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LITR 4368 Literature of the Future  |
Sample answers
for Essay 2:
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(Melissa's essay below combines a rewrite of her midterm Essay 2 with an extension for the final.)
Melissa South
Saving Society Continued
In
nearly each vision, or scenario, I have read about in this course concerning the
future, I have noticed a common theme; whether the work is considered high-tech,
low-tech, cyberpunk, or one of the “topia’s,” the commonality of social strife
is relevant in majority of the reading. Coming into this course I expected to
gain experience and knowledge of literature in a genre that I did not have much
previous interaction with, and the message I keep receiving through my analysis
is that we need to make certain changes concerning our society, before societal
divisions turn into the cause of the downfall of the human race.
The Bible shows a separation
in our society, but it is between the religious and the non-religious. Thanks to
laws like Separation of Church and State, we are (thankfully) allowed to
practice whichever religion we feel suits our needs, and we are not a nation
controlled by any one religion in particular. I do not think this is a gap that
needs to be bridged, for it infringes upon personal beliefs and freedoms, but
further into the works we have encountered, readers are addressed with gaps
among wealth and availability of resources. Lauren, in
Parable of the Sower, makes a comment
on how those who have little look rich, and worth robbing, to those who have
nothing. Another example of this can be seen in the short film
Elegy that Victoria Webb presented
during her future vision presentation. In
Elegy, the viewer is presented the concepts of thieving and bartering during
the end of times, as in Parable, and
we see how the man and woman are not satisfied with just getting some clean
water, but they also want a small pack that the protagonist is carrying. Greed
is prominent in society, even now in the year 2015. Like in the film
Elegy, greed can get you killed. Has
that not been seen in our current times? There have been countless news stories,
across the ages, that model how having your cake and eating it too has gotten
people, rich or poor, in tight, not so delightful, situations. Adaptations of
the future like these go to show that most assume the nature of people will not
change, but eliminating greed could be a change that is vital for our survival;
therefore, society needs to make efforts to bridge the gap between being greedy
and being humble.
Class
divisions are another aspect of society that future narratives bring to the
forefront of my attention. In H.G. Wells’
The Time Machine, the Traveler theorizes that humans split into two separate
species that branch from the wealthy capitalists and the underappreciated
laborers. Capitalists have mutated into a small, weak, undisciplined, and
uneducated species known as the Eloi, which sounds similar to “elite,” and the
laborers have mutated into a stronger, slightly more intelligent, nocturnal,
ape-like species, known has the Morlocks, who have been forced to live and work
underground. The Morlocks provide the Eloi with all they need to sustain life,
but the Eloi have also become the primary food source, or prey, for the working
creatures. The Traveler recognizes that if society keeps running the way it does
in his time that it will eventually result in this, and he is outraged at the
decline humanity has made, instead of all the amazing progress he had originally
dreamt about. A similar example of class divisions in exhibited in the short
story, “Stone Lives.” There are the wealthy capitalists that live in protected
skyscrapers, like Alice and June, which reside in territories bought out by big
businesses. On the other hand, there are unclaimed sections of land and cities
that have fallen into crime and poverty, such as the Bungle, where Stone lives.
Stone is hired by Alice and gets to study a world which he never knew existed,
and he was able to use his experiences from the Bungle to compare it to;
Stone realizes by the end that this world of division needed saving, and
that it was now his job to “clean up this whole goddamn mess” (201).
In
cyberpunk literature, a societal partition I identified is how humans keep
trying to improve themselves through the use, or physiological implantation, of
technology – where is the division between human and machine? In “Stone Lives,”
Stone’s eyes were gouged during his time in the Bungle, but in order to work for
Alice, he is given new, electronic eyes that can do a number of features (like
recording, taking video, and storing). There have been a number of technological
advances in the world of medicine, such as Lasik surgery to give people 20/20
eyesight, cochlear implants to help the deaf hear, and prosthetics to give limbs
to the limbless. But how far is too far? June, a woman who guides Stone in
“Stone Lives”, has implants under her skin that can make her glow like a
firefly. While Stone’s implants are useful, as humans view sight as a necessity,
June, on the other hand, just seems petty and frivolous. Another example of
human alteration into machine can be found in “Johnny Mnemonic,” where Johnny
has a storage implant in his brain and makes a living by allowing clients to
download important, confidential information there for storage, as well as in
“Burning Chrome,” where Rikki and her friends get eye enhancement implants and
she strives to get more procedures done to look like famous stars in magazines.
There is a division in society today between pretty and ugly, or fit and unfit,
and with advancements in technology, more and more people are able to look how
society says is pleasing, or they are more capable in a world where anything
less than perfection is not good enough. Humans need to discover where to draw a
line before there is no more humanity left, just identical robots with skin for
shells.
Octavia Butler’s short story “Speech Sounds,” draws attention to a new kind of
societal division, and perhaps in an unconventional way. In the dystopic story,
a disease epidemic plagued the world, killing probably hundreds of thousands,
but leaving even more without the ability to memorize, write, read, or speak.
People “communicate” via grunts and groans, even body language, but it is highly
ineffective. I think this story speaks, pardon the pun, measures concerning
education and communication. The population of illiterates is lower than what it
used to be, but still remains extraordinarily high considering all the resources
the world has to offer. We need to
bridge the gap between countries such as the U.S. and China to those less
fortunate, third-world countries, not only when it comes to basic resources,
such as clean water, but with setting up schools and educational resources.
Language is still a firm barrier that is hard to overcome, and efforts need to
be made across borders around the world in order to become more effective at
working and speaking alongside one another. I think attention is also drawn to
how technology is crippling humanity when it comes to direct communication.
Because of tablets, cell phones, and Facebook, nobody has to literally
talk to anyone anymore, they can just
“plug in.” Writing is a dying art form; I heard on the radio that 27% of people
have never hand-written a letter before, and that is astounding. If humans do
not disengage from technology and bridge the gap that has been placed between
them and the physicality of other human beings, we could wind up in a
communicatively ineffective dystopia like that found in “Speech Sounds.”
While
majority of the literature of the future we have encountered addresses how
divided the world has become, I think one vision of the future genre brings
everything and everyone back together: alien invasions. Think of it - in films
such as Independence Day, the nation
comes together and we fight back for our freedom from the aliens, led by the
ever charming and heroic Will Smith. In the short story “The Poplar Street
Study,” the reader is first presented with neighbors who all live on the same
street, but live very different and conflicting lives, such as the Simpsons and
Martins having issues over a dog (140). Suddenly, when they are invaded and
entrapped by an alien race, these neighbors slowly come together and start to
work together, such as finding and dividing the food resources they are
provided. While alien invasion is not a concern in the “Hinterlands,” there are
teams of psychologists and mediators coming together to try to save returning
space highway victims from psychological illness, scars, and suicide. These
characters know there is something alien out there that keeps inflicting pain
and mental horror on the people that travel into space, but it remains unknown
as to what or why it keeps happening. Either way, when something alien or
unknown threatens us, humans, as a species, we tend to band together to fight
back and get through it. Easy to recall examples are true events such as 9-11 or
Hurricane Katrina, both of which destroyed thousands of lives, but the country
banded together to support and help those affected by the tragedy. If humanity
could learn to act like this all the time, and bridge the gap among social
divisions, then perhaps there would be a better ending in store for humanity.
