When reading “The Comet”, the author, Du Bois, chooses to immediately introduce the audience with the context, the setting, the main character Jim, as well as the eventual foreshadowing of current events. Jim is a poor black man, an outcast, someone who is not viewed equally as other “valuable men” due to the presence of racism embedded into the social hierarchy of their society. He is often pushed aside, as a person of no importance or significance and the way Du Bois demonstrates it is through the use of pronouns instead of his actual given name. He was told to stay within the proximity of the basement while “valuable men” like the President and other important figures headed further into the Earth’s surface to their bunkers which Du Bois implicitly hints towards the categorization and description of wealthy White men. The author chooses to tell his futuristic fiction novel through the use of third person narration, imagery, as well as dialogue amongst the characters to give the audience an clear image of what is being depicted. This rhetorical artifact brings up many connections to the world we live in today. Many times we take changes, especially racial changes for granted despite, people of marginalized groups risking their life to fight for their rights as both equals but also as a human being. Such divisions in society would only further divide citizens of a country, whether it is social, economical, political or racial conflicts.

It wasn’t until “The Comet” that supposedly rained down on Earth that nearly wiped out all of humanity except Jim and Julia, that racial barriers were broken. Jim himself, was petrified that everyone around him were dead silent due to the toxic gas that was excreted out of the comet but it wasn’t just that, it was coincidentally that all of those who are dead around him are whites. I think this sort of creates a contrast about the aftermath of racism in comparison to the society that was fundamentally built on systemic racism. Unlike Jim, Julia, the only other survivor, a rich white girl came to see Jim differently than others as a human being now that they were the only ones that survived such a devastating event. But then the question arrives, would Julia have done the same if “The Comet” incident never took place? What if it briefly nearly touched a speck of the Earth’s atmosphere? I would think that the existing racism would be more likely to persist rather than change. It becomes apparent that our ignorance and prejudice have to take such measures and length to achieve equality for minorities. 

I think a lot of the issues can be said about the society that America has become over the course of its history and such issues are still enduring today. For example, the controversy of Florida banning the teachings of African American history and LGBTQ sensitive psychology just to name a few. Another conflict that was brought up implicitly by Du Bois was money. Although it is true that money is useful for all sorts of stuff but mainly for the convenience of exchange and trade, there are also consequences of such conventions. Money has caused people to feel greed, the idea of not feeling satisfied with the amount of money that they are making as well as envy, the idea of wishing, fantasizing, and wanting to possess the amount of wealth that they themselves can’t require. The same can be applied to the world today, since the industrial age and pre modern times, many immigrants from all over the world to chase and fly in hopes of achieving the so called “American Dream” alternatively known as “The Land of Opportunities.”

P.S. I’m eager to hear, what are your thoughts of “The Comet” by Du Bois? :3

The more worth we have gradually placed on money, the more power it possesses. You need money to be healthy and able to survive. We utilize it in our daily lives and it has become indispensable.

As Margaret Atwood discusses in her article, she provides us a timeline from the beginning of the world to the end of a “now” dead planet. Known for one of her famous books “The Handmaids Tale” she often likes to create fake realities, dystopian worlds, of what the future could become.

Both this article and the novel deal extensively with money. Specifically in the article she particularly enjoys talking about how money has two sides; while it can be useful and aid in survival, it can also breed greed and a create a money hungry person.

When is enough money enough, then? When may we declare that we have enough money? It’s the belief that one can never have too much money. A person’s desire to buy and their level of spending both increase with wealth. As a result, the money cycle never stops because of the importance and power that society places on money, leading us to believe that the more money we own, the more power we actually possess.