Monday 11 June 2012


Novel summary sheet – Quartering the text –
English 11 analysis

Your name: Daniel Hatenboer Quarter #3 pg 197-290
Novel name: Pandemonium
Author's last name: Oliver
1.Skeletal plot

    1. Using chapters titles “Then” and “now” to explain what happened in-between the two books using the chapters from “Then”, and showing us how she is now, after her experiences in the “Now”. It introduces characters from the “Then” and the “Now”, and shows you what is happening in the “now” by alternating every chapter or so.

    2. In the chapters from “Now” Julian now knows that Lena is an Invalid, and he's not sure if he want's to trust her, while Lena doesn't want anything to do with him. She starts concocting a plan to escape with Julian (she might as well take him along, just in case he's good for something) and succeeds. They have a brawl with some guards shortly after escaping the prison cell, kill the guards, and manage to get into the sewer system.

    3. In the chapters from “Then”, the homesteaders start moving onto the next base-camp for the winter. Lena has been branded with the fake procedural mark so she can enter into the Cured city without anyone thinking she's an Invalid

    4. “Now” With Julian and Lena in the sewers, there are teams of guards after them and they are both trying to escape and not be caught. They have a flashlight, but using it means exposing themselves. They are found, drop the flashlight, and run. The guards catch up to them, but are murdered by the people of the sewers (deformed children born of the deliria, forced to live in the sewers so they don't infect anyone else.) and are escorted to a new part of the sewers, hopefully somewhere they will be safe. Eventually they are lead to the “Above world” and come out in a garbage dump, the same on Lena used with Tack and Raven when they first came to the city. There is an Invalid shack that was built to use as shelter for short amounts of time, Julian and Lena bunk in it to rest up and get more energy.
    5. “Then” They reach the third encampment, but Tack and Hunter are nowhere to be found. What they are greeted with instead, is an ambush from Scavengers. Tack and Hunter burst through the treeline with rifles, picking off the Scavengers and getting rid of the problem. They leave the third encampment and stumble upon a house with a family of Invalids on it who give them shelter and food.

  • Conflict or “tension” (Explain) - Person vs Community, Person vs Self and person vs person

In the chapters from “Then” Lena is dealing with facing herself, and her new reality. Everyone is starting to move the base camp, and they sent Tack and Hunter ahead of the group to put supplies in certain places for the rest of the group to find. Lena doesn't know how she feels about this, but goes along with it anyway, fighting to keep herself from complaining about the pain she is in, because she knows everyone else is going through it as well. Blue is not strong enough for the journey, Raven won't admit it. Blue get's extremely sick. “Raven and I don't sleep that night. We take turns with a towel, icing Blue's forehead, until her breathing slows and the rasping eases. Eventually she stops fidgeting and lies quiet and docile under our hands. We take turns with the towel until dawn breaks the sky, a bluish rose, liquid and pale, even though by that time, Blue has not taken a breath for hours.”
this sits with Lena for the rest of the book, because to her, Blue was like Grace, her cousin back home. She believes it's her fault Blue died, just like how she left Grace all alone back in her hometown.

In the chapters from “Now” Lena is dealing with Person vs Community. She has infiltrated on of the cured city's and is blending in and pretending to be a cured. She has told Julian that she is an Un-Cured, and has to deal with his reaction and everything else going on around them while trying to not feel anything for him.


  1. Setting

This quarter of the book takes place in two different places in the USA: The chapters for the “Now” take place in Brooklyn, while the chapters from “Then” take place in invalid areas that have not been cured, Mostly in the wilderness surrounding Brooklyn and in-between cured cities (Ie: invalid areas/free-zones/the Wilds. The Cured's have many different names for it as do the un-Cured's/Invalids/Scavengers.).


  1. Characters (know your character types and why this is important to your novel! Eg. Are they round/flat – why?/ static/dynamic – why?) How many characters do you meet in this quarter or do you find out more about their personalities?

Lena: Main character. Strong person, will do what she has to in order to survive, she regrets things that she has done in the past. At the beginning of the story she is “Born again” into the new Lena that you learn about. She always has the right answer for any question thrown her way. During her time with Julian,she starts to care for him and develop feelings. Protagonist-Dynamic character.

Alex: Lena was in love with Alex before they escaped. He died so she could get over the fence. Lena is trying to forget about him, but at the same time she uses her memory of him to survive and keep herself going. Round character.

Raven: Most of the time a bossy, strict person, but underneath her steel armour she cares for everyone at the base-camp because they're all family. Acts like everyone's mother and has an “I know what's best for them.” Recognizable by her long, black hair that is almost always in a braid down her back. Round character.

Blue: about 6 or seven years old. Thin (as is everyone out in the wilds/free-zones/invalid areas. They have to gather their own food and resources and dispense it among themselves, so most everyone is thin) hair is dirty-blond, and like Raven's hair it is long, almost to her waist. So far a flat character.

Sarah: A very cheerful, nice girl. Helps Lena out when she is weak and new at the base camp. One of the few people who is nice to Lena from the beginning Static character.

