Warfare and The Windup Girl

After reading all of the books for this semester, I noticed that each book has mentioned warfare in some way or another. The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi, uses this theme as well, so it falls right into place with the other books we have read. Even though this is a common theme in these books, it does not mean that they show it the same way. In Island, for example, uses warfare as an ending for the utopian society of Pala as it gets invaded by military power. In The Windup Girl, on the other hand is showing how the Calorie companies are using the military power to take control of the scarce resources. In this story, all oil based resources are depleted and the only way power is created is by using this old kink-spring technology.

In this book, almost all natural food is contaminated by disease and most of the food they eat is bio-engineered to be safe to eat. Even though the genetic food is safer than natural food, they can still get infected by these outbreaks. The Calorie companies use these outbreaks to gain control of what people eat. The Calorie companies control all of the food and calories that are in Thailand. When the new leader of Thailand tries to open up the seedbanks where all of the natural food is hidden from the public, the White Shirts, which is the militia trying to control the production, execute the members of the Calorie company AgriGen that were in the seedbank, move it to a safe location and destroy the levees and pumps keeping the city of Bangkok safe. This destroys the city and leaves the seedbank under the control of the White Shirts.

Work Cited:

Bacigalupi, Paolo. The Windup Girl. New York: Night Shade Books. 2006. Print.