The History of Science Fiction
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Science fiction has been distinguished from mainstream fiction, whether popular or literary, "which deals with the here and now and introduces only the small novelty of make-believe events and characters, that forms only an inconsiderable fraction of the whole" (Azimov 31). The history of science fiction has also been equated with "the history of humanity's changing attitudes toward space and time. It is the history of our growing understanding of the universe and the position of our species in that universe" (Scholes and Rabkin 3). Within the radical rethinking of humanity's cosmic position that the scientific method and explanatory power presented there emerged a kind of narrative theme that is almost exclusive to science fiction: apocalyptic, utopian, dystopian, or speculative narratives, showing a radically altered reality presented as the routine of daily life. The proven capacity of science and technology to radically alter the makeup of the world makes these narratives plausible. In particular, the use of nuclear weaponry and the Holocaust have been invoked as the proof: "So much that will happen is unimaginable but also so much that has happened was also and continues to be unimaginable" (Bemporad 478). Science fiction is uniquely suited to such themes as apocalypse and dystopia because the narrative context rethinks the human position in the cosmos and the human condition on earth.Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, first published in 1953, is considered a classic of dys
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ic, an artifact of World War Terminus, which altered reality permanently. There are offhand references to fallout, radiation, and other environmental contamination vis-a-vis an extraordinarily advanced technology-driven culture. The image of Earth as paradise lost can also be associated with the fact that so many human beings have left Earth altogether for colonization of Mars, as if humanity has been expelled from the Earth as Eden and the new human society is being nurtured on Mars. But the bleakness of life there can be inferred from the fact that even the artificial replicants are rebelling and are seeking to extend their life on Earth.
The bleakness of the future on Earth itself is conveyed visually in the disonnect between the extremely advanced technology, marketed via mass media as it is in Farenheit 451, and the overcrowded squalor in which most pdople live. That squalor is a creation of corporatist technology, which has invented replicants as laborers and in the process put great masses of human beings out of a job. The fact that the replicants, supposedly programmed with a unitary memory, appear to have somehow developed minds of their own that are hostile to human intervention in their activities, suggests the hubris
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1925
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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