Reader's Choice

As this course comes to an end I really feel like I have an in depth understanding of Sci-Fi as a genre in literature. This has caused me to have even more of a love of these works which is saying a lot! I originally took this class because I had enjoyed a few books that fell into the futuristic dystopian area of Sci-Fi, I loved The Twilight Zone, and my dad had always been a huge fan of the genre.

Due to the fact that we haven’t covered this particular sub-genre of sci-fi and it was my dad’s favorite, I chose to pick Time Travel as my Reader’s Choice Topic. I think that time-travel is a super important aspect of Sci-Fi. Although it wasn’t really popularized till H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” in 1895”. Authors then started to explore the idea of technological time travel. This caused a “boom” in time travel literature around the 1950’s.

Some of the common themes that are exemplified in time travel over and over again are:

-Changing the Past/Future: This can be to create a positive outcome or reverse a negative one

-The Future Protectors: People who must protect the past and future from other travelers who might change it

- Unintentionally Altering the Future: People will change something in time that causes detrimental effects on the future.

I chose to read three short stories for this presentation, “All You Zombies-“by Robert A. Heinlein, “The Skull” by Philip K. Dick, and “A sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury. These three stories show all of the classic themes in time travel that I mentioned before. I of course go more in depth of these themes in my presentation.

Below I attached the video I used of some classic time travel clips in my presentation. I hope my class enjoyed!

 

 

Lessons Learned

“The Premature Burial”- Edgar Allen Poe

The medical condition that Poe describes in this story sounds very similar to a coma. Do I believe that people just naturally fall in and out of comas? No, that would be highly unlikely. For someone to completely drift out of consciousness without a pulse or any signs of life for weeks maybe even months just seems to far-fetched to be real. One could not sustain life (hydration and nourishment considered) throughout this period of time without a feeding tube or a catheter. But, this is fiction and I’m sure in a sense that Poe was just “stretching the truth”. Although the part about the batteries giving a “shock” to the pectoral muscles, that is a very outdated version of the common defibrillator!(you know, the thing they use when doctors yell “CLEAR” and shock you with paddles”. I thought that this was super cool! I had no idea how far back this medicine dated and it was awesome that it was featured in a piece of popular American literature.

“The Monkey’s Paw” – W.W. Jacobs

This story explores themes that are very common in the sci-fi genre today. Similar stories and ideas are explored in pieces such as “Button, Button”- Richard Matheson (1970) and “Genius of Christianity” – François-Rene de Chateaubriand (1802). The story is very clearly supernatural due to a few occurrences. 1. Whenever the Monkey’s Paw is wished upon, it twists and slivers in the user’s hand. This would not be scientifically possible due to the fact that it is mummified and not connected to anything. 2. Whatever wish you command, will come true. The means how they will is up to the Paw. This story goes off of the idea that objects cannot just come out of thin air. The time continuum must be altered in order for the wish to be granted by “realistic” means. 3. At the end of the story there is a VERY STRONG hint made to the reader that alludes to the fact that the White’s son has come back from his grave becoming the “living dead”. 4. The story’s element of supernatural interference is once again confirmed when the reader is lead to believe that Mr. White used his final wish to send his son back to the grave. I do not believe that there could really be a secondary explanation for these occurrences that does not include the supernatural. Sure, the machine accident could have been fate or chance. The knocks on the door could have been a trick of the mind or just a mouse on the stairs like Mr. White said. But, there is no way to get past the fact that Mr. White SWORE he could feel the paw move when he wished.

 

““The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” – Edgar Allen Poe “The Premature Burial”

Madness and Lost Love

“The Furnished Room”, “The Boarded Window”, & “Berenice”

 

“The Furnished Room” – I think that is story offered a cool aspect of incorporating the colorful lives in New York (I’m assuming). It was cool that O.Henry chose to make the setting of the home in the theatrical district. The housekeeper tells us the various stories of the people who lived in the room before our speaker and how colorful their lives were. Even the little things life behind like the hairpins, the bow, the etched “Marie”. These were all little pieces of people’s lives that were left behind. Clearly O.Henry thought that this city was lively and everyone in it had a story to tell, they all left a small piece of it behind in this room. However we must consider that the housekeeper could have made up all of these stories just to sell the room. But that does make her a colorful person in this city too.

“The Boarded Window”- This story was AWESOME. There was no way that you could read this without getting chills down your spine, especially the last paragraph. I must hold my ground in saying that I do not believe this story had any aspect of the supernatural in it. I think that Bierce specifically set up his reader by mentioning death, an overall eeriness and the rumors of a ghost to take the readers mind there. It was very impressive how Bierce used this kind of literary techniques to turn a suspenseful natural story into a creepy one. At first I did think that this was a supernatural story but there were a few lines in the story that clued me in otherwise. The first real element is when Murlock hears the “child-like” scream. Yes it is a scream of some sort but the story says that it may have been a beast of some kind or even just him dreaming. Secondly, the reader may become startled when Murlock wakes up and his wife’s body is no longer there. Although this was concerning, in the last paragraph it reveals that his life was still living! When he was in the process of “preparing” her for burial she must have still been unconscious from sickness. There are two things that tip the reader off that she was still living, one is that the sash around her wrists were broken and her hands were clasped together. Second, the biggest, there was blood pouring out of her lacerated neck and wasn’t yet coagulated. HINT: DEAD BODIES DO NOT BLEED. Therefore, at the time of the attack she must have been alive! This was no story of a wife coming back to life. A panther had come to consume the carcass of a decaying person, in the process of the attack, the woman must have woken up and tried to defend herself but failed.

