The Story of Your Life - Part 1

"Ah, I see. You mean Sharon was maid of honor?"
"Yeah, that's it. Can I be made of honor?"
(p. 128)

Though a considerable part of "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang is occupied by the narrator's interactions with aliens, the heptapods, and her attempt to understand their language--both in terms of spoken and the written language--what makes the story a bit more complicated are the insertions of the narrator's memories with her daughter. The weaving of anecdotes shared with her daughter helps heighten the theme of language within "The Story of Your Life."

For example, the narrator's descriptions of her first interactions with the heptapods reminded me of a baby's first attempts at learning and understanding the concept of language. The narrator says, "I heard a brief fluttering sound, and saw a puckered orifice at the top of its body vibrate; it was talking" (125). Although she doesn't know the spoken language of the heptapods, she uses various observations, including looking at repetitions in fluttering sounds, in order to try to understand the aliens' language. Similarly, when a baby tries to learn a language for the first time, he or she is forced to observe the moving of the mouth and learn words through connections and repetitions where the baby's mother or father may point to distinct objects and/or people and repeat the words they refer to. It is like how the narrator points at herself and her partner and indicates them as "humans" and attempting to use the same method on the aliens.

Another interesting element Chiang adds to the story is the realization of the complexity of the spoken language through the narrator's interactions with the aliens as well as direct quotes from anecdotes related to the narrator's daughter. Especially in terms of the spoken language, like the quote I have stated above, many words even in the English language sound like each other. For example, "maid" and "made" hold completely different meanings yet they sound the same. Such element in languages introduce difficulties for the narrator as she tries to understand the heptapods' spoken language through similarities in sounds. When I read the anecdote about her daughter and her misunderstanding of "maid" as "made," a question that was raised in my mind was... what if "flutter 1" and what also sounds like "flutter 1" from the narrator's observations of the heptapods' language may sound the same but hold different meanings?

Overall, as the narrator now begins to make observations of the heptapods' written language, I am excited to find out the new realizations her observations will give me about language in general.

"Bridesicle"

Reading "Bridesicle" by Will McIntosh angered me a bit. As a woman going to Wellesley College, I have been developing strong feminist views recently and I felt as though "Bridesicle," in many ways, went against feminism.

First of all, the setting of the story enraged me. The fact that women who have died, from 125~100 years ago up till recently, are stored in what seems like a "bride market" for the men makes women seem like objects sold at a store. One question that came up to my mind was why it would be women and not men in these "bridesicles." Perhaps there is a deficit in the women population but in comparing the future and the past, such setting surprised me especially since women have been gaining more voice and power overtime. In the story, however, it seems as though, with the establishments of these "bridesicles," time and history has taken its step backwards. Once again, women, though lifeless, are placed into bride markets for men to shop for.

Another reason why I was enraged was because of the requests the men made to the protagonist, Mira, in exchange for their offer of reviving her. The first man seemed to ask Mira for sexual favors. For example, he asks, "If I revived you, what sorts of things would you do to me?" The second man, Lycan, seems like a nice man who keeps visiting her to have conversations but at the end, doesn't have the money to revive her. Lastly, the third man who visits Mira, claiming to be Lycan's grandson, asks her for a "platonic" marriage in which she would carry he and his real wife's child and serve as the baby's caretaker. Overall, it seemed as though the women in in the bridesicles didn't have much say in their desires since it is the men who have the advantage because they are the ones offering them a chance to live again.

Overall, I felt as though the story was swayed towards a more masculine perspective than a feminine one.

"A Habit of Waste"

These are the latitudes of the ex-colonised,
of degradation still unmollified,
imported managers, styles in art,
second-hand subsistence of the spirit,
the habit of waste,
mayhem committed on the personality,
and everywhere the wrecked or scuttled mind.
Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be,
advised that if I valued poetry,
I should eschew all sociology.

Slade Hopkinson, from
'The Madwoman of Papine: Two Cartoons with Captions'


In the prefatory note of his series of poems, "The Madwoman of Papine" (1976), Slade Hopkinson wrote that the poems, especially the title poem, represent "the effects of society on the individual psyche" (from Anglophone Caribbean poetry, 1970-2001 by Emily Allen Williams).


By beginning the story, "A Habit of Waste," by the poem, it seems as though Nalo Hopkinson is trying to imply the same idea about the effects of society, or "sociology," on the individual. 


