134 LITERATURE Literature along the way Flawed is a dystopian novel1 about a young girl who is raised in a ‘perfect’ society. In this society anyone who doesn’t follow the rules or makes a mistake is branded2 as ‘Flawed’. Even helping a Flawed is considered a crime. Read the extracts from the novel (from chapters 10 to 12, abridged and simplified) and discuss the questions below. 1 Flawed by Cecelia Ahern Once on the bus and in our usual seats, I concentrate on the Flawed lady in the seat that only Flawed people are allowed to occupy. There are two seats for the Flawed on the bus, because rules state that three or more Flawed are not allowed to gather together at any one time. […] The Flawed seats have bright red fabric3 and are at the front of the bus facing all the other passengers so that everybody on the bus can see that they are Flawed. […] I watch the Flawed woman sitting alone on the seat, her armband with the blood-red symbol identifying her. I see the symbol on her temple4, too, and wonder what bad mistake she made to land herself in this situation. The scar on her temple is certainly not new. It doesn’t have the red-hot, crusted look of newly seared5 flesh as some Flawed have. She has been Flawed for quite some time, and I wonder if this means she’s worse now, if Flawed get more Flawed with age or if the branding, the acknowledgement of it, stops it from spreading and growing. At the next stop, an old man gets on the bus, and I almost call out to him, because he looks so much like my granddad, but then I see the large F symbol on his armband and I shudder, annoyed with myself for ever thinking someone like him could be possibly related to me. […] The old man starts coughing. And then he won’t stop. His breath is wheezy6, barely still for a moment before he coughs again. He takes out a handkerchief and coughs into that, trying to block the germs7 and noise. His face goes from white to pink to purple […] The coughing is bothering everyone on the bus. His loud gasps for breath can’t be ignored, and yet they are. Rules state that if anyone aids a Flawed, they will be imprisoned, but not in this case, surely? Are we to watch him struggling right before us? […] 1 How is life different for the Flawed in the so-called ‘perfect’ society? 2 What do you think is worse, being imprisoned for a small crime or being branded? 3 What does the colour red symbolise in our society? What does it stand for in the story? Now read on and then talk about the questions on the next page. 2 1 dystopian novel: Dystopie (in der Zukunft spielende Erzählung mit oft negativem Ausgang) 2 branded: gebrandmarkt 3 fabric: Stoff, Gewebe 4 temple: Schläfe 5 seared: verbrannt, versengt 6 wheezy: keuchend 7 germs: Keime Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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