Aufgabe I

Aufgabenstellung

Sum up the excerpt.

(30 %)

Examine the atmosphere created in the text.

(30 %)

You are taking part in an international project entitled “Facing Life’s Crossroads,” dealing with the choices young people are confronted with. You have to hand in an article for the project website in which you discuss the following statement by the writer Roy T. Bennett: “You are not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny.”

Write the article, also referring to the text at hand and materials studied in class, such as the novel Never Let Me Go and the story “Two Kinds.”

(40 %)

Text

Excerpt from Sophie Mackintosh, Blue Ticket (2020)

Calla is a 14-year-old teenager living in a dystopian society. She has just reached puberty and therefore has to go to “the lottery,” which determines whether she will have children or not.

The lottery station was a lot like the clinic: two storeys of pale brick, a flat roof. When

we pulled up, the emissary outside was smoking a cigarette, but he threw it into the

road when he saw us. Congratulations, he said to me. He led us inside to where the

others waited.

The floorboards were wooden, varnished aggressively. Countless feet had scuffed

that floor. It pooled the reflections of all the lights – spotlights from the ceiling, a lamp

on the desk where a man in a dark suit sat on an orange plastic chair, watching us, legs

crossed. He could have been a doctor, but he wore no white coat, no white plastic

gloves. There were four other girls in their own dresses sitting in a row on a wooden

bench, flowers both real and fake pinned to chests. They were not the girls from my

school. One wore velvet, two wore tulle, and the other wore satin like me. I took a

shine to the girl in satin. Same species.

We lined up, waiting to pull our tickets from the machine, the way you would take

your number at the butcher’s counter. The music popular that year played from

speakers on the ceiling. Just gravity enough. Just ceremony enough. Not necessarily

such an important thing, after all.

My name was called first. They watched me as I walked the length of the room,

towards the machine inside its cloaked box. I put my hand in it. I was apprehensive but

ready for my life to be decided. I closed my eyes and thought about my father with the

wine bottle to his eye. The machine was silent as it discharged a sliver of hard paper

into my hand. It was a deep cobalt. Congratulations, the possible doctor in the dark suit

said to me.

The other girls followed, each taking their own ticket from the machine in turn.

Almost a full house! he exclaimed at the end, reading a piece of paper spat out from

the machine. We huddled and compared tickets. They were all blue, except for one,

which was white. The girl with the white ticket was escorted into a separate room by

the doctor and another emissary. We watched the three of them walk through an unlit

doorway. When the doctor came back he clapped his hands twice. You have been

spared, he said with a terrible benevolence. […]

The bathroom of the lottery house was filled with yellow light, the veins of my thin

neck standing out underneath it. I was a plucked chicken with badly applied eye-

shadow, but the locket was around my throat now. There was a long, low mirror above

the sink, a wicker chair in the corner and two bathroom stalls painted peach. In the

mirror I watched the other girls leaning against the wall. Toes flexing. Eyes raised to

the ceiling, moving to the door when the girl with the white ticket came in to join us,

then back to the ceiling. There was a dying flower arrangement at the corner of the

sink, gaps of oasis showing through pink carnations. The music came through in here

too, speakers in the ceiling or underneath the sink.

At first I kept looking at the girl who had drawn the white ticket, the other girl in

satin, though hers was pale blue and dirty at the hem where it dragged. Her eyes were

red. I had the urge to take her arm and run with her somewhere, out to the woodland

where I used to smoke with the other girls in my class between lessons, beyond the

broken barbed wire of the school perimeter where the teachers could not see us. But I

did not touch her; I made myself stop looking.

Inside the cubicle I spent some time reading the names and dates scratched on the

door. With the safety pin that held on my fake peony corsage I engraved Calla, Blue

Ticket, a smiley face and the date underneath. The swell of relief, smooth and natural

as a muscle. I would never have children. And I was glad. I had been a child myself,

not so long ago. I did not want to put any other puny creature through that. […]

An emissary handed us each a bottle of water, a compass and a sandwich from the

table, wrapped in a napkin. We did not get to pick the filling. The bottle given to the

white-ticket girl was larger than ours, I noticed, and she received two sandwiches. It

was happening immediately, the diverging of our paths, no time to spare.