By reading "A Habit of Waste," I really came to question the idea of individuality and what it really means to be an individual. As Slade Hopkinson writes at the end of his poem, 

Scholars, more brilliant than I could hope to be,

advised that if I valued poetry,

I should eschew all sociology.

He seems to be implying the fact that high forms of art and writing tend to value the aesthetics more than content. In other words, Hopkinson, as a poet, addresses the fact that he feels discouraged to reference to the problematic aspects society and reality when writing a poem, what is supposed to be an aesthetically pleasing form of writing.

Similarly, in "A Habit of Waste," Cynthia and many others living in her society, view their bodies in a limited scope where everything has to be beautiful. They keep perfecting and changing their bodies to fit what they believe as the ideal images of their bodies.

However, this is where I came to question, "Then what about the individual and individuality?" Going back to the poem, shouldn't forms of art be ways in which one could express his or herself? Similarly, shouldn't one's unique physical characteristics be ways to express an individual identity? If poems "eschew[ed] all sociology" and if people altered their bodies, would that really bring individual satisfaction?

Upon asking myself this question, I also ran into another one. Say that one changes his or her body to gain individual satisfaction through other people's admirations. But is that true individual satisfaction? Wouldn't a true form of individual satisfaction be when one is happy with his or her original body? What he or she began as?

Personally, I believe the true beauty resides in imperfections. Art is more beautiful because it's not always perfect; the small flaws show history, styles, and trends of the era and the artist. Similarly, imperfections in physical characteristics are beautiful. An old woman's wrinkled face depicts the difficulties she went through in her life and a child's scar might hold a special memory. 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - "Pathos"

Jill Galvan stated in his critical essay, "Entering the Post-human Collective in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?":

"...whether we accept it unquestioningly or rebel against it, technology, in the hands of the powers that can be, has acquired not simply a life of its own, but a life that substantially infiltrates our lives, changing our character in subtle yet meaningful ways. If we succumb unwittingly--or, worse, indifferently--to the totalitarian mechanization of our world, we risk becoming androids ourselves, reduced to 'humans of mere use--men made into machines' (187)." (414)

Though the main conflict in Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, arises between humans and androids, I believe it is also interesting to view their conflict in a more general term as the integration of humans and technology/mechanism. In other worlds, how does the integration of mechanisms generate new problems for us, human beings?

One of the examples of human reliance on mechanisms is Iran Deckard's strong attachment to the mood organ, which enables her to control her mood. However, as seen in the quote, we see that her strong dependence on the mood organ has allowed its mechanism to, in a way, control her instead.

Rick Deckard says to his wife:

“I took a test, one question, and verified it; I've begun to empathize with androids, and look what that means. You said it this morning yourself. 'Those poor andys.' So you know what I'm talking about. That's why I bought the goat. I never felt like that before. Maybe it could be depression, like you get. I can understand how you suffer now when you're depressed; I always thought you liked it and I thought you could have snapped yourself out any time, if not alone then my means of the mood organ. But when you get that depressed you don't care. Apathy, because you've lost a sense of worth. It doesn't matter whether you feel better because you have no worth―” 
― (174-175) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick


Iran, from the beginning of the novel, has always felt "depressed." She sets her mood organ to "despair" (5) at certain times because she believes that is "a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything" (6). But at the beginning, Rick believes that his wife is able to "dial [her] way out" (6) by "program[ming] an automatic resetting" (6). However, at the end, as seen in the quote above, he realizes  that if not for the machine's automatic resetting, Iran would stay in depression forever for she has become "infiltrate[d]" by the mechanics of the mood organ; she simply "[doesn't] care" anymore. The mood organ, for Iran, has become like a drug where she has lost her ability to dial back to "hope" as well as her "sense of worth." Therefore, the mood organ has overridden Iran's confidence in her existence; machine has taken over human worth.


Another important concept seen through the quote above is the relationship between "empathy" and "apathy." Though both words are from the same root--"pathos," an emotion of sympathetic pity (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)-- they have complete opposite meanings. Empathy means "an inclination to think or feel alike" while apathy means "lack of feeling or emotion" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). It is interesting to see how for Rick, the interactions with the androids have allowed him to feel "empathy" towards androids which are advanced forms of technology, while for Iran, interactions with the mood organ, another form of technology, have disabled her ability to have feelings or emotions at all. In a different point of view, however, while Iran does feel a sentiment of detachment for the world she lives in due to the growing effects of the mood organ on her life, she also feels strongly attached and dependent on the mood organ itself, creating some kind of a relationship between her and the machine.


