LITR 4632: Literature of
the Future
Sample Student final exams 2007
Paula Upham
July 1, 2007
“Science Fiction and the Pursuit of Happiness”
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the Declaration of Independence. This is, after all, what we all strive to obtain, what we all want and believe we deserve. Many of the stories that we have read in Literature of the Future as well as have been brought to our attention in the future presentations attempt to achieve this basic right that we all want to achieve. What I have found to be a common theme among many of the selections and the future presentations is “the pursuit of happiness” or the ultimate goal of obtaining a utopian society. However, as we found in our studies obtaining a utopian society it is not so easy.
The attempt to achieve a utopian society seems to come with a whole new degree of disagreements and complications. We are presented with attempts of bettering our society and creating a utopian society but at what cost? How far are we willing to go to create this perfect society? Does it mean living a restricted life with complete loss of emotion? I discovered that attempting to obtain this perfect society or utopia usually meant restriction of some sort or another. How much “utopia” can be gained when all individuals act the same, dress the same and are essentially devoid of any emotions?
When people think of the future they usually think of progressing, moving forward, solving problems. However, many of the stories that we read which demonstrated efforts towards creating this greater society seemed to, in my opinion, fail miserably. This can be seen Newton’s Sleep. Although the individuals in this story attempt to create a society that escapes the harsh viruses that are infesting Earth and move to a better healthier society, the past cannot be forgotten and the individuals eventually begin to hallucinate and imagine everything they are missing. In my mind, these hallucinations portray individuals who are not exactly in complete bliss. If they are dreaming of what they are missing even though they are living among the chosen, most intelligent, “perfect” people then they are lacking something and thus have failed in creating the perfect utopian society.
In The Onion and I a utopian society is attempted in the virtual reality world. The sterile environment depicts a world devoid of emotions such as is evident in the wedding of the narrator’s parents in Cyberspace: “My mother had downloaded graphics for the rings and the final kiss, and her chat group keyed in cheers, congratulations and best wishes – everything but their tears” (VN 9). How sad that something as beloved as a wedding ceremony is reduced to a chat room and thought of as such an insignificant event. The virtual world that this family lives in is incomprehensible to me. To give up something that is as important and precious as human contact is unimaginable. This is something that cannot be replaced by anything technology can create. The father tries to relate to his son the senses that are missing from his life such as being able to touch, smell and taste onions and illustrates how he desperately craves for and yearns for what he once had. So, once again, the attempt at this utopian society fails as there is no true utopia present.
In Drapes and Folds, who can blame Pearl when she tries to hold onto her fabrics in order to have some connection to her past? I can’t. She has already been confronted with the fact that her granddaughter is half robot and her best friend has been “swept” of any memories of the past and, therefore, “hardened” to any emotions. After all, who wants to live a life in which everyone is the same or without any emotion or desire to connect to one another? Although, the story ends on a nice note with her grand-daughter calling her “Gran” and offering to hide some of her fabrics for her; the mere fact that they have to hide personal effects that mean so much to her hints at an unsuccessful attempt at utopia. As Bryan Lestarjette notes in his 2005 final exam, “The goals are hardly evil, and in fact promote good health, but the result is oppression and prohibition of personal expression and style” (BL 2005). Can oppression of anything: emotions, personal effects, memories, really be seen as a successful utopia? I think not.
While most of the stories travel to the future, to a place beyond our time to attempt to create this great utopian society, House of Bones travels to the past. Ironically, House of Bones seems to be the only successful attempt at utopia. Perhaps it is a successful utopian society because it is not relying on mechanical or technical devices but on humanity and compassion towards others. Perhaps, the secret is going back, going back to a time when humans connected with one another and offered empathy and friendship to one another which seems to be devoid in Octavia Butler’s Parable of Sower and Speech Sounds. Both of these stories depict situations where humans do not work together but against one another. Humans are killing one another as a means of survival and not working together. Human compassion and humanity could have gone a long way in these stories and do eventually make an appearance towards the end of both stories where things begin to look up and move forward.
The attempt to not only create but live in and survive in a utopian society without dealing with the loss of something is a great feat that has been attempted in many of the stories that we have read this semester. To create a true utopia, I believe all memory of the past would have to be erased. If any trace of the past were left, there would always be a feeling that something was missing; whether it was our own personal style, our sense of taste or touch or our desire to freely love and express emotions on our own accord. As discussed in class numerous times throughout the semester, people will form connections with the past and relate their past to others as long as humanly possible. Should the government or some other group try to regiment people and their lives, even if for the betterment of society, there would always be some form of resistance. People would always remember the past and their ability to dress how they desired, think what they wanted to and feel all the emotions that life inadvertently brings about. However, these stories offer us great perspective and can teach us something if we are open enough to allow them to. Although, fiction, they are important because we can open up and envision what they have to teach us. They are important because we are humans invested in our future and what it has to offer us.
I, personally, will definitely be much more aware of the messages of our blockbuster movies and great literary pieces and what they have to offer and teach us. While some of the stories are far-fetched, such as traveling through time in The Time Machine and Mozart in Mirrorshades, there are many stories that depict scenarios that are probably not too far off in our own future. For example, the online wedding ceremony in The Onion and I is probably just around the corner in on our own cyber world. After all, the World Wide Web can take you just about anywhere you want to go. While an attempt at programming us all to forget all our memories and past lives, as Diana does in Drapes and Folds sounds far-fetched, I can envision people implanting special computerized chips in children or even full grown adults to make them behave in a certain manner. Although, admittedly it is on a much smaller scale, this is already evident with the ADHD medications that are pushed and peddled on parents around the country today. One would think that the movie Dana presented in class, The Island, and its idea of creating clones for spare body parts and using selective mutations is pretty out there as well; however, determining if you would rather have a boy or a girl child is upon us now and some individuals are simply “ordering” what sex they desire and the idea of cloning is not totally unheard of. Who knows where technology will lead us in the future?
As much as we try to imagine or foretell what the future holds with some of us even going so far as to seek psychic counsel, we do not definitely know what awaits us ahead. We can make predictions and as weathermen try to predict the weather, we can attempt to forecast what we think is coming, but we have no way of knowing for sure. We still have uncertainty, and that is why science fiction is so important. It takes us to places that are only imaginable and stretches our comprehension of our world as we know it. More than anything, this course has taught me how important this genre of literature is to our world. I now believe that it is an important genre that deserves recognition. As I mentioned in my midterm, I hope that as an educator I can open the eyes of a few students to this genre and expand their world of literature to include science fiction. I look forward to listening to the perspective of adolescents about what they have read and believe about our future. I hope to lead these students in classroom discussions that will be just as enlightening as they have been in this class. I hope to help my students understand how we can use science fiction stories and what they can teach us.
So, imagine my surprise when I was taking a break from writing this essay and discovered in the Houston Chronicle on the front page of the Zest section a question asking: “Is There a Future for Serious Sci-Fi?” What? Of course, there is a future. Science Fiction is by no means dead. It has so much to offer us and teach us. The article which is entitled, “The Future of Futurism” discusses just that. It states that science fiction is so much more than “rubber faced aliens” or as Jenna would put it “zombies walking around everywhere” but “can offer visions of humankind freed from poverty, racism and the horrors of war” (HC). Just the words I was looking for. I could not have said it better myself. However, let me sum it up in my own words. Science fiction and the futuristic tales it has to recount offer us another approach to the ultimate goal of finally succeeding at and obtaining the “pursuit of happiness”. Wow, I would never have guessed that this course would offer me such insight into the future of our universe and offer me ways on which to expand and grow that awareness in such a short period of time.