Go, the doctor said to us. To the place of your choice. Walk into it. Anywhere but

here. Congratulations.

I met my father’s gaze. I had a city in mind. He looked back at me and nodded his

head.

We walked out together into the cool night. The adults stayed in the light, for coffee

and refreshments, to debrief with the doctor. We might see our parents again, we might

not. Some of the girls halted at once when we got outside. They didn’t know where to

go. New and bewildered as the fawns I saw at the edges of the trees, in the dusk. The

girl with the white ticket, though, she walked directly into the woods, the lights of our

torches bouncing off the satin until she was gone into the dark. We were not so dif-

ferent.

I put the compass in the palm of my hand. North or south, east or west. The flicker

of the needle, the splintered light of the moon on its glass casing. I knew I could do

this […]. My life was out there, ahead of me. I had to run to it, now that the shape was

cast.

967 words

From: Sophie Mackintosh. Blue Ticket. New York: Doubleday, 2020. 9 –12.

Annotations

²Calla and her father

²⁰Earlier in the story, her father holds an empty wine bottle to his eye like a telescope with which he can see into the future.

²¹ cobalt – here: the colour blue

³² Girls and women keep their white or blue ticket in a locket (a small piece of jewellery that opens to show a small picture or object).

Calla, a fourteen-year-old girl living in a dystopian society, has to take part in a lottery after reaching puberty. At the lottery station, she joins four other girls who are all waiting to draw a ticket from a machine that will determine their future.

Calla is the first to draw a ticket and receives a blue one. The other girls also receive their tickets, but one girl draws a white ticket and is taken into another room before returning to the group. While waiting together, Calla notices that the girl with the white ticket is upset and briefly feels the urge to comfort or even help her escape, but she decides not to act.

In the bathroom, Calla scratches her name, the words “Blue Ticket” and the date into the cubicle door. She feels relieved because her blue ticket means that she will never have children, which is exactly what she wants. She believes that she does not want another child to experience the hardships she has faced herself.

Before leaving, the girls receive food, water and a compass. The girl with the white ticket is given more supplies than the others, showing that their lives will now follow different paths. The doctor tells them to leave and start a new life wherever they choose. Calla leaves the lottery station with her father, determined to begin her future, while the girl with the white ticket disappears into the woods.

The excerpt creates an atmosphere that is tense, unsettling and strangely ceremonial. Although the lottery is presented as an official ritual, the reader gradually realises that it is deeply disturbing because it decides the girls’ entire futures.

At the beginning, the atmosphere seems cold and impersonal. The lottery station looks “a lot like the clinic” and is described as a plain building with “pale brick” and a “flat roof”. This makes the place appear functional rather than welcoming. The man in the dark suit also seems official and distant. Calla even says he “could have been a doctor”, which links the lottery to medical control and authority.

The atmosphere is also uncomfortable because the situation combines everyday details with something frightening. The girls take their tickets from the machine “the way you would take your number at the butcher’s counter”. This comparison makes the life-changing lottery seem ordinary, even mechanical. At the same time, the music from the ceiling and the formal congratulations create a sense of ceremony. However, this ceremony feels false and disturbing because the girls’ futures are being decided without their control.

Tension is created when Calla draws her ticket. She is “apprehensive but ready” as she puts her hand into the machine. The silence of the machine and the fact that everyone watches her make the moment suspenseful. The repeated word “Congratulations” sounds ironic because it is used both after Calla receives a blue ticket and after the girls are told they have “been spared”. The politeness of the adults contrasts with the cruelty of the system.

The bathroom scene creates a gloomy and claustrophobic atmosphere. The “yellow light”, “dying flower arrangement” and “gaps” in the flowers suggest decay and ugliness. Calla describes herself as “a plucked chicken”, which shows how vulnerable and exposed she feels. The other girls are silent and tense, their eyes moving to the door when the white-ticket girl enters.

