This essay about Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence will discuss reasons why the novel's ending could be viewed as both optimistic and pessimistic. Point one; life is sustained approximately forty years after the radioactive fallout in Great Britain. Point two; Simon accepts Laura even if she is a mutant. Point three; the mutants have a decreased quality of life due to the radioactive fallout. Point four; The Author may be suggesting that radioactive war is needed to create 'homo superior'.
Life is sustained approximately forty years after the radioactive fall out in Great Britain.
About 40 years after the radioactive bomb was dropped on Great Britain, people are still alive in the bunker. There are also mutants on the outside of the bunker. These mutants have a dominant gene in their DNA which gives them white fur around their bodies, the loss of the pupil in the eye, sometimes extra body parts.
English: Map of US counties that suffered the high...
English: Graph of the ten nuclear tests that expos...
English: Graph showing the ten US nuclear tests th...The fact that the mutants are able to survive throughout the radioactive fallout and the depleted ozone layer is very optimistic for the human race.
Simon accepts Laura even if she is a mutant.
When Simon first meets Laura he is disgusted about the way Laura and the other Mutants steal the gold from the dead. Simon doesn't like the mutants because they all think that the surviving humans from the bunker are all like General McAllister and that all they want is rights. After Simon stays with the mutants for a couple of days he learns their ways and learns to accept Laura a bit more. When Laura shows him Dwight Allison's utopia he learns that everyone is the same and then he starts to accept Laura even though she is a mutant. This is optimistic for Simon because he can learn more about the...