Introducing
Science Fiction: A Genealogical Approach
| Science
fiction is a type of formula fiction: |
|
Two enabling
conditions of formula fiction ( e.g. romance, gothic, detective
fiction, science fiction...)
- wide-spread
literacy
- cheap print
formats
|
|
7 traits of
formula fiction:
- The main characters
are parsed into heroes and villains, the good and the
evil.
- Action, incident
and plotting take precedent over ideas or character.
- In formula
fiction the big payoff in reader pleasure comes from the
surprising and wonderful reversal that answers the question
"how will things turn out?"
- Formula fiction
is rife with didactic messages, often enforced by the
plot.
- Formula fiction,
as its name implies, follows pre-established formulas
that require no justification on grounds outside the fiction.
- Formula fiction
accommodates incompleteness, fragmentariness, or last-minute
revision.
- With formula
fiction the basic exchange is entertainment for money.
|
|
Canon Wars:
formula fiction under attack:
- abject status
through comparison with high cutlure
- predictably
mechanistic, trite, and just plain "vulgar:"
Formula fiction
defended:
- high cultural
genres also rely on formulas
- predictability
and repetition are not obstacles to reader pleasure but
its source
- aesthetic
defense: literary writers raid formula fiction for motifs
to incorporate in their "high" art
Q: Questions/
comments? Do you agree with this way of situating science
fiction? Do you see problems with it?
|
Example: Early
American Science Fiction as Formula Fiction
Hugo Gernsback,
editor of Amazing Stories
- Inventor,
distributor of radio parts, a visionary (one of his stories
predict how radar will work)
- Edits scientific
magazines to educate:
Modern Electronics,
The Electrical Experiementer,
Science and Invention.
Gernsback aims to take his readers beyond stories of fantasy
"to teach the young generation science, radio,
and what was ahead for them."
- In response
to reader interest, in 1926, Gernsback gathers "scientifiction"
stories into a new magazine named Amazing Stories.
- The new
format:8X11", cheap paper, gaudy cover art =
100,000 copies sold.
|
 |
|
The Cover Art
of Frank R. Paul
How does one
visualize the new worlds of science fiction?
|
| Mary
Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. (1818) |
|
Myths in the
background
- Prometheus
the fire stealer
- Faust: trading
his soul for knowledge
- willing to
defy conventional limits, and stand utterly alone
- The sublime
landscape of s/f: vast, stark, extreme
|
Frankenstein's scientific question:
"One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention
was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal
enbued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle
of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has
ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things
are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice
or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries." (Chapter
4) |
|
After the
success of his experiement, he imagines the gratitude he
will receive:
" No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore
me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of
success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which
I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light
into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its
creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would
owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude
of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs."(Chapter
4)
|
|
The Monster
as the prototype of the alien in science fiction
- Technology's
unintended consequences
- Challenges
human primacy and superiority
- Functions
as a mirror
|
|
The monster's
demand of his "Father":
"We may not part until you have promised to comply with
my requisition. I am alone, and miserable; man will not
associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself
would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the
same species, and have the same defects. This being you
must create." (end of chapter 16)
Frankenstein
destroys the almost completed female "mate" he is making
for the monster:
" I was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions
I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times
more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake,
in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighborhood
of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; …
Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts
of the new world, yet one of the first results of those
sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children,
and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth
who might make the very existence of the species of man
a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right,
for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting
generations?" (Chapter 20)
|
|
The central
moral problem of science fiction
- the attractions
of the powers of scientific knowledge
- unintended
consequences (monsters) & knowledge breeds arrogance
- neglecting
the moral question: is this science and technology
going to promote human good?
|
| Metropolis
(1927): Director, Fritz Lang |
Key features of
the film:
- Biggest budget
film to date
- Science fiction
and the medium of film: a deep affinity
- Dystopia:
Extrapolation from Capitalism as interpreted by Marx
|
Main characters of the film
- John Frederson:
the master of Metropolis
- Freder: his
son
- Maria/ the
robot
- Rotwang: the
"mad" scientist
- Joseph: the
assistant to John Frederson
- Grot: the
foreman
|
|
Scenes important
for the history of science fiction
- Setting: Metropolis
as a the layered city
- The factory
as Moloch
- The metamorphosis
of the robot into a simulation of "Maria"
- Robot/ Maria's
dance (the techno-erotic)
|
|
|