“Berenice”- I have to ask, was it common for people to be buried or pronounced dead when they weren’t in this time period? I mean was this just a thing authors explored through literature or did this actually used to happen. I feel like reading Poe is like going over to an old friends house after you haven’t seen them in a while, he is very unique and explores common themes in his writing. Like I said in a previous blog, it is so easy to recognize Poe the second you read it. I have to say that although I love these kinds of stories, the teeth were a little gross, even for Poe. Madness and severe mental illness is explored in this story to a point of obsession.  I enjoyed it as I do all Poe things but not nearly as much as the other two stories for this week.     

“There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. “– The Boarded Window, Ambrose Bierce

Hauntings

“The Fall of the House of Usher” – Edgar Allen Poe

There are so many themes going on in this story. The whole time while reading it I couldn’t decide if these events were metaphors or actually happening. Of course because this was written a while ago somethings are hard to understand. For example, why wasn’t the speaker allowed to see Madeline anymore during his stay? Also, why did Roderick say that he put her in the tomb too early? As far as inference goes there was just too much left up to chance for me that I’m not sure if what I was assuming was correct. That being said, I do absolutely love this story as I do most of Poe’s work. There was definitely a recurring element of sanity being questioned in this story. At first when Roderick said he was going to parish in this state of mind to when he when he was full blow crazy rocking back and forth in the chair. I thought it was a really nice literary trick how Poe had mimicked what happened in the poems to actually happen in the reality of his story. I think that was when the speaker first got his though “Oh God I need to get out of here”. Then you have to question whether he really saw Madeline at the end or not. Was she real? A ghost? Had he gone mad? Did the house do this to him? This is not the first time that Poe left his readers to consider the possibilities. Also, this story is the perfect cookie-cutter, format, base-line, or whatever you want to call it, for THE haunted house. Although it took almost three pages, Poe hit it spot on. The massive overgrowth around the exterior, the dark echoing corridors, eerie shadows, and the overall feeling of gloom and despair. That would make anyone go crazy.

“Afterward” – Edith Wharton

Afterward definitely corresponds to the “American Gothic” definition. This really entered the world of “suspense” when it came to ghosts. In most ghost horror stories you know the ghost, you see the ghost, and you can tell when it is near. However, in “Afterward”, you didn’t know when the ghost was coming or how it would present itself. It is much more suspenseful, it’s the kind of story that makes you read sentences twice and think “wait what just happened?” Also, you can’t really say there is a “haunted house”, the home does not conform to the expectations of a haunted house other than the fact that we think there is a ghost. The house is relatively normal and average. The real horror in this story comes from the not knowing, and the thought that no matter what happens, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it from happening and it will most likely happen again.

Intro to Horror: Poe

I absolutely LOVE Edgar Allen Poe. I do not think that there is one thing he has written that I don’t enjoy. He is the perfect mix between eerie and suspenseful, just enough madness to convey the idea of horror. Some of his stories are so incredibly unique and disturbing that they make you wonder if he was really crazy or not. He was hands-down one of the most impactful writers of his time and poems such as “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee” amongst others are still considered classics to this day.

The amount of symbolism used in “The Raven” is crazy. In just a little over 50 lines, Poe manages to make the speaker appear/become insane, he turns a raven into a devilish figure (but the speaker may this he’s a profit), and he gives us Lenore. At first in the story you already get the hint that the speaker is insane. He hears the knocking and then the whispers but looks out his door to see that no one is there, and then the raven talks which makes us wonder, is that real? The imagery and description in this story makes it very easy for us as readers to make our setting. The whole thing just seems dark, an old den/study with a crackling fireplace, hardly any light because of the darkness outside, when he opens up the door the hallway is so black you can’t even see down it. Poe paints us a very eerie picture. It becomes clear with his increasing madness that Lenore was a past lover, he is mourning his loss in losing her. He becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of her when he gets the idea that she may be trying to contact him or that her spirit may be near. The whole story does a great job of making you become concerned with the speakers sanity as well as feeling grief for him. Poe was very good at introducing and exploring the realm of intensity/insanity and depression with continually keeping his readers captivated.

While reading “Annabel Lee” I cannot help but imagine it being told by an old man on a rocking chair looking back on a time where he experienced true love. I think that the rhythm of the poem makes me feel this way. It rocks back and forth between telling their story and then him going back to reiterating his love for her over and over again. The tone in this poem makes you feel upset and sad for the speaker because this love is clearly something that was taken away from him and he wasn't able to fulfill his love. It seems like he is very depressed and not over Annabel but also has the attitude “Well, it is what it is”. He also had this kind of guard up like he was telling you their story but he would never really get into it or get into the details because that was their love story and no one but them would ever experience something so true. The way that Poe writes along with the rhythm he uses is incredibly beautiful, it is like a song, his words just sort of dance in your head. It would be hard for anyone to not fully appreciate the talent of Poe’s work.

