Steph's thoughts

Sorry for the late post, I realised how incoherent I was so I made a mindmap in an attempt to organise the messy thoughts. Although you might not want to rely on the mindmap so much because I could not put everything I wanted to say in one pic. Update: After doing the mindmap, I spent another 2h editing. I still think there may be a missing link. Anyhoo we need to present the links more clearly for a better resolution.

Okay to me the unifying theme is hunger and escapism. (duh, but more specifically the hunger for certainty/success and the fear of failure as a result) The issues are in what the characters are hungry/searching for.

Hungry shows typical Singaporeans hungry for different things. However, it is because they hunger for certainty and success that ultimately lead to their downfall because they kill themselves/go crazy when they don't achieve it because they are scared of hurt or failure. (with the exception of death and baby) However, Death and Baby shows that all these hunger do not matter and that we (DV)should be grateful for life and to just live life for what it is, if not (sub-DV) we will regret sacrificing the things we sacrificed for that hunger.

Sarah shows a typical person in search of the meaning of life. From a really long time ago, people have been in search of this, in the form of Wisdom. However, nowadays, it has been degraded into knowledge and mugging because people want quick, certain, black and white knowledge that other people thought of instead of thinking for themselves. Now this brings 2 implications. First, Sarah killing herself cus she can never find the answer through studying books about life or examining dead bodies. Secondly, the god of wisdom's loss of purpose in the world because not many people look for wisdom anymore. So he goes crazy with that loss. These implications give the sub-issue of how people may be intelligent muggers but not actually intellectual thinkers.

Gek shows an artist in Singapore searching for success in life(perfection) and recognition in her art. Putting the hint of the arts scene not being well supported aside, the 2 things Gek searched for are actually what Singaporeans want. A perfect life and recognition. However, most of us, after eating whatever is in the world, produce shit and so she dies. (Everything we produced is shit after consuming someone else's product whether intellectual or physical so why make a big hooha of everything? Why not just live life the way it is? regurgitating knowledge or other people's works is shit )

Mui Choo shows a person hungry for 2 things - Love and Escape. In the story, when she was scared, she forgot about love and just wanted to escape by dying. She hungered for certainty, beauty and scared of pain and ageing. So she escaped by dying in fear. Then she hungered for love because she did not have a chance to love her own baby. This links the theme and sub-DV together - how in the hunger for certainty/success or the fear of hurt/failure we actually sacrifice the most important things and later regret and hunger for those things.

Baby shows the simple perspective. It is ironic that people can take knowledge, books for what it is but cannot take the purpose of eating something or living life for what it is. Baby cannot get how people get the concepts of things taught by Sarah but can get the simple purpose of why anything exists. Baby shows how one can simply live because the sole purpose of being alive was to live.Baby also show no fear of hurt or failure. And I guess without the hunger the rest has, she does not have fear. and because she has not lived, she just wants to live.

Death supports the content of every single character. his last line "die in pain" and baby's last line "they hoped, they would return to the garden", show fear of hurt and hunger for certainty and idealism respectively.

The image of the garden of Eden shows us how people from the beginning of time are greedy/hungry. And because of that greed/hunger we lose things. And only when we lose things do we hunger for them. Adam and Eve hungered for the certainty and ideal state of Eden. So instead of being greedy, one should just be contented and live life before we lose anything else.

One more issue is the finality of death/exams. "5,4,3,2,1,pens down" This finality causes the characters to feel even more regretful and hungry for the things they have lost. Also, it causes us to live life in mugging, in working hard for the "exam" so that we do as much as we can before death.

P.S.
To search for answers to the questions:
1. list issues
The issues are in what the characters are hungry/searching for. (e.g. issue of hunger for knowledge/recognition/success/certainty/escapism/perfection or hunger to just live + One sub-issue presented in paragraph 4)
2. main issue my character deals with
Para 7 : hunger to simply live because the sole purpose of being alive was to live.
3. Link other characters to that issue.
Para 7 and the issue is linked to DV which is linked to theme which is linked to the characters.
4. Unifying theme: Para 2
5. reasons why it is that theme:
justified by the paragraphs after.