Contemporary Writing - Essay Example

Contemporary Writing. Inquisitiveness is the pedestal of all inventions. Out of the curiosity man has achieve the highest peak of civilization and wonderful progress in Science and technology. It is the unique characteristic of man, to visualize about the world of fantasy. Such cavernous obsession for the fantasy led many writers to fabricate the amazing books on science fiction. According to Carl Freedman, “Of all genres, science fiction, is thus the one most devoted to the historical concreteness and rigorous self reflective-ness of critical theory. The science-fictional world is not only one different in time or place from our own, but one whose chief interest is precisely the difference that such difference makes.” (“Critical Theory and Science Fiction,” by Carl Freedman, published by, Wesleyan University Press.) Social disintegration in the age of dizzying technology is the general subject of science fiction. The theme of dystopia is the major theme around which the science fiction novels are based on. In the world of dystopia the readers are introduced with the atrocious things of the world. The world in the science fictions is full of anarchy violence and decay of human civilization. Keywords: creativity, dystopia, science fiction, anarchy, violence, decay Introduction The science fiction raises a vivid picture of a future in the minds of the writers, which is related to the adverse consequences of the ultra modern technology. In the world of machine man is losing his identity as a human being and has started to behave like a machine. The same idea is adopted by the two different writers in their different novels. First is Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake” and second is the novel is “In the Country of Last Things” by Paul Auster. In the article called “Bioperservsity,” Loorie Moore writes about Atwood, “In her towering and intrepid new novel, “Oryx and Crake” (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday; $26), Atwood, who is the daughter of a biologist, vividly imagines a late-twenty-first-century world ravaged by innovations in biological science. Like most literary imaginings of the future, her vision is mournful, bleak, and infernal, and is punctuated, in Atwood style, with the occasional macabre joke—perhaps not unlike Dante’s own literary vision.” (Bioperversity, Margaret Atwood’s genetically engineered nightmare. by Lorrie ) This book is categorized as a science fiction. But according to Atwood it is not a mere science fiction but a speculative fiction and adventure romance, because in this novel, new scientific and technological inventions are not imagined. The novel was first published in 2003 and in the same year it had been nominated for the Booker Prize for fiction category. Margaret Atwood remarks the novel as “a joke-filled, fun-packed rollicking adventure story about the downfall of the human race.” The protagonist of this novel is a snow man and the entire story of the novel develops from his perspective. He is the narrator of the novel and the only survivor of the world commotion. There is a village which belongs to the humanoid creatures and for them the protagonist is like a guide and their messenger who provides them information. He describes the story about his past. Pleeblab is the place where most of the population had gathered. This urban region is described by the narrator as a nasty place where sprawl, crime, and illness had made the life without a value. The snowman was a small boy in the past whose name was Jimmy. Jimmy and his parents lived in the compounds, walled communities which were built by large biotech companies for their employees. Hence they were living a very comfortable, luxurious and secure life. Their life was guarded by the corporate security corps called CorpSeCorps. These guards would protect the people inside the compound and also protect the secrets of the biotech companies. The biotech companies had also protected gene splicing and DNA manipulation. Jimmy’s father was a scientist and working for an Organic Farm where he is involved in creating the pigoon, a pig like animal which had a multiple human-tissue organs that could be used for transplanting purpose. Jimmy’s father always blamed Jimmy for not having scientific genius like him. Jimmy’s mother was an extremely unhappy woman. She was the microbiologist and working on the pigoon project. But then she left the work and spends most of her time in the house. One day the woman left the compound forever. Later Jimmy meets Glenn and later they became best friends of each other. Glen was very intelligent and an expert in science and hacking computer. Glenn like Jimmy also was living a lonely life with no parents. His father was dead and his mother had left him for the sake of her lover. Thus the two boys grew up alone without parental support and affection. Both would spend their time in surfing on the internet and playing internet games. Glenn was then recognized by the name of Crake. He was expert in genetic manipulation and thus created the newly designed creatures from human embryo in such a manner that they would cohabitate with nature more harmoniously. He removed those tendencies from them that would cause misery. Crake also planned to end the humanity and leaving Jimmy as a snowman who would take care of his created creatures. The major important thing in this story is Jimmy’s life with Crake and Oryx. The novel “In the Country of Last Things” is also about the dystopian future of New York City. It’s a story of a nineteen years old young girl who comes in a new city in search of her brother. She is a woman refugee who writes about her eerie experience in the city in her letter which she is sending to her home. She describes the horrible situation happening in the city and in such ghastly circumstances, Anna is trying to survive herself and not only survive but she is trying to recreate those things which have been ruined like humanity, communication, solidarity. The author here wants to convey the message to his readers through this science fiction that we are responsible for the decay as well as survival of mankind and our universe. Such described world can be ours, the imagination of dystopian world can be translated into reality if we will be careless about our own world, about human civilization and of course about humanity. Dystopia Cataclysm Fictional dystopia is the admonitory stories. There is an imaginary world created by the two authors. In both of these novels the catastrophe is the basic concept. Jimmy is describing his past which takes place in the late 21st century. This was the time when the man was very careless, shrewd and arrogant about the environment. This resulted to the radiation holes in the atmosphere. The polar ice was melted which led to the flood in the coastal area. The entire globe suffered from draughts dissertation of the continents. Same catastrophe is described in the novel of Paul Auster. “In the Country of Last” Things, written by Paul Auster was published in 1998. This novel is about a dystopian future of the New York City. The future world according to the writer will have the extreme unemployment, Hobbesian lifestyle where swindling, trickery and malice are practiced. The world will be full of corruption and greed, the shattering frigid weather will be there and the earth won’t be able to escape from calamity and devastation. Anna Blume is