaved, what wayward impulses he gave way to, or which perverse pathways he chose to follow” (Ballard