Introduction In the book, Forbidden, by Ted Dekker, the words ecstatic, anger, apathy, or envy don’t exist. The only emotion that does is fear. In this new world, geneticists discovered the human gene that controlled both innate and learned forms of fear. It was called Strathmin, or Oncoprotein 18. Within fifteen years, geneticists were similarly identified. The only emotion genetically allowed to survive since was fear and for 480 years, perfect peace has reigned until now. In return, all religion was abolished mainly because that was one of the causes of violence in society leaving a type of God called The Maker. My mom had recommended this book to me and said it was one of the best books she had ever read, so I decided to read it too. I couldn’t help but agree to her taste in the book. Forbidden is in the top 5 best books I have ever read.
Characters
Rom: Rom Sebastian lives in Byzantium, a place one known as Rome. He is a normal man who sings in homage to the deceased at funerals. While on his way home from work one day, a crazed old man gave him a vile of blood and told him to run. Even though he ran, Rom knows that the Order, a form of government, would have his head for not turning the old man in. On closer inspection, and digestion, of the blood, Rom and Avra start having feelings that they had never felt before: happiness, love, anger, envy, all coming through at once. Now that they know what they have stumbled upon, they have to run from the government and keep Rom’s father’s prophecy going; a prophecy that involved protecting the last good vial of blood on the entire planet. In the beginning of Forbidden, Rom was like a frightened puppy. He had no ability of doing anything, but going to work and coming home. As the book goes on, he develops emotion and a sense of love for Avra. He became a valiant, loving, revenge-seeking person. From the beginning, however, I predicted that something of what happened to him would happen to him. Mainly because in order to survive in his position, he had to toughen up and get his mind set on the fact that he lost his mother and father and he had to be the one to save humanity. I believe Rom had some emotion before he even drank that because without emotion he would not have been able to perform some of the tasks he had in this book. He was also well more contained than Avra in the beginning.
Avra: Avra was just as scared as Rom in the beginning. When Rom first came to tell her everything that happened to him, she immediately began feeling frightened and indecisive about everything. “’Rom!’ she breathed. ‘What are you doing scaring me like that?’… ‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you?’… ‘Hurry why? You’re scaring me!’” (39/40) The quotes here are only a few of the sentences said by Avra when Rom came to tell her everything that happened to him. She was so confused and frightened and not one thing that came out of her mouth had no detection of fear in it. However, once she drank the blood and had all emotions returned to her, still slightly full of fear, she overall became the girl version of Rom. She is very intelligent and knows what she’s doing. When I first read about her, I did not think this would happen to her, because of how truly frightened she was in the beginning, but I was wrong. In the end, however, Avra truly needed the emotions she received from drinking the blood. Without emotions, she would not have been able to come up with some of the cunning plans that she had.
Craft
The only craft decisions I found used in Forbidden were italics and similes. “What was sorrow? It was like trying to imagine what his life would be like if he’d never been born” (7). In this quote, Rom had heard the word sorrow and was trying to depict an image in his head. It was so difficult it was compared to thinking of what his life would be like had he never been born. By using this quote, the author can show the reader what it was like trying to have emotions in this
