Billie Reath-Lang

Compare and Contrast Essay

October 26th, 2013

An average-day family becomes part of a supercomputers plan to commit suicide. A man who helps enforce laws suddenly is forced to prove his innocence. While these two stories appear to be different, they share a lot of similarities. All the Troubles of the World and Minority Report are both similar and different. Though the little details are very different, the main stories are very alike. In both All the Troubles of the World and Minority Report, the main plot is very comparable. In Minority Report, a man by the name of John Anderton is chief of a highly controversial Pre-crime police force. In this supposed utopia, it is the year of 2054, and crime levels have been idle for six years. But when John is accused of predicted murder on a man he does not know, he is forced to run. In All the Troubles of the World, Multivac, the worlds largest supercomputer, predicts a man by the name of Joseph Manners is soon going to commit a crime. His youngest son, Ben Manners, immediately sets out to figure out why his father is being accused of a crime. The way Multivac and the Pre-crime police force work are quite different, though the purpose of them are the same. Multivac is the most advanced computer in the world, and it takes away the privacy of peoples thoughts. This computer is made to know what everybod y is even doing before they do it. With Minority Report, there are three mutated humans called pre-cogs which are used to predict the future. While Multivac is used for many other things, basically keeping the world intact, the pre-cogs are only used for predicting the future. As the stories continue on, they go down different pathways. These falling and rising actions were both quite diverse. As Ben Manners and his brother, Mike Manner, in All the Troubles of the World arrive home to find the police, their father announces that he is under arrest for an unknown reason. Confused, Ben leaves to investigate and ask Multivac for advice. He goes to a local Multivac substation, a place where troubled people come to ask the grand computer questions, whether about life or other various things. Hoping to find some way to prove his fathers innocence, Ben quickly types in a question, and soon a card pops out with instructions that he is told to follow precisely. As he travels, the workers at Multivac work to figure out who Bens father is going to murder. In All the Troubles of the World there is no possible way to run from Multivac, but in Minority Report, there are ways of avoiding jail time. When John finds he is soon to murder a person he has never met, all eyes are suddenly turned to him. He knows he must run, but they would still locate him either way. In Minority Report, they have a different method of finding criminals. Everywhere people would walk, an iris scan would commence. If somebody was a criminal, like John, their face would appear on the screens around them, indicating he was a criminal. In All the Troubles of the World, there would not be a way to run from your troubles, but in Minority Report, there is one way to run. John ventures to an underground eye replacement to avoid detection. This way he can walk through town with a whole other identity. With his original eyes in a plastic bag and his knowledge that the third pre-cog will witness his minority report, he returns back to Pre-Crime. He uses his original eyes for optical-scanning to get into Pre-Crime, and steals the third pre-cog, Agatha. There are very large differences in these two conclusions. The main contrast with All the Troubles of the World and Minority Report is how the conflict began. In All the Troubles of the World, the ending soon comes to reveal that Multivac, the computer that runs everything in the universe, wishes to die. It reveals that Multivac itself set up the crime that Joseph Manners was predicted to do. As Ben Manners was about to follow the final step Multivac had given him, he was arrested. But, since the Multivac employees could not find them guilty, they were soon released. While the whole conflict of the story was caused by the worlds most advanced supercomputer,

Minority Reports ending was caused by an actual human. After John steals Agatha, he makes his way to the apartment that he was to commit homicide in. Scattered on the bed in the apartment are pictures of small children. As John takes a closer observation, he finds that one of the pictures are of his son, Sean. He thinks back to the day that his son disappeared and soon realizes that Leo Crow is the man who takes the fault for Seans disappearance. Crow eventually shows up, immediately held at gunpoint when he does. Knowing that he would be put in jail if he murdered Crow, John puts him under arrest instead. While at gunpoint, Crow admits that he was hired to plant the photos and then be killed so his family could get money. Now having knowledge of this, John greatly refuses to murder the man. When the predicted murder does not occur, Crow takes the officers hand and forces John to shoot him. John and Agatha quickly escape. John is later to find out that an earlier vision Agatha had seen was the failed murder of her mother, and that his knowledge of this was the reason for him being the supposed murderer. Assessing the death of Leo Crow, a worker for Pre-Crime named Danny Witwer finds out more on Agathas mothers failed death. He reports these findings to the Pre-Crime director, Lamar Burgess. Burgess ends up murdering Witwer for his findings, knowing the Pre-Crime division would not know about it. He blames John Anderton for this murder, sending John to jail. Johns ex-wife, Lara has a difficult time coping with this, and Burgess attempts to comfort her, only to let the truth slip: he had killed Agathas mother. Lara immediately acts on this, using Johns eyes to free John. A banquet to celebrate Pre-Crimes success takes place, where Burgess and John meet up. A new vision is created by the pre-cogs: John being the victim, and Burgess being the murderer. John talks Burgess out of murdering him, and Burgess resolves everybodys problems by committing suicide. Minority Report ends with Pre-Crime shutting down, as well as letting all the criminals free. John re-marries Lara and begins a new family, and the three pre-cogs are sent to an island where they are able to live happily. Though the endings of All the Troubles of the World and Minority Report start off very different, they both end in happy ways, despite how Multivac feels. All the Troubles of the World and Minority Report are both quite similar. However, the way these two societies are ran are very different. While All the Troubles of the World is ran by the worlds most advanced supercomputer, Minority Report is only the future with pre-cogs that can predict homicide. The way that these two societies are handled are the cause of how the plot plays out, causing the stories to contrast a great deal. Though the way Multivac handles crimes and what the pre-cogs are there for are similar, the rest of the story appears not to be any more analogous than that. In the end, Multivac did not get what it desired, causing the society to remain a dystopian society. While the short story remained a dystopian society, Minority Report showed a good outcome, making it seem like a utopian society.