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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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Tim Doherty
24 February 2019
Tomorrow is a Mirror
Aristotle said that a story “is that which
has a beginning, a middle, and an end” (qtd. in White). Creation/Apocalypse
narratives represent a linear flow of time which, in theory, closely resembles
Aristotle’s simple model. In practice; however, none of the stories we have
studied this semester follow such a simple plot. The biblical narratives Genesis
and Revelation come the closest, but only as long as we ignore the remainder of
the Bible in which civilizations rise and fall, and even the constant character
of God changes to suit changing times and the manifold motives of that story’s
many tellers.
The evolutionary narrative of future literature acknowledges and experiments
with the way our Universe appears to function. Time generally flows in one
direction, but cycles of life and death, oppression and revolution, rebirth and
decay pulse and flicker in interesting and iterations within the bounds of
realistic or imagined rules. In Parable
of the Sower, Octavia Butler embraces evolution by placing her characters in
the middle of a slow-burning apocalypse which the protagonist Lauren hopes will
allow her to put humanity on a path that embraces the constant change which
people tend to ignore out of fear or habit.
These narratives and the alternative future stories we will study later this
semester provide rough skeletons around which writers build unique plots which
often serve as vehicles for examining our past and present. A common observation
among students who took this course in the past is that speculative fiction
allows writers to examine societal and personal anxieties.
Clark Omo’s statement that science fiction “serves as the vector through which
the readers can explore the possibilities, both optimistic and frightening, that
lie ahead” sums up how narratives of the future fit into the literary canon.
Science fiction is a broad genre that is often generalized as commercial art
with little literary value, but there have been exceptional authors over the
years who have abstracted the conflicts of the present through the imaginary
sandbox of the future.
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