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, therefore, introduces a new perspective on technology where feelings and emotions become involved. As Galvan said, "to deny technology'spervasive role in our existence means, then, to deny reality--the reality of a world in which we are advancingly imbricated in a mechanical presence. Only by recognizing how it has encroached upon our understanding of "life" can we come to full terms with the technologies we have produced" (414). As seen in the passage, it seems that Galvan is indicating our need to "blast the illusion of an exclusive and empathic community of humans," and recognize it as "one compromised by the technologies with which they share the Earth" (414). In an essence, he tells us to include technology in our emotional spectrum and expand our empathy for technology and machinery for that is the way in which we could "[shape] one another's existence" (414), thereby solving the problem for some, like Iran, of "hav[ing] no worth."

"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler

"Thus, we were necessities, status symbols, and an independent people. She oversaw the joining of families, putting an end to the final remnants of the earlier system of breaking up Terran families to suit impatient Tlic"

By portraying a future society in which humans, the Terrans, live together with Tlics, a distinct species of aliens, on a foreign planet, Octavia Butler calls attention to past and contemporary issues of race and slavery; she uses "science fiction as a mirror for contemporary issues."

The culture that the Terrans and the Tlics create together on a foreign planet mirrors various examples of mixed cultures in reality. Though the Tlics haven't exactly conquered the human civilization (on the other hand, it was originally the Terrans who fled from their original civilization to settle on a different planet), in a way, the Terrans serve as their resources for living in terms of continuing on with their race. With two different races coming together, as in the combination of Terrans and Tlics trying to create a joint society, many conflicts arise in terms of who receives more benefits.

Though it is said that the Terrans are "independent people," the readers can still view elements of slavery as the Tlics use Terrans and take advantage of them as instruments in propagating their own race. Therefore, since it is in their interest to use the Terrans, the Tlics save the Terrans and allow them to live on a reserved territory. Though the Terrans do receive some benefit in following the Tlics' ways, such as the prolonging of their lives by drinking the Tlics' eggs, the balance of benefit seems to be much more tilted towards the Tlics than the Terrans. In a way, the situation reminds the readers of various examples from world history in which a similar situation occurred. For example, when Europeans enslaved Native Americans and forced them to live in a reserved territory, they did see them as an independent race, but a race that was lowly then their own. Therefore, they felt free to exploit their resources and the Tlics, too, seem to see the Terrans in a similar way; though the Tlics recognize the Terrans as their own beings, they still seem to be "caged" within the borders of the reservoir that the Tlics have set up for them.

Delany's "Aye, and Gomorrah"

"'Yes.' She looked down. I glanced to see the expression she was hiding. It was a smile. 'You have your glorious, soaring life, and you have us.' Her face came up. She glowed. 'You spin in the sky, the world spins under you, and you step from land to land, while we...' She turned her head right, left, and her black hair curled and uncurled on the shoulder of her coat. 'We have our dull, circled lives, bound in gravity, worshiping you!'"
 - From Samuel R. Delany's Aye, and Gomorrah

Samuel R. Delany, through his short story, Aye and Gomorrah, enables us as readers to picture a future society in which the differences between genders becomes neutralized in the form of "spacers": people who have given up their sexuality in order to work in space.

Even from the beginning of the story, the spacers seem to be separated from the rest of the earthly people who still have their sexuality; their original genders can't be identified and they act as though they are still in their youth as if they have failed to mature due to their inability to feel sexual desires.

In the quote taken from the book, a "frelk," someone who desires sexual favors from the spacers, makes a statement which compares the spacers to the rest of the people. She says, "You spin in the sky, the world spins under you, and you step from land to land, while we...We have our dull, circled lives, bound in gravity, worshiping you!" Her statement introduces an interesting aspect to the concept of sexuality and its importance in our lives. Though the speaker might be referring to the more literal fact of the spacers' ability to fly into space which enables them to remove themselves from the earthly world, I believe it could also be referring to the sense of liberty and freedom the spacers' lack of gender and sexuality might give them.

