The Personal Side of Things
The way that Lauren Redniss presented the life of Marie Curie in her book, Radioactive, made it a much more dynamic story than the way most scientists’ lives are written about. Redniss incorporated more personal details about Marie and her husband, Pierre, that helped the readers to relate more to the characters and connect more with the story that is being told. Redniss also used illustrations to demonstrate emotion as well as providing visual cues to enhance the reading. The way Redniss presented Marie and Pierre’s lives made their story much more personable and the science much more relatable.
Lauren Redniss used many of the life events of the Curie’s in her book to add emotion to the story of their scientific discoveries. Being able to relate to the characters in the book through their life events and their emotions made the story much more enjoyable. Redniss portrayed the happy moments of their lives from their wedding, the birth of their daughters, and their scientific discoveries, but she also wrote about the sad moments such as Marie’s realization that she would not be going home to Poland, the death of Pierre, and the miscarriage of a child. Redniss quotes Marie on her miscarriage, “I had grown so accustomed to the idea of the child that I am absolutely desperate and cannot be consoled,” (Radioactive, 73). She adds Pierre’s perspective on the subject, “I am neither very well, nor very ill… I am easily fatigued, and I have left only a very feeble capacity for work,” (Radioactive, 73). The addition of these quotes really helps the reader to connect to Marie and Pierre as human beings and more than just as scientists from the past. We feel emotion and sympathy for the Curies at this point in the story that’s allows us to feel more connected to their science as well.
Redniss also uses illustrations to assist in the story telling as well as to convey emotion. On the pages of the book where she discusses sad life events of the Curies, the pages are typically black or dark blue, where the positive life events are on yellow and orange colored pages. These color changes are just a minor detail that help to set the tone of the page. Additionally, the illustrations on the pages also help to portray emotion tell the story in a different way. This technique can be connected to the ideas from the conference Art as a Way of Knowing held in 2011 in San Francisco. The purpose of this conference was to discuss how using art alongside science could help one’s understanding of the topics to think about it from another perspective. In the report of the conference, they explain, “The premise of Art as a Way of Knowing was that art is a fundamental part of being human, and that learning in and through the arts is a serious form of interacting with the world by engaging with its questions, formulating ideas and deepening knowledge,” (Art as a Way of Knowing). Redniss uses these tactics in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of her book from another perspective by allowing them to not only read what is happening, but also to visualize it as well.
Redniss uses many different methods in order separate her book from other informative books on scientific discoveries. She incorporates emotions, personal life events, connects them to different world events in time, as well as using art and color to allow the reader to understand the material from another point of view. For these reasons, this book is much more personal and enjoyable to be able to understand all aspects of how Marie and Pierre contributed to the scientific community as well as their point of views through their personal life events.
