LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Sample Student final exams 2007

Lindsey Kerckhoff

2 July 2007

Start: 1:30

End: 3:46

Questions and Answers

Could something like this actually happen to us?  Is a question that comes up often when one is reading science fiction.  Although I admit that a reader has to remember that science fiction is written to entertain it also at times (no matter how unbelievable it may be) causes the reader to think and ponder the reality that they live in and the reality that could one day be.  In class we often discussed that what is considered unbelievable may not be that far off, we mentioned zombie and alien scenarios, the earth being destroyed and people being forced to live as scavengers and finally the idea of humans, as we know them, not existing at all.  Although all of these thinks seem highly unlikely to us today, science fiction forces the reader to think about what one might would do or think when faced with these situations. 

In these stories we are shown possible outcomes through different visions of the future, for example would it be better to for a utopia if the earth was threatened or to simply try to stop it with men and weapons.  These visions of the future help the reader to relate things to the world they live in.  The stories that take place in the near future or are low tech tend to be more believable then the stories that are in deep future because it is to far off for us to comprehend.

            In “The Onion and I” and “Drapes and Folds” there are two different visions of the future.  In both of these stories there is a quest for a utopia or a perfect world.  In “Onion” the family is trying to form a perfect life in virtual reality. Everything they do is in a computer generated world.  This idea seems perfect because there is no crime or sickness it is just exactly what the family wants it to be; however, the father begins to miss his old “hands on” life.  He expresses this by trying to virtually recreate the onion and when he is unable to do this the reader can see that virtual reality will never replace the real feelings and emotions that humans have.  In “Drapes and Folds” the vision of the future is similar except everyone is actually going through this change for a utopia.  The characters live in a world where everything is monitored and there is no sickness it has been cured after a cancer epidemic.  In the story people must give up their individuality in order to better the world around them fashion has become nonexistent as we know it today because everyone must wear the same things.  It appears that one cannot have this perfect world without giving up a part of our humanity.  Both of these stories seem to share the theme that it may not be worth giving up a part of ourselves.

“Onion” and “Drapes” share a utopian view of the future but they are different in how they present that vision.  “Onion appears to be a story with a high tech vision of the future where everything is clean, unreal, and there is an ease with power.  In actuality the story is low tech because where the family actually lives when they are not in there virtual world is in the same world we live in today.  It is only the virtual world that is high tech but that world is not real, In “Drapes” the vision of the future is in fact high tech because they live at ease with technology for the most part and the world is clean and advanced.       

In “Speech Sounds” the main character, Rye, is trying to get to her brother in Pasadena but the world around her is completely chaotic and it is very much an every man for himself situation.  People have lost the ability to speak or read and communication has gotten very basic.  This is a low tech view of the world.  This world is also a dystopia; because there is no technology to speak of and it is all about individual survival.  This story brings up a debate that is mentioned often in regards to science fiction: is it better to try to stay in a community or survive on your own?  In “Speech Sounds” Rye thinks that she wants to be alone but yet joins people on two occasions and I think that she wants to be needed and has a desire to be with others.  This story left me feeling that it would be better to be with other people because they provide hope and something to live for.

            In “The Belonging Kind” Coretti is a man that has always felt alien to the people around him and for the first time he sees people (actually aliens) that fit in no matter where they go.  This story presents a very scary question, could aliens be among us?  When Coretti realizes that he had always been an alien he just had not changed yet the story started to make the reader think about seeing aliens as something other then little green creatures that run around trying to dissect everything the story suggests that maybe they could be just like humans and want to blend in.  In “The Poplar Street Study” the alien invasion was not as undetected as in “Belonging”.  The aliens have taken over a street and are studying the people by slightly changing their lifestyles.  This story was very entertaining but presented the idea of alien invasion in a very unbelievable way.  Although the story was unbelievable it makes the reader think about how adaptable would one be able to be in this situation.  Ultimately a person would not have a choice but to adapt, but they could make it can an easy or hard transition. 

            What is so unique about science fiction is that is makes the reader contemplate lots of questions that they do not come across very often.  Emily Seiver presented Mad Max and the class debated about the idea of the thunder dome as a way to solve crime.  Although it is tempting to just put all the criminals in a room together this idea would never work in actuality because you would only have the good fighters left and they could rule over the weaker people.  In a few of the stories this is how things were solved. In Parable of the Sower and “Speech Sounds” the world was so chaotic that people had to take justice into their own hands.  Reading these stories made me ask myself what I would do in that situation.  Although other forms of literature do make people think and ask questions, Science fiction forces you to look at yourself and the entire human race much closer.  I agree with Bryan Lestarjette in his 2005 final, “The purpose of science fiction and its related genres is to examine the potential consequences of the decisions we make today.”

            Literature of the future opens the eyes of students to ask questions and to think about the unknown and this is encouraging.  I found the cyberpunk stories the hardest to follow.  “Johnny Mnemonic” in particular was hard for me to read because it did not make me ask myself questions, when I had finished reading this story I had finished thinking about it all together.  I found this story to be cold and very technical.  Although I was very excited about cyberpunk I found that I am much more interested in the traveling into the past or future stories. 

            Literature of the future has made me really question what makes us, humans, the way we are.  I think that this is important and although I thought about it occasionally prior to this course I find this course has made me feel that it is a big concern for many people.  This course has also led me to really think about the decisions I make and how my decisions can affect more people then just myself.  Not only did most of the stories entertain me but they made me continue thinking about the questions they raised after I had stopped them and started another.  Overall this course has widened my reading taste to a genre I had not thought about before.