Once called Solomon, in homage to the biblical king, Palau fell once during the one year war as the "greedy king" of Zeon it was.
Tea time vs. mining time
The setting of majority of book 4 is the distant mining satellite Palau. A makeshift colony built into a collection of 4 asteroids, this cluster of rocks is home to a large population living in poverty as well as an infinitely smaller community of wealthy investors and landowners. This separation of poor and wealthy reflects the theme of social class and wealth in the novel “Jane Eyre”. Upon entering Palau’s residential block, Banagher is startled at the rugged appearance of the colony. Unlike his home at Industrial 7, Palau has no external lighting from the sun, thus the skies are perpetually dark and cloudy and the nearby mining shaft causes the air to appear beige with dust. The organized housing sections for citizens gives off the same feeling of a workers dormitory, and there’s not a single tree in sight. As for the life of those living under these harsh conditions, most lived as miners. However, despite the advances in technology elsewhere in the Earth Sphere, Palau’s machinery remained on the same level as our time. These people work hard for little pay with poor tools, yet they accepted their hardy lifestyle. While the residential block he colony feels destitute and empty, the upper town area gives a startling comparison. An investor for The Sleeves seen in the story displays a nearly comical depiction of aristocracy. He has an obese body and a perverted stare that bears the physical representation of his greed, is draped in a Roman styled robe, and engorges fine grape wine. Ironically, the rich and greedy was dealt poetic justice when it was this man’s thoroughly decorated estate that took the greatest damage during Operation Billiard. | “The cost of one round of ammunition would be enough to pay for one month of a citizen’s food." “The downtown block would let out an interrupting siren, and the upper town would have a clear bell chime indicating tea time.” |
“There’s no universe over there, just a thick layer of compressed rock gathered after millions of years.”
the other side of the coin
Much like Jane Eyre transformed in her views of poverty, Banagher discovers the true nature of those living with lower standards of life and corrects himself in the stereotypes he was raised with. | As described in “How to Read Literature like a Professor”, when a character leaves home, or rather, takes a vacation, the underlying purpose is always to learn. This couldn’t be more explicitly stated in this story’s case when Zinnerman tells his reason for sending him to a host family rather than a prison “You just think you know, but you don’t know anything at all. Stay here and learn”. Before Banagher’s time living at Palau, he viewed Zeon as the malnourished terrorists the Federation made them out to be. However, after his experience with Gilboa Sant’s family and the poor lifestyle of Palau, he comes to realize that this poverty didn’t turn these people into cold blooded haters of the Federation, these people of humble lives live happily with what they have; each other. In Palau, Banagher uses his time for manual labor, a drastic shift from his lifetime of boarding school and technological education. The work cleared his mind, and upon finishing his repair tasks for the Sant family and hearing the cheers of the children retuning home for the day, he feels a new, genuine sense of fulfillment. He feels he’s actually helped someone directly for the first time, and their thanks filled him with a certain driving hope. Banagher in turn discovers the positive sides to this lower class lifestyle. |