"I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel Lee;" - "Annabel Lee", Edgar Allen Poe

UPDATE: This past week in class Steven Dos Santos the author of “The Culling” came in to visit us. I haven’t yet written about this book but I will soon because I absolutely loved it. The Culling is an amazing mixture between a perfect dystopian society as well as a demented type of horror. Steven went a little further into the book writing process and some of the challenged he faced. It is amazing to think all of the historical influences that inspired this piece of work (The Nazi Regime, The Industrial Revolution, The story “Sophie’s Choice”). Although these are prevalent influences the story stands alone as its own original piece of work. I think it is one of the more modern YA science fiction stories that I really enjoyed as well as believing that it stayed true to the genre itself.

Fantasy

Recently I watched the movie “Ever After”, produced in 1998. For those of you who don’t know, this is yet another “Cinderella Story” adaptation. At first I was irritated because I thought that I’d hate this story and that it would be just another remake of all of the same stories already done. I must admit that I was happily surprised. Although this was another “Cinderella Story”, it was much different than the others.

There are a lot of fairy-tales that when they were first written, have very dark elements. A lot of people refer to these as “Grimm’s Fairytales” which is true but they were not the only ones to interpret threatening stories. I think that a certain element is lost when fairy-tales are made into pleasant stories with a “happily ever after” aspect. I can understand why people would want to sanitize stories for their children, but these alternative cute and fluffy fairy-tales are very unrealistic. One of the bigger ideas behind writing fairy-tales was to teach children lessons and morals in an entertaining way. These original stories show you what can happen if you make bad decisions or trust the wrong people. I think that is really important for children to understand. We should encourage this rather than encourage stories that diminish women’s worth, and tell you that you can’t do anything on your own.

Just because fairy-tales are cute doesn't mean that they always teach us the best lessons, Beauty and the Beast encourages the idea that we can change people from who they really are, also that you can find your wife by holding her and her father captive. Sleeping Beauty reassures us that if you are ever in a compromising situation, a prince will come and save you. When we break down these stories there are very unpleasant and unrealistic values that we are instilling into kid’s heads. I really don’t think that these tales should be considered as valid examples for today’s youth. 

Gender and Sexuality

I absolutely LOVED this week’s stories. As you can see our topic for this week is “Gender and Sexuality”. This was a very controversial and touchy topic for the years that these stories were published (1966-1972). I was so excited to start this topic because our generation is becoming more liberal and accepting of matters regarding gender and sexuality. I am all for the equality of sexuality, gender, sex and partnership (yes, sex and gender are two different things if you were wondering).  The two stories I had the pleasure of reading this week were “Day Million” by Frederik Pohl, and “When It Changed” by Joanna Russ.

While reading “Day Million” I have to admit I had a tiny smirk or smile on my face almost the whole time while reading it. This story, in my opinion, was told in a very F-you voice. There was so much aggression and for lack of a better word, sass in the tone of what was being said. Although it was slightly abrasive I do have respect for the writer because I was done to grab the reader and say “I will squash any preconceived notion of what YOU think love is”. Now I think the reader didn’t do this to discredit anyone’s opinions of love but to rejoice in the fact that everyone has different opinions of love, so intense and varying that there is no one definition. I interpreted Dora “not being a woman” as one of two things. One, she was being portrayed as intersex (having the physical make-up of a woman including a vagina, ovaries, and breasts but genetically containing an XY chromosome set). Two, neither of them were really “human”, they were mechanically altered, technologically interfered with beings. Possibly that they can’t really be defined as “boy” or “girl” because those terms are arbitrary to humans only.

The second story “When It Changed” brought up an important yet complex biological term “parthenogenesis”. Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction. By definition, this is the process of a zygote forming (the beginning cell stages of a fetus) without the fertilization from male gametes (sperm). I wouldn’t bother to bore you with this scientific aspect of the story BUT it is incredibly important considering this is how a society of women has continued to grow on an exponential scale. Aka we DON’T need males for reproduction in this world. I do not mean to come across an extremist or that I think women are above men but hell yea. This is awesome, I do believe women deserve equality and when it comes to making a baby it does require two halves of a whole (pertaining to men and women). But, this is an awesome example of how women can do it without men! No, I’m not focusing in on reproduction, but to run a society, and live comfortably. Either sex can do it, not just men. In this story thought the author kind of made it seem like a whole survival of the fittest, natural selection element came into play which is why the male half of the species had gone “extinct” (a very relative term because I realize they weren’t).This was probably a little extreme. But, the author did hint at the fact that they really didn’t have a purpose the women couldn’t fulfil. I’m not sure if that’s the truth or what I agree with, but I think it was more the message that women could do all of the things that men can do was what you were really supposed to catch on to.  

 "I really do assure you that Dora's ecstasies are as creamy and passionate as any of James Bond's lady spies, and one hell of a lot more so than anything you are going to find in 'real-life'." - Day Million