Wesley LeBaron

Humanities blog post

Utopia/Dystopia

            The book I decided to read was Tunnels written by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, whom were both born and raised in London, England. The society in the book is a race of humans who have lived underground for many ages. The city is based under London. The characteristics of the people are mainly pasty white skin, on the taller side, and super skinny. The society is ran by a race or group of people known as Styx. These people are very human like, but have some slight differences such as they have no pupil’s just straight black eyes. They talk in a snake type manner rolling their S’s as they speak. They are super skinny and have very small sharp noses. They use fear, along with their sickles, as a method to run the underground city. The Styx one main rule, or law, is to never go to the outside world without permission first. Family units are the same as they are in modern day society; there is a mother, father, and children and the occasional house pet. The Styx have a religion ceremony every week teaching the people how their ancestors have plotted to take over the outside world starting with London and moving outward to create a perfect society ran by the Styx. If anybody disobeys the rules they are subject to “the black light” which drains all life out of somebody and makes them miserable usually through bringing up bad past memories.

            The story goes a boy named Will Burrows and his friend Chester Rawls try to find Wills dad who went missing on his last digging excavation. As they dig up clues of where Wills dad disappeared to they discover a secret hidden city deep underneath modern day London, England. They soon find out that this city is not a great place to be for a person from the outside world. A very interesting plot twist happen in the middle of the book when Will finds out he is adopted and his birth parents, or at least his father, live in the underground city. His mother took him to the surface to get away from all of the Styx madness. They Styx knew this and Will eventually got captured and was then sentenced to life in “The Deeps” which leads into the second book in the series.

            I would have to say this book is a Dystopia because the Styx are trying to strive for a world that is practically impossible to have. They have a system where they are trying to get everybody in their city to hate everybody in the outside world so they can one day raid and take over the outside world. They don’t really believe in God they think they are Gods for the war they are about to start. Some of the similarities I see in the society is that they do in fact have art which they keep very sacred to them. They have a book similar to the bible which supposedly has sacred writing in it telling Styx how to successfully live.

            I do not agree with the society in the book. I can see that the Styx race are a blood thirsty group of individuals who want all the power in the world. They would kill anybody in their way to obtain what they are after. I am not that type of person, I am a more laid back go with the flow type of person. I would not want to be a ruler of the world I think it would be too much of a responsibility.