looking for her brother in the city. The name of the city is not mentioned in the novel. The rest of the world is going normally but not this city. This city is decaying, buildings flake and then crumble. The new creation is not happening. No new births are taking place. In this decaying land life has been totally collapsed. The people are just striving to survive. Some of them are even committing suicide. They are selling their possessions. Human bodies and human waste have been used as a fuel. A post-apocalyptic quest sets against the conditions of the urban scarcity. Masses are homeless. The ruin of the city mentioned in this novel is not the end of only the city but it is the ruin of the civilization. Naturally there are now no landmarks of the culture and civilization. The books are burnt to bring heat in winter. Deaths are the only way out which are happening either by suicides or by assassinations. The life is on the verge decay. It is similar to the life in some totalitarian countries. Lack of communication: Man has built around himself a wall where he wants to live. He wants nobody to be close to him. He has become quite self- centred. It will definitely result into miscommunication. Man wants to be in a self made frame. The result of this massive isolation will be serious according to the writers. Paul Auster describes the miscommunication in humanity. Conversation has become arduous. Each individual is speaking with his or her own language and communication is lacking totally which is the sign of the end of man. The language and the memory are slowly distrusting. The place of the words has been taken by the sounds only. People are practicing their own art, speaking their own language, and worshiping their own miracles. Thus each one of them has built a wall of privacy and isolation around him or her. Like Auster Margaret Atwood is also handling the same problem of the advanced society and that is the loss of communication when we come to know about the family background of the protagonist that his father was not happy on Jimmy as he has not talents in science and his mother never spends her time with her son. And one day she leaves the house forever, leaving her son alone. Jimmy was somewhat a spoiled child due to the lack of parental support and encouragement. Here in the family of Jimmy there is no communication at all. Everybody is living within his own private life and apart from staying together under a single roof they are isolated from each other. This is the symbol of the blemish of family life and lack of conversation with each other in the ultra modern world. Characters We meet many eccentric characters in these novels. In Atwood’s novel, along with the snow man we get acquainted with the strange companions of the snow man and they are the humanoids. The snowman itself is an abnormal creature. He is an arboreal. The crackers have been created by his friend Crake. They eat only grass, leaves, and roots. Their sexuality is also abnormal. They have been programmed to minimize both the sexual production and unreciprocated lust. These creatures are very polite, gentle, naïve, and far away from the human drawbacks such as jealousy, violence. The snowman tells them that they have been created by Crake and the rest of the plants and animals have been created by Oryx. Only three major characters are human beings and they are Jimmy, Crake, and Oryx. Paul Auster’s major character is Anna. The other characters are the people from the devastating city, who are rather human beings but their behaviour is nastiest like wild beasts. Here in his city of imagination thefts and robberies are unbridled. In this peculiar dystopian novel we meet many strange characters. Among them is one journalist who wants to write something on the city. His name is Samuel Farr. He is driven by absurd obsession. A sect of folk is called the Runners. Narrative technique and the protagonist. In the story of “In the Country of Last Things,” Anna, a young girl is the protagonist who is the narrator also. She tells the story to the readers through her letter. While in “Oryx and Crakes” The snowman tells the story to the humanoids, about his past which is the core of the novel. The flash back technique is used by Atwood. The catastrophe has happened in the past and the narrator is telling about that to the newly created world. In Auster’s novel the story is described by the Anna. And it is actually taking place in the present. She is the part of that story. But the snowman is the narrator who was once upon a time the part of that story but now he is telling it from the distance. Both of these narrators are the sufferers of the circumstances and both are living an isolated life, are isolated from their beloved people. Anna has lost her brother and she is far away from her family members and the loneliness has haunted her in the crowd of people, the people whom she cannot match herself. The snowman has also been isolated and living a life of a lonely creature in the crowd of the strange creatures whom he cannot match himself. The people around the snowman, though strange, they are kindhearted and very respectful to him. But it is not in case of Anna. She is living in the company of fatal people who can take away her life any time. The snowman is also trying to be in contact with his own people through memory. He reminds his friend Crake, his beloved Oryx, his mother and father, He is trying to recall their memories. In Atwood’s novel the story develops from the male protagonist’s perspectives while in Paul Auster’s novel the protagonist is a lady and the story develops from her perspectives. Both Anna and the Snowman are the symbol of the existence of human beings after the great cataclysm. They are waiting for the world with peace and security. The crackers are the symbol of the innocence, gentleness, love and affection which the man had lost due to the selfishness and the brutality. While describing the ambiguity of the word last in the title, “In the Country of Last Things,” Bernd Herzogenrath in his book “An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster, says, “The diverging movement is in itself captured in the ambiguity of the word ‘last:’ in its function as an adjective it means both ‘final’ and ‘new’ whereas one meaning of the verb ‘to last’ is ‘to be still there.’ (pg95, “An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster by Bernd Herzogenrath, Rodopi publishers) Conclusion Margaret Atwood and Paul Auster seem to be sanguine about the survival of the human beings and the good qualities of the human beings. They are hopeful about the beautiful creation and the new sacred and tranquil life after the dreadful nightmare. The two novels convey the same message to the readers that if such dreadful calamity happens in future, the man alone will be responsible for that. And to avoid it we should be careful to our environment and we aught not pursue the science madly to avoid future catastrophe. The writers also believe that Even if such things happen, the human life will be survived. Sources: 1. http://www.paulauster.co.uk/steffanreviewitcolt.htm 2. “An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster” by Herzogenrath, published by Rodopi 3. “Critical Theory and Science Fiction,” by Carl Freedman, published by, Wesleyan University Press. 4. hhttp://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk/ 5. ttp://www.reviewsofbooks.com/oryx_and_crake/ Read More