LITR 4632 Literature of the Future

Sample Student Midterms 2009

Veronica Nadalin

Academic Application to the Sci-Fi Genre 

My first impression when I saw that Literature of the Future was going to be offered, like Cheryl Voskamp, I went "Yes! Sci fi!"  I was intrigued by what the material of the course would be.  I would ask family members and friends about what they thought the professor would teach.  Some answered that the class would look at contemporary authors from all genres in order to see which direction literature was heading.  The more common answer was "those weird books that are classified in their own sections in libraries and bookstores" or devoured by "geeky white guys."  For me, I got the impression that we would look at contemporary works of science fiction.  I must admit that I was both surprised and excited to see The Time Machine on the syllabus.  The books is one of my all-time favorites, but was published over a hundred years ago. 

            After the first class day, I understood the meaning of the course, to look at how people see the future through various points of time.  I never thought to classify the narratives in science fiction as "apocalyptic," "evolutionary," or "alternative," even though I had subconsciously done so. 

            The power of language is what separates man from other forms of life on the planet.  Even before the concept of writing came about, man would tell stories that would pass down from generation to generation, in order to develop and preserve a certain identity for that particular culture.  The forms in which these traditions were told were, apocalyptic, evolutionary, and alternative. 

            Apocalyptic narrative is a more accessible and popular form of future narrative.  Its structure is linear and does not cover as large of a time span.  Humans have difficulty understanding the concept of time.  I, myself, can only plan a few months ahead of time without feeling overwhelmed by the mammoth time beast.  (Honestly, it hurts my head to compute such things.)  With that being said, that is why "Genesis," "The Book of Revelations," the "Little Apocalypse," and "On Rapture" continue to be read today.  From a literary perspective, these stories are the paramount of the apocalyptic style narrative.  After all, “Revelations” discusses what will happen when the time comes for the Apocalypse to happen.  “Genesis tells of how the world was created, step-by-step and is linear; it has a beginning and an end.  “Little Apocalypse” and “On Rapture” are commentaries on “Genesis” and “Revelations”, strengthening the time line that the later two had laid out about the Earth.

            The evolutionary narrative is a much more expansive and detailed form of narrative (in comparison to apocalyptic), that can be a difficult concept to grasp, even for the most educated people.  The evolutionary narrative is like a cycle.  There's a beginning, middle, and an end- a rise and decline of a civilization, replaced by another.  Historically, the Roman Empire comes to mind when thinking about this concept.  So far this semester, Butler's Parable of Sower, "Bears Discover Fire," and "Stone Lives" fit into this category.  In Parable, Lauren's America has fallen into complete and utter chaos.  Mankind is on the downfall and her journey is all about overcoming the anarchy by moving north.  In a sense, here Laruen and her companions are reestablishing a society, a new sort of mankind.  In "Bears" bears are discovering things that humans have now overlooked and do not pay attention to because humans have already “Evolved” from such discoveries.  "Stone Lives" looks into the power of technology and how it one day could evolve humans into a sort of different super-species, creating great contrasts in the levels of society.

The Time Machine encompasses both elements of evolutionary and apocalyptic narrative.  It is apocalyptic, because something drastic happened to mankind in order for it to split off into two races: the Eloi and the Morlocks.  It is also then evolutionary because humans had to evolve into those two separate species.  Also, when the Time Traveler travels even farther into the future, he sees giant crab-like creatures and other strange beings that had previously not existed, indicating that those species had to evolve somehow or another.

"Mozart in Mirrorshades," "The Garden of Forking Paths," and "The Gernsback Continuum" all deal with alternate realities. "Mirrorshades" looks into the “what ifs?” of history and the possible consequences that technology and knowledge can have on a person or a culture.  After Mozart hears his music on a tape, he sees no reason to compose any more music.  The people from the modern culture, such as Rice do not care about their interactions with the historical figures of this parallel reality because it has no affect on their own.  This attitude is the question that the author is asking: what is ethical? "Forking Paths" looks into the complexity of time, history, and presences.  The line "Then I reflected that everything happens to a man precisely, precisely now" stuck with me after reading it.  By inserting this line in here, Borges, the author, coerces the reader to think about mankind's definition of time and presence, and the speed in which both travel. The concepts of "The Gernsback Continuum" were the same as "Mozart" and "Forking Paths" in the sense that it dealt with the concepts of ethics and alternate realities, but it had a different feel to it.  Gibson's brilliant descriptions made the architecture and mindset of the piece easier to picture for the reader, which made up for the intricate detail of scientific terms such as "a single wave-length of probability."  The order in which we read the stories built on each other in complexity. "Mozart" helped prepare us for "Forking Path's", which in turn prepared us for "Gernsback."