The Eye Of The World Essay, Research Paper

Setting:

The setting of this story is a fantasy world, with your basic medieval background. It has magic, swordplay, large-scale armies on grassy plains, and a touch of technology. There is the ?big evil power? off to the north somewhere that will apparently figure into the series five books down the road, and various evil creatures that battle the good guys. The ?big good power? can?t interfere, so it lets the meager humans handle things. Men and women are each clearly defined, with each sex even having different kinds of magic. The guys go insane from theirs, and the women use their power to hunt down those men.

Character:

There are countless characters in this story, ranging from one-shot guards who die in obscurity, to the Really Big Monsters. All of them are chock full of personality and character, no matter their roles and life span. The main characters, those that live long enough to be considered such, are as follows. There is Rand, a youth from a village who discovers he has strange powers that will one day drive him insane. Egwene, from the same village, also has this power, but apparently the women don?t go insane, and she will have to kill Rand. Naturally, there is a relationship between the two, one that will be put to the test. There are also Moiraine, a sort of elder witch, Lan, the big brawny swordsman, and a whole slew of others that split up and go their separate ways in other books in the series.

Plot:

The plot follows several different people at once, jumping back and forth when you least expect it. The basic plot is this; an evil entity, namely the antithesis of all that is good and pure, is trying to destroy the world and remake it in his own image. The Creator, a sort of god, has bound him away for all eternity, but a hole is bored into his prison. The Creator uses several young people as his unwitting avatars in the struggle between good and evil. They run away from hideous monsters that chase them through this world, such as a trolloc, a sort of man-beast, and various others. They make their beleaguered way north, until a path is found to a source of ultimate power. In the end, this power is used for good, and the Evil darkness is bound away. Until the next book in the series? It seems like your basic ?Light against Dark, Good vs. Evil? plot, but is much more.

Theme:

The theme of this story could be ?Humility leads to your God?. Throughout it, the most powerful weapon the heroes have is their determination and their faith in something they don?t quite understand. Another theme could be ?Man and Woman are parts of a whole?, as one of the basic ideas in this story is the attempted understanding of the sexes. The characters struggle with their faith, their differences, and the numerous enemies. That could be another theme, your basic ?Good and Evil are sides of a coin? idea, as the forces of light and darkness use their respective avatars to battle.

Conflict:

The most prevalent conflict is not good vs. evil, but man vs. woman. While the heroes run from evil, they bicker and compare their own weaknesses incessantly. At times it seems the sole purpose of the women in this story are to provide sympathy for the men. The women are annoying, acid-tongued harpies until the end, when they finally get some sense knocked into them. This is one of the reasons I really like this book, as the ending makes up for all the stress the men put up with.

Personal Reaction:

I find this book, as well as the eight other books in the series, to be my favorite reading material. Reading it again for the third time allowed me to put it on my list of books read recently, giving me the opportunity to write a book report on it. The first time I read it, I realized it blew away most other fantasy I?d read. It has a completely original kind of magic, one that is very complex and fleshed out across the series. The hundreds of characters have personalities that seem to matter, even up to their deaths.