setting! (#11)

Obviously, in the case of “Vaster Than Empires, and More Slow”, setting makes up a great deal of the story.  A lot of times, setting seems to only simply help the story along, and provide little more than further description.  However, what I have noticed in the case of most science fiction pieces is that setting usually has a great impact, and is really almost as integral as the novum itself.  For example, with “Vaster”, I would even consider the setting to be the novum: the characters are on a planet seemingly overrun by humanistic plant life. Taking place back on planet Earth, this story would not have worked so well.  Or perhaps it would have, but it would have had to take place in a different time than the one we are currently in: maybe, centuries from now when scientists have come up with too good of a growth hormone for plants, and something goes terribly wrong; or if Venus Fly Traps have begun to breed out of control.  Either way, the story had to be in a different setting in order to work. 

Had the story taken place in a different setting, the actions absolutely still could have happened, but they would have had an entirely different make up and outcome.  For example, part of an investigative team could have been taken captive by natives of another country, perhaps on Earth, but the whole essence of the story would have been different.  Since it would have been people, and not plants, lines such as, “’It was washing you.  Anointing you with lotions.  Special lotions to keep you supple and, well, and green.’  Everyone stared at Sam now, and she raised her arm through the leaf mould.  Indubitably green.  Not just a reflection.  A stain,” would have been completely unusable.  The main part to take away from this story was that the plants had lost family, and were trying in vain to make a similar connection with these humans.  Without this setting, the hostages would have been taken for a different reason, and thus the story would have had a different meaning.

 Le Guin’s motive for writing this story may have been to demonstrate the idea of alien life possessing human qualities, or even of some sort of greater moral law instilled in all types of life forms.  These could explain the way the plants longed for some sort of surrogate child, or why lullabies soothed them into cooperation.  This class has taught us to look at the story an author chooses to present their own thoughts through.  In this case, the most unique point of the story is the setting.

environment! (#10)

In class, I remember being extremely adamant about the fact that nature and environment were two completely different things.  The huge riot that ensued consisted of one side (the side I agreed with) stating that nature was something completely untouched by humans, and that environment was made up of everything else surrounding us.  The other side argued that even if you take a tree out of its natural habitat, the tree itself doesn’t change, and thus remains nature, although part of it has been altered (which in my opinion, would make it “environment”).

I chose the Toyota ad that you posted for us for this particular blog.  Besides the fact that I thought the hand as roots was rather creative (enforcing the importance of the tie between man and nature in order for the survival of both), it used the terms “nature” and “environment” in the ways that I agreed with.

In linking it with what we learned from the article on Ecocriticism, I found it to be undeniably related to “reform environmentalism”.  The article states that, “Reform environmentalism informs a new kind of consumer piety, with its sometimes extraordinary language – such that buying a slightly less destructive make of car becomes ‘saving the planet’” (2).  That is exactly what is happening in the ad.  It creatively advertises the idea of “zero emissions,” while still wording it in a way that resembles fine print.  It doesn’t claim to have reached a state of zero emission, yet it is worded so that if someone were to read it off the bat without looking closely, they may think that that is what is happening as a direct result of Toyota’s technologies.

On an unrelated note, I think that most people will see the word “nature” and be more inclined to do something in hopes of feeling less guilty.  By telling people that they are “preserving the delicate balance between man and nature” by buying a Toyota, I think people are more likely to purchase one.

Marx! (#9)

I believe that Walter M. Miller, Jr. did an excellent job with his story “Crucifixus Etiam” as a demonstration of Marxism.  We can use Marxism to better interpret this futuristic world on Mars from an outside point of view, as well as through someone on the inside.

There is an inarguable example of both the bourgeoisie and proletariat classes.  Viewing it this way, we as readers can better understand the disparity between the excavating crew and those with a little bit more power.  The oppressed working class aren’t even allowed to know what it is that they are working so relentlessly towards: “There was a certain arbitrariness about it, a hint that the Commission thought of its employees as children, or enemies, or servants…the supervisory staff shrugged off all questions with: ‘Why? Well, what’s the difference?” (239).  As we learned in class, Marxism heavily relies on the idea that people really only feel the most fulfilled when they are connected to the fruits of their labor directly.  In the case of “Crucifixus”, in return for their lack of information, the workers were given enough to stay alive and started finding pleasure in things like booze and effortless sleep.  As it turns out, their duty on Mars was a lot more deadly than was let on to them at first.  Marxism deals with material things, commodities, and the “truffies” ended up turning into one as well.  One part that really stood out to me as an example of that was the line, “Newcomers were segregated in a separate barracks so that their nightly screams would not disturb the old-timers who had finally adjusted to Martian conditions” (233).  Basically, they were willing to do whatever they had to do, no matter how inhumane, to keep their “factory” running smoothly.