Hunter: Blond and tall. The nicest person in the Home-base. Everyone loves him and he's everyone's friends. Also one of the few people who is nice to Lena right off the bat. Static character

Bram: He and Hunter are always together. Seemingly an effort relationship on their part, everyone loves the both of them and cares for them. In the city of the cured, the relationship between Bram and Hunter would have stapled them as “Unnaturals” and they would have been discouraged, and separated. In the Cured city's, Unnaturals are separated and forced to have the procedure done as soon as possible, so they can “forget” anything they ever had and live the normal life planned out for them. Static character.

Tack: Everyone says he has a bad attitude, but in Sarah's eyes he's a very nice person. Flat character

Thomas Fineman: The creator and head of the DFA, set on making everyone Cured. His son is Julian Fineman. Static character.

Julian Fineman: The son of Thomas Fineman. Poster child of the DFA, Standing for everything they need and want. He and Lena are learning to deal with each other, and start developing feelings. Dynamic character.

Coin: A deliria-born woman who was shunned and thrown in the sewers. Her and Rat man, a friend, saved Julian and Lena from the Scavengers from certain death. Static

Rat man: A deliria born Man who helped save Lena and Julian from the scavengers. Static


4. P.O.V ~ First person
Why do you think the writer chose this point of view to develop plot characters or themes?

I think Lauren wrote this story in first person so you could get more in-depth views of Lena's character, while getting to see how others around her react to what she does, and how she views them as a person. You follow her and get to know how she's feeling and every experience she has you have with her. The way she writes makes it feel like you're right there with her, experiencing everything she is and getting to see for yourself how she deals with situations and how others do


  1. Notable's on writers style and structure!

[] Are there similes or metaphors?
Yes, there are a lot of metaphors. Not quite as many similes, but they are still there

[] Visual or other imagery?
A lot of visual imagery, you know exactly what your surroundings are and can picture them perfectly.

[] Is there unusual vocabulary or diction? Record a quote:
Lauren's does use unusual vocabulary and diction.

[] Is the novel structured with a particular theme? Record a quote or explain:
The theme of the book is proving that what you have is never wrong, and how you are born is how you should live. You shouldn't have to remove things to be perfect, you already are. When you remove things and change things about yourself, parts of you change and die with the things that are removed. You become a completely different person, nothing like who you were before.

[] Is there dialogue and is it realistic?
Yes there is dialogue, it is more realistic in the chapters from “Then” than the chapters from “Now” because people from “Now” have been cured and are always calm, collected and always know what to say, while the people from “Then” are normal, unchanged and have more Human and emotional reactions to things. In the third quarter, they encounter the people who live in the sewers, those shunned by society, who help them, regardless of whether they're cured or not. It doesn't matter to them, they saw someone in need, so they intervened and saved them..


  1. Themes: Record words and topics related to the themes contained and developed in your novel

  • The DFA.” I can barely croak out the words. “ The guy- The guard back there, the one we tied up – he had a tattoo of an eagle and a syringe. That's the DFA crest.”
    Julian: [...] It must be coincidence.”
    I shake my head. Words, ideas, are tumbling through my head: Everything flows one way. Everything makes sense: Talk of payday; all this equipment; the tattoo; the box of badges. The complex, the security – all of it costs money. “They must be working together. I don't know why, or what for, or -”
    Julian: “No...you're wrong”
    Lena: “Julian - “
    He cuts me off Julian: You're wrong, do you understand me? It's impossible.”

  • Love, the deadliest of all things. It kills you, both when you have it, and when you don't.

  • You're awake” The woman says. Now that I'm not so terrified, I see that she's not missing part of her face as I imagined; the right side of her face is just much smaller than the left, collapsed inward, as though her face were two different masks, imperfectly joined. Birth Defect, I think, even though i've only seen a few defectives in my life, and all of them were in textbooks. In school, we were always taught that kids born from the Un-Cured would end up like this, crippled and mangled in some way. The priests told us this was the Deliria manifesting in their bodies
    Children born of the healthy and the whole are healthy and whole; children born of the disease will have sickness in their bones and blood.
    All these people, born cripple or bent or misshapen, have been driven underground. I wonder what would have happened to them as babies, as children, if they had stayed above ground. I remember, then, what Raven told me about finding BlueYou know what they say about Deliria babies...She would probably be taken and killed. She wouldn't even be buried...She'd be burned and packed up with the waste.


Personal response to this quarter: What you thought or felt, related to, did not relate to; How universal is the experience that your protagonist goes through?

During “Then” chapters, the entire group has started moving the encampment, sending Tack and Hunter ahead of the so they can set up camps and food in advance until the rest of the group reaches the new base camp. Halfway there, however, Blue dies. To Lena, Blue was like grace, her niece back home, her family. She feels it was her fault Blue died, much like it was her fault that she left Grace all alone in the city with her parents and all of the Cured's around her, needing to fend for herself, and now she has to continue whatever she is doing, and do the things she knows she has to, for Blue, and for Grace. “Now” chapters, Lena and Julian escaped the prison they were being held captive in, and managed to get into the sewers, but in the end the Scavengers found them. They were saved by the people who live in the sewers, who helped them leave the sewers and find a place to stay until they had enough energy to leave. They realized that the scavengers and the DFA were working together, to “Prove” to people that deliria was bad. The DFA had hired the scavengers to attack the public and capture Julian, so everyone would believe that all Invalids are bad. Julian does some serious re-thinking of character and realizes that he has feelings for Lena.

No comments:

Post a Comment