The most disturbing atmosphere is created through the contrast between Calla’s relief and the reader’s horror. Calla is glad that she “would never have children”, but this decision has not really been made by her. The idea that a fourteen-year-old’s whole life is “cast” by a ticket makes the society seem oppressive and inhuman.

At the end, the atmosphere becomes lonely and uncertain. The girls are sent away with only water, food and a compass. The adults remain inside “in the light”, while the girls walk into the “cool night” and the “dark”. This contrast between light and darkness symbolises the separation between the protected adult world and the girls’ frightening new lives. The final image of Calla looking at the compass creates a sense of danger, but also determination, as she knows that her life is now “ahead of” her.

Are We Really the Masters of Our Own Destiny?

Roy T. Bennett claims that, “You are not the victim of the world, but rather the master of your own destiny. It is your choices and decisions that determine your destiny.” At first glance, this quotation sounds inspiring because it suggests that everyone is responsible for shaping their own future. It encourages people to take responsibility for their lives instead of blaming their circumstances. However, the question is whether this idea really applies to everyone. While personal decisions certainly influence our lives, external forces such as society, family or fate often limit the choices people can make.

On the one hand, Bennett's statement contains an important truth. Every day, people make decisions that affect their future. Young people decide how much effort they put into school, which friendships they maintain or which goals they want to pursue. These choices often have long-term consequences. Even when people face difficult circumstances, they can often choose how they react to them. Instead of giving up, they may develop resilience and try to improve their situation. In this sense, people are not completely powerless.

However, the dystopian novel Blue Ticket clearly challenges Bennett's optimistic view. In the excerpt, fourteen-year-old Calla has no influence over one of the most important decisions of her life. A lottery determines whether she will have children or not. The ceremony appears official and almost ordinary, but it completely removes individual freedom. Although Calla feels relieved when she receives the blue ticket because she does not want children, this is still not her own decision. The state decides her future before she is old enough to make such a choice herself. The white-ticket girl is treated differently immediately after the lottery, receiving more food and supplies because her future has already been assigned. This shows that in a totalitarian society, destiny is controlled by those in power rather than by the individual. Bennett's quotation therefore does not apply to Calla's world.

A similar idea can be found in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Kathy, Tommy and Ruth appear to have ordinary childhoods, but they eventually discover that they have been cloned to become organ donors. No matter what dreams or ambitions they have, their fate has already been decided. They cannot escape the role society has assigned to them. Even though they make personal choices throughout the novel, these decisions only influence small aspects of their lives, not their ultimate destiny. Like the girls in Blue Ticket, they live in a system that denies them fundamental freedom. Ishiguro therefore suggests that social structures can be stronger than individual will.

Amy Tan's short story Two Kinds, on the other hand, presents a more balanced view. Jing-mei grows up under constant pressure from her mother, who wants her to become a child prodigy. At first, Jing-mei has little freedom because she is expected to fulfil her mother's dreams. Eventually, however, she refuses to continue trying to become someone she does not want to be. Although she cannot choose her family or her mother's expectations, she can decide how to react to them. This suggests that while people cannot control every aspect of their lives, they often have the freedom to shape their own identity.

These three texts demonstrate that freedom exists on different levels. In democratic societies, young people usually have many opportunities to shape their lives through education, career choices and personal relationships. Nevertheless, even in these societies, people are influenced by factors such as their financial background, social class, health or family expectations. Some individuals start life with far more opportunities than others. As a result, success does not depend solely on personal decisions.

For this reason, Bennett's quotation can be seen as an ideal rather than a universal truth. It reminds people to take responsibility for the choices they can make instead of seeing themselves only as victims. At the same time, it ignores the fact that many people face circumstances beyond their control. Literature such as Blue Ticket and Never Let Me Go illustrates how political systems can completely remove individual freedom, while Two Kinds shows that even under pressure, people often retain at least some ability to make their own decisions.

In conclusion, I only partly agree with Roy T. Bennett. Our choices certainly influence the direction our lives take, and taking responsibility for our actions is important. However, we cannot ignore the fact that external circumstances often determine which choices are available in the first place. Destiny is therefore shaped by both personal decisions and the conditions under which people live. The real challenge is to make the best possible choices within the opportunities we are given.