The Dream that Failed

After scouring the house and encountering no books that I could read, I had recourse to the Economist magazine to help me scrape together pages for this reading check. I sifted through the magazine for useful articles, and although they were interesting, they centered on politics or international affairs that didn't spur some reaction or that did not suffice for an adequate blog post. Finally, I stumbled across an article titled The Dream That Failed, and immediately, I was preoccupied with it. The dream it features refers to nuclear power. This article basically expressed who nuclear power, which many people envisioned as a savior from fossil fuels that wreak havoc on the environment, had failed, due to the disaster that afflicted Japan.

One thing off the bat that I doted on about this article was its language. It employed complex words that enlivened it, but as well, it didn't mince its words; in other words, its tone was straight and it voiced a clear message. Another thing I admired about this article is how it was fashioned like a story. The first part was the rising action, where it elucidated the dream of nuclear power and how prominent it was. It heartened readers with hope that this dream would be successful. Then came the climax, where this dream was devastated; the article recounted the disaster in Japan, disheartening the readers, which it had built up with hopes to just to tear back down. The falling action was basically the affect of the disaster and a description of how the remnants of hope dwindled: Germany and other countries started to phase out their nuclear power plants, fracturing a once great image of nuclear power and all of its benefits.