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(2019
premidterm assignment) Model Midterm answers 2019 (Index) Essay 1: Compare, contrast, and evaluate Narratives of the Future |
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Ruth Brown
24 February 2019
Beginning or Beginning Again
When I began this course, I had no idea what to expect or how we would study
literature of the future. I am very inexperienced with the genre of science or
speculative fiction and usually avoid dystopian stories. I shouldn’t
have been surprised that a major theme is time and structure, but I was. I found
it interesting to learn that the course would be primarily divided into three
narratives of the future, creation/apocalypse, evolution, and alternative.
The first narrative introduced was
creation/apocalypse and I found this pretty clear to understand, especially in
the context of reading texts like Genesis and Revelation. This
narrative has a linear path of beginning, middle, end and might be more easy for
the human brain to comprehend. In Genesis, we are presented with the
creation of the world, then scripture proceeds to follow human history, and then
Revelation gives a vision for the end of the world. Parable of the
Sower picks up this linear narrative and mirrors scriptural events. I didn’t
realize how similar they were until reading Laura Wilson’s essay where she
points out that Lauren begins the story in a community that is a utopia compared
to the world outside of it, but she is then forced out and must face trials
outside of it before beginning a new “utopian-esque”
community. This linear timeline works well in literature as stories have a
beginning, middle, and end.
In comparison, evolution is different from
creation/apocalypse in that it is presented on a much larger scale, is not so
human focused, and is not linear, but rather like a spiral with no set beginning
or ending. There are lots of interconnected parts and the purpose is progress.
“Bears Discover Fire” is a great example of how unclear evolution can be at
times. Just as the title suggests, bears discover fire and start using it to
keep warm now that they are not hibernating in the winter. The bears seem calm
and intelligent and there are even theories that they had previously discovered
fire, but had forgot due to their hibernation. In this case, there is no clear
beginning and there are questions of when bears started evolving to this level,
how long it has taken, and if they have evolved in other ways.
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