LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Sample Student Final Exams 2011 Essay 2

Katherine Fellows

Linguistic and Technological Evolution

          While writing my midterm essay, I had a general feeling that writing, as all things, may one day evolve into something better--advance and become obsolete. After completing the second half of LITR 4632, I remain skeptical of the permanence of written language, but I am also reminded of the humble beginnings of the written word.

          In Robert Silverberg's "House of Bones," the narrator travels backwards in time to an early, low-tech society that communicates mostly through spoken words. The people of this time period seem content in their communicative options--for the chieftain of the tribe, the narrator's "silence seems good enough"--but misunderstandings abound (87). The narrator, unable to fully communicate under these circumstances, misses crucial information about his assignment; he travels into the wilderness to kill the new stranger, when his friends merely asked him to bring the stranger back to the village. The villagers believe misguided stories about the Scavenger Folk, passed down through generations "by bards like Paul in the epics. None of them has ever actually seen a Scavenger. But they sure seem to detest them" (89). Perhaps due to the impermanence of spoken language, "everyone gives everyone else his own private set of names"--"a confusing system," according to the narrator (93). The narrator explains that he "want[s] to learn that epic of theirs and write it down for you to read" in an attempt to preserve some part of their culture. While the people of this ancient civilization could teach modern-day humans much about humanity, we could never have access to their knowledge, simply because, despite having existed for thousands of years, without a written language, their society lacks permanence within an evolutionary timeline.

          Likewise, in Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," undeveloped language leads to confusion and unnecessary violence. The story opens with "[t]wo young men […] involved in a disagreement of  some kind," "grunting and gesturing at each other" (91). Unable to discern why the characters are quarreling, "people watched the pair, then looked at one another and made small anxious sounds" (91). Unable to prevent the fight without knowing its cause, the bus riders look on worriedly until chaos eventually ensues. Without a well-developed language, "[t]here was no more LAPD, no more any large organization, governmental or private. There were neighborhood patrols and armed individuals. That was all"--while humans are a naturally social species, without language, society fell into disarray (94). Without being able to discern probable cause or effectively group, preventing crime became difficult (94). Butler, like Silverberg, presents a depiction of society without language, albeit lost language. However, because Silverberg's society is relatively primitive in terms of technology and mass collaboration, his villagers are able to function as a cohesive group. In contrast, Butler's society serves as an argument for the importance of literacy in modern cultures; the evolution of language has allowed us to progress to the level of technology and knowledge that we have today, and without it, our society would likely fall apart. Butler's Parable of the Sower depicts this same theme; Earthseed is born from the mind of a literate, educated individual--an apparent rarity in that future's society--and brings promise and hope to its group of founding followers. Butler, then, seems to believe in the importance of literacy, both spoken and written.

          In William Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic," however, the written word appears to be obsolete. Johnny himself is a testament to the futility of written language and its literal insecurities--anyone can access the knowledge it communicates, regardless of one's intended audience. Johnny serves as a reminder of times when knowledge was meant to be passed on between people, not widely accessible, and how an idea could die alongside those who gave it life. Gibson's "Hinterlands" also emphasizes this view; those cosmonauts who travel to the "Highway" and are taken return insane, yet apparently full of knowledge--thus the creation of "Heaven." Attempts to send unmanned spacecraft on the Highway fail, but desperate for more cures for cancer, cosmonauts continue to venture out and, always overwhelmed by the knowledge and experiences they attain, continue to commit suicide. "Hinterlands" presents a society in which both written and spoken language fails to adequately communicate the ideas of an apparently much more advanced civilization, indicating Gibson's view that, in order to advance, we must evolve past both written and spoken words to a true exchange of ideas.

          Since the midterm, then, my ideas about language and literacy have not changed. I still believe that, in order to advance as a civilization, we must find better ways to communicate. Music, for instance, communicates through sound what written notes cannot, and in this spirit, I believe that our current form of written language will eventually become obsolete. As in "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Hinterlands," I find that while our society is technologically and socially capable, we have much time to evolve.