Near the end, there is even an example of the feared “proletariat revolution” predicted by Marx.  Handell attempts to get the rest of his fellow oppressed to uprise against the people in control.  Some of the people in control actually got nervous, for they were greatly outnumbered, but after his goal was realized, Manue stopped it.

The idea of Marxism really came full circle in the end when we see Manue’s resignation to what his life has become, but also his slight fulfillment which came from now having a goal, and the knowledge of what his work was creating: “He had wanted something to work for, hadn’t he?  Something more than the reasons Donnell had given.  Well, he could smell a reason, even if he couldn’t breathe it…He knew now what Mars was…an eight-century passion of human faith in the destiny of the race of Man” (246).

I also thought the top paragraph on page 238 was rather interesting, where Donnell explains to Manue the concept of Mars as outlet for the surplus on Earth.  He is basically explaining that rather than cut down on production, Earth needed to find more room in order to continue feeding their need for material items.

Novum! (#8)

To be completely honest, when I began to write this blog on the “novum”, I decided to backtrack in the class.  The directions for the blog didn’t say that it had to be on a story from that specific week, and I felt like using either one of those would be very repetitive (for me at least, given the blogs I already did on “Baby, You Were Great” and on Marxism (in my opinion, “Dead Space for the Unexpected” was more of a demonstration on Marxism than the novum; I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, I’m simply stating that I think I could expand more upon the idea using “Flowers for Algernon”)).  So for that reason, and to try and use a fresh story, “Flowers” is what I went with.

As I think I’ve mentioned previously in more than one of my blogs, I consider the concept of the novum to be the coolest one we learned during the whole semester.

Yes, your description of the novum as the “shiny new thing” of the story is really its most basic definition.  But technically, isn’t that what really demonstrates a creative writer’s capabilities?  I won’t claim that writing a piece of informative literature, nonfiction literature, or even a fiction story with a simple realistic plot is easy.  It still takes talent to write anything that people will desire to read.  But to come up with something that hasn’t yet come into existence, and especially to take that something and be able to build a story around it, I feel like that is a unique talent all its own.

Besides being the shiny new thing, the novum can really become the main part of the story.  For example, when it comes to “Flowers for Algernon”, without the novum the story simply wouldn’t exist.  The entire plot is based on new medicine that has not been found, and that certainly hadn’t been around at the time the story was written.  Daniel Keyes could have been trying to portray one of any number of things, from the idea that ignorance is bliss, to the pain from losing something you once had, or even the notion that modern medicine is getting too experimental.  In this way, the novum allowed a story to be written that could creatively demonstrate the theme.

In my opinion, the novum is truly what makes science fiction.  It is what allows settings and characters that do not exist in any other works of literature, who could have problems that have never before been imagined.  For example, I had actually read “Flowers for Algernon” once before, (and though admittedly I never had that much of a grasp on the idea of science fiction before this class), I hadn’t really thought of the story as being science fiction.  After taking a look at the medicine as the novum, it became impossible for me to miss the fact that it was indeed, science fiction.

Theme! (#3)

In “The Second Variety”, I think trust could be considered a theme.  Many different uses of it are apparent throughout the story, and it is ultimately the cause behind every action.

Most noticeably, we see many times where trust must be put in someone that would not normally be a first choice.  Firstly the Yanks, or rather, Major Hendricks has to trust that the note from the Russians wasn’t a trap, and that he wouldn’t be shot point blank when he arrived.  Later on he had to place trust in the three enemy soldiers he encountered once he crossed to their side.  In the end, he placed both his life, as well as the survival of mankind in general, in Tasso when he let her have the ship.

Then there was the manipulation of trust, of which The Third Variety, the “David” was a prime example.  A thirteen year old boy, clutching a teddy bear was enough to turn even the most careful of officers sympathetic: “It made too good a target…and the boy would slow him down…But if the boy were really all alone…”  We found out later that this is exactly the kind of trust in innocence that got hundreds of Russians killed.  Later, because they were really the only two people Hendricks could trust, he put his faith in the information that both Tasso and Klaus were giving him.  Once Tasso proved to him that Klaus was a machine, Hendricks began to put more and more faith in her, as he had been led to believe they had killed the last Variety, the Second one (Klaus).

Unfortunately, Hendricks incorrectly believed that the machines wouldn’t kill one another.  I had a sneaking suspicion once we met Tasso that she was a machine.  The thing that really gave it away to me was her repetitive questioning for cigarettes.  It seemed as though she were programmed with that commonplace tendency.  She manipulated him into trusting that she had to be human, and then betrayed him in the end when he told her how to get to the Moon Base.  I also had the idea that there were perhaps more Varieties, but the desperate situation in which Hendricks found himself had really left him without a choice.

In the end, the story really revolved around the theme of trust.  Machines began to lure humans in by getting them to trust them.  Often the only choice they had was to trust an enemy, and the trust they did put in others was betrayed.