LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Sample Student Midterms 2005
Complete In-Class Essay Example Z

Lori Nolen
June 20, 2005 

Midterm Exam

Upon registering for Literature of the Future, I had reservations and a timorous attitude.  Literature of the Future, to me, meant rocket science, destruction, the “bomb”, and technical advances that would be far beyond my understanding.  The preconceived idea also included a male-dominated future as a result of growing up watching “Star Trek” reruns and other shows in which men were the successful protagonists and women merely appropriately placed props for male gratuity and plot assistance. 

During the first class I realized that the course would not be something only “Trekkies” could appreciate but that the course was similar to the Immigrant Literature course taken in the past.  The human element and condition is a large factor in both courses and the narratives we have read so far this semester are about people envisioning the future, surviving the immediate future, and wondering “what if.”  I do not believe there is a major difference in our current narratives and those which venture into the possibilities of Hell, as Dante did, the social clashes of class and race as often found in Shakespeare, and the insight into the extraordinary skill and will of youth as in Literature of Adolescence.

Narratives of the future tell of the imaginative possibilities.  Apocalyptic narratives are linear and have an appeal that destruction is in the immediate future.  St. John the Divine foresees the ultimate judgment of humans in “The Revelation.”  He describes a fiery hell of destruction for those who do not follow the prescribed rule for reward.  Mary Clements’ discussion presentation gives a possibility to the prophetic style of apocalyptic writing that the narrative is written, “in a motivational speaker kind of way.  In forcing people to understand they have to get up everyday and suffer through their day and make tough choices, but if they survive long enough the rewards will be great.”  Modern apocalyptic movies, especially 80s nuclear war movies, echo this idea.  Parable of the Sower has an apocalyptic beginning, but after the destruction of her neighborhood, the evolutionary narrative emerges.  Her training and preparation aids her in the game of the survival of the fittest.  However, the timeline of Parable is similar to “The Revelation.”  Both begin in a protected garden followed with the fall and a messiah figure and the return to a peaceful environment for some.

The evolutionary narrative is a future based on the ability to adapt, or as Michelle Glenn states in her 2001 midterm, the “evolutionary narrative is a cyclic form of literature that is based on the concept of change.”  Lauren must learn to adapt to the life outside the walls her neighborhood.  She can no longer depend on others to help her, yet, because of her skills and preparation, she can quickly adapt to blending both the idea of community and individual survival.  She learns from her friends’ new survival skills they possess which will all benefit the group as a whole.  Terry Bisson’s “Bears Discover Fire” reinforces this idea as he writes about bears discovering fire.  As he watches the bears around a fire, he sees that “only a few of the bears knew how to use fire, and were carrying the others along” (27), but eventually the bears with the knowledge will teach the others.

The alternative narrative gives total freedom to the mind’s imagination of all the branches and possible paths of what might develop on the future.  With these possibilities exists a message of responsibility and yet another forked path.  Will those with the ability to travel to and create alternative futures accept the responsibility or dismiss it in pursuit of desire?

The social imbalance is a key component to most of the literature we have read.  In “Genesis,” life outside God’s protective walls of Eden leads people to build walls, trying to reconstruct the idea of security and abundance as the reward to those who follow the correct path.   Parable of the Sower examines the struggle between the “Haves” and “Have Nots” and the walls built to separate them.    H.G. Well’s Time Machine continues this depiction of separation of the workers and elite to the level of having two races descendant of man. 

Some of the short stories have an evolution of the caveman feel as bears discover how to use fire and sit around together sharing nuts from a hubcap dish or men beating computers as if he was discovering ways to open a coconut.  These stories seem to bridge the narratives of the general class struggle to more specific examples of class struggles of the First and Third World variety.  “Mozart in Mirrorshades” reveals the pillaging of alternative worlds for the benefit of those in Real Time who have the means to travel back and forth while “Stone Lives” displays the world of the poor “immigrants” and the wealthy and affluent.  Gibson’s alternative world is successful in achieving a Nazi-similar, white existence, which appears to exclude other ethnicities in the narrator’s vision, which is apparent domination of one ethnicity or class over another, and acceptance to killing and taking what is wanted or needed because there is a balance of all things since there are many forking realities and futures is explained in “Garden of Forking Paths.” 

My view of the future, before this class, was of the apocalyptic variety.  Even as I watched movies and television shows about space exploration and the abilities to travel into time, there was always a key apocalyptic point, which created the new future.  I can see now that I had the concept of the apocalyptic-evolutionary blend of the future with a hope or interest in the alternative.  The game of “what if” can be entertaining on the trivial level until you delve into the possibilities on the global scale and reaching beyond.  By understanding this, I can believe that this background will help me in understanding utopias, dystopias, and ecotopias which have always seemed just out of reach of my understanding.

Is the future written or being written?  Since reading Parable of the Sower, the first narrative after the familiar “The Revelation,” I have decided that the future is written on a large scale, but that we write our individual futures.  I believe that we are constantly faced with the fork in the road, with the choice to follow one path over another but that we ultimately end up where we are meant to be.  My idea is that the future is linear and written, but the individuals and events have more of an alternative reality of forks, branches, and even multiple rolls of the dice as their path from beginning to the mortal end and choices beyond that.