CHRISTINE HALSEY
Age: 26
Story: Alone Boy
She is the one in charge of Yui, known simply as Halsey. Her father was a brilliant geneticist who made breakthroughs in the fields of stem cells and cloning. Halsey graduated years early from university and got a PHD in order to follow in her father's footsteps and take up his research. Yui's project is funded mainly by her inheritance from her father; however, soon the money starts to dwindle. She tries to get private funding, but to no avail.
Halsey is brilliant, even more so than her father, but her personality is what keeps her from being the perfect scientist. Her emotional attachment to the subject matter of Yui's project blinds her to the immoral nature of the whole thing. She tends to be impulsive and naive. The longer the experiment runs, the deeper she digs herself into her own denial of her guilt. However, if she hadn't gone through this whole thing, Yui wouldn't even exist. So there is this contradiction and confusion that causes her to simplify her thinking and reasoning greatly so she doesn't have to face the magnitude of what she's done.
That contradiction at the end--I remember I just mentioned how it could be compared with abortion, how it might be the best choice in a given situation, but when a woman decides not the have a abortion the contradiction stands that if he HAD gone through with it, her son/daughter wouldn't exist. Also, what you mentioned about comparing Halsey to an author who creates a character that is inherently broken, disabled, or unfit to live/survive might face a similar situation if his/her character becomes real enough. You could also compare it to the situation when parents know their child will be born severely disabled and have to make the choice to keep it or not.
ReplyDeleteErica, your insightfulness is so much win I feel like I should leave the area.
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