Dewey Gram Gladiator Dewey Gram Gladiator

Gladiator by Dewey Gram is one of the books I have read. Dewey Gram is an author of well acclaimed books and screenplays and a journalist as well. He has created the wonderful novel Gladiator and made its adaptation for the movie. He writes not only historical fiction but different kinds of novels and as examples of his other works one can name The Ghost and the Darkness, Babies Country, Fallen, and Oceans 11 [Gram, 2000, p.3]. Yet Gladiator is perhaps the most well known, because it does not purely entertain, but creates a trustworthy picture of life in the Ancient Rome and proves the old maxima things which people do will live long after the doers die [Gram, 2000, p. 4]. In other words human values, love for the land and for its people are more important for any ruler that aristocratic blood or grand shows organized to satisfy the poorest. The overall story is based on realities of life and fight for power among the Roman aristocracy: Maximus was a military general in the Roman army who was highly praised by Marcus Aurelius, the emperor [Gram, 2000, p.8]. Marcus expected Maximus to become an emperor after his death because he thought his son Commodus to be a bad ruler [ibid, p.10]. To take up power, Commodus murdered his father Marcus and ordered to kill Maximus and his family. The brave general lost his family and was enslaved himself. Later he was sold to a gladiator school at Morocco and his breathtaking career as a gladiator began. His military skills helped him to fight his way on the arenas through Africa to Rome, where he finally saw his enemy Commodus and learned about his plot against senators and careless and cruel way ruling. From now on Maximus not only seeks revenge, but also wants to save Rome and its people from the tyrant. Plots against Commodus did not work, and finally Maximus was challenged by the emperor to fight on the arena of Coliseum. The book offers more truthful

Dewey Gram Gladiator

ending: Maximus was mortally wounded by Commodus before the fight, but in the last combat on the arena defeated the emperor out of revenge and desire to kill the bloody ruler [Gram, 2000, p.235]. Thus his death was not the death of a gladiator, but of a hero of the Roman people. The movie is more optimistic the duel takes place, Maximus slaughters the emperor and then reestablishes the ruling body of senators as the authority of Rome. By doing this he finally took the revenge of his family murder. One of the leading Gladiator's themes is life of Roman gladiators and the idea that supremacy comes from controlling the crowd. Particularly, the book showed that victorious gladiators were those who did not simply satisfy the crowd's longing for blood, but did it in an unusual spectacular way [Gram, 2000; Shadrake, 2005]. Those fighters who became the publics favorites, could some day got freed by their owners or buy themselves out of slavery [Shadrake, 2005, p.243]. From my point of view the book is a very well structured and narrated story along with a great movie. Indeed, the film was considered too violent for the experience of many viewers, too basic for the intellectual viewers, and possibly too obviously and stunningly violent for the distinguished sensibility of many committed souls, yet I think it can make the viewers question some very essential issues which are not usually taken seriously. Every globe has its own outward appearance of holiness as well as its own outward appearance of tardiness and destructiveness. In general I liked the way the author used historical issues as a key point and used them skillfully in very different manner. In addition, I watched the movie, and to my mind all the actors played great roles with the action going in clear sequences. The Gladiator movie has rating above average which means that most of the people liked it.

Dewey Gram Gladiator Works Cited Gram, D. (2000). Gladiator. Onyx; First Edition. ISBN-10: 0451409477. Shadrake, S. (2005). The world of the gladiator. Tempus. ISBN-10: 075243442X.