Gender and sexuality in society tends to bind people for many reasons. First of all, the human need to satisfy sexual desires and to gain sexual pleasure sometimes override one's common sense and even causes immoral activities, such as prostitution. Prostitution also takes place in the story as the spacers, too, engage in prostitution by having physical relationships with the frelks in exchange for money. However, for the spacers, it doesn't necessarily mean anything since they don't feel sensual and sexual pleasure from being involved in such act. In addition, gender also takes form in language as different languages. For example, Spanish involves having masculine and feminine nouns which are strictly distinguished.

Gender in society also refers to roles of people; specifically to the role of women and the role of men. By dividing the roles of people in accordance to gender, the concepts of inequality sprout and there always seems to be no unification among the people. In addition, people are bound to their roles in society accordingly to their gender; it hasn't been long in history where women, especially, have been allowed to seek roles in the world of men. In contrast, however, the spacers, with their lack of gender and immaturity, are able to more freely enjoy who they are without the need to fulfill a role in society which relates to their gender. Instead, they play a role which benefits the society as a whole. Therefore, the spacers seem to be unbound by the concept of gender and sexuality which, for the rest of the earthly people, seem to act like the "gravity" which binds people firmly to the ground.

"The Lathe of Heaven" CP #1

"Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in he moondriven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water baldly into the air, that dry, terrible outerspace of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to heap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking....

What will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?" [Chapter I, "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin]

As an instrumental opening, Le Guin makes a metaphoric reference to the jellyfish. Though it is written as a prose, I see it as a poetic verse where the vulnerability jellyfish is linked to the vulnerable essence of a human being. Peoples' reliability on the perpetual qualities of everyday life in the real world could directly relate to the "instability" that Le Guin points out in the statement above. Often times, life is seen as a perpetual wave or an "endless circle." For example in Gabriel Garcia Marquéz's "Hundred Years of Solitude," history repeats itself over and over again and characters become reflections of one another. And therefore, people, in order to shatter the monotony of their lives, venture off into the dream-like world of their imaginations. In the statement above, it says that "the light shines through (the jellyfish), and the dark enters it"; though the world of consciousness and that of unconsciousness are separated, the wall or the boundary between the two is sheer enough to be shattered, perhaps by the human's ability to dream, which, Le Guin says, bridges the "gulf" which is located "between the waking or hypnotized-trance condition and the dreaming state." Therefore, human beings are vulnerable as to differentiating between reality and non-reality because, like the jellyfish which is "tugged from anywhere to anywhere," human beings are also tugged back and forth between reality and dreams.

Though such introduction of the novel, I believe, set a great opening for the novel in which the main protagonist experiences his dreams altering reality, what really interested me was a statement Haber made to Orr during one of their later conversations.

"'I'm not in the judgment business, Mr. Orr. I'm after facts. And the events of the mind, believe me, to me are facts. When you see another man's dream as he dreams it recorded in black and white on the electroencephalograph, as I've done ten thousand times, you don't speak of dreams as 'unreal.' They exist; they are events; they leave a ark behind them.'" [Chapter II]

In an article titled, "Between Reality and Illusion" by Kentaro Ichinara (taken from the Guggenheim site: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/interact/participate/youtube-play/the-take/moving-images/3735-between-reality-and-illusion), the writer makes a statement at the end which reads, "Through projected images, illusion permeates into and is mingled with reality, blurring any potential borders between them. This is the world we live in." It really made me question what is real and what is not. Ichinara also said in his article that, "Illusion is also a phenomenon involving our perception of reality, whether it is a 'true' representation of that reality or not" which related to when Haber said "your uncinscious mind is trying to tell your conscious mind something about reality--your reality, your life--which you aren't ready, rationally, to accept" [Chapter II]. Perhaps, we do have the ability to create a "new present" [Chapter III] which is shaped by the idea that memories could be altered. Personally, I do agree with the idea that memories could be altered... have you ever heard the case of a girl who accused her own father of raping and killing her best friend because she remembered something incorrectly? After all, the past, present, and the future are all made up of images which are stored in our brain as memories and if we do dream of different images, I believe that that dream will have the potential power to alter our memories, making the dream a part of our reality. Who knows, like the photographic image of Mount Hood on the wall of Haber's office, our reality also has the potential to be altered through the unconscious.