We’ll finish up The Time Machine by watching a scene or 2 from the 2004 film. I know the syllabus order is Bradbury and then Clarke, but we’re going to reverse that:
- Bradbury, Ray. “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950) [Anthology pp. 234-240]
- Clarke, Arthur C. “The Sentinel” (1951) [Anthology pp. 241-249]
Superior Aliens and Inferior Humans
Many Sci Fi stories have a superior alien race that helps, enslaves, or does both to humans. Most of those narratives can be interpreted as allusions to the ways some groups of humans have treated other groups. Below are key terms for our discussion that are important for understanding the stories for today:
- Hegemony: the dominance of a group over another group; the hegemons’ power allows it to dictate the dominant or prevailing values of a culture. In our cultural studies approach, we see the effects of hegemony when we uncover the prevailing values in American culture.
- Imperialism: a nation (usually an empire) that rules or has authority over foreign countries or lands; those lands are often called or considered “colonies.” {See colonialism for an important distinction}
- Jingoism: patriotic chauvinism, often vocal and loud, in regard to one’s country being the best; jingoism advocates for a large military preparedness often under the guise of patriotism; they are vehemently patriotic.
- Superpower: a world power that has influence over other nations, often pulling those smaller groups into their cause against another superpower.
All the words above share one common trait: superiority. Human civilizations–not just Western–have long histories of thinking deities, higher powers, etc. created or will save humans.
Clarke’s “The Sentinel” is more subtle in its treatment of the superior-alien-inferior-human narrative, but it’s still about a life form that’s vastly superior to us in technological terms. Let’s examine that before getting into Tenn’s more common narrative of superior aliens destroying humans.
Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Sentinel” (1951)
Normally, we go right into the meaning of the texts, but I wanted to have us consider prose style for a little bit. In some English classes, prose style would be the main focal point of the course, and interpretation wouldn’t be as prominent. Let’s take a look at how Arthur C. Clarke describes the Earth in his story and how others describe the Earth in technical writing passages.
Clarke: “Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favorite of the Sun’s children.” (p. 249)
Planets for Kids: “The Earth differs from all the other planets because it has such a wide diversity of life and intelligent beings. This has only been possible because of the Earth’s atmosphere which has protected the Earth and allowed life to flourish.” (end of page)
Wikipedia: “Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System’s four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world or the Blue Planet. Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within its first billion years.” (para. 1-2, accessed February 2018–current page might have changed)
What are some similarities and differences in the prose style (what language is used–diction, sentence structure, figurative phrases, etc.) of the above passages about the Earth?
Technical Communication Areas
- Literature (mostly science fiction)
- Age-specific information (science for kids)
- Attempt to communicate objective facts (peer-review articles, encyclopedias, textbooks, etc.)
Interpreting Clarke’s “The Sentinel”
As the Anthology editors tell us, Clarke’s story’s “cognitive appeal is the challenge it poses to conventional notions of humanity’s place in the universe” (p. 242). As mentioned, we tend to put ourselves on top! We consider ourselves to be the most significant creatures, and our stories are full of examples of our greatness. Clarke and other Sci Fi writers use the possibility of superior aliens to try to get us to see life from a different perspective. Clarke was very sensitive to past British colonial rule, and, prior to WWII, Great Britain was considered a superpower, so Clarke’s cultural context is as a citizen of a world power. The United States is a superpower and is looked to as a beacon of hope and a nation of strength by many people. Of course, not all people look to America that way, but we’d be going out of our way if we denied that a large portion of the world views America that way. This assumption (and I do not imply it’s a false assumption) influences many Americans to see themselves as great, which influences our worldviews. Again, not universally but prevailingly. What if we weren’t the greatest group?
Clarke’s story (and some of his others–Childhood’s End for instance) is more hopeful about the alien other than other Sci Fi writers. In “The Sentinel,” humans are making progress (possibly) to one day be like the superior aliens who left the pyramid for humans to find and signal them once we made sufficient progress. If you’ve read (or seen the movie) 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’ll know that it’s about making contact. “The Sentinel” is the basis for 2001: A Space Odyssey, which expands on this concept of trying to contact the alien other. A more recent film with a similar plot is Christopher Nolan’s 2014 masterpiece Interstellar!
Let’s consider the following from the Anthology blurb:
- p. 241: Clarke claims “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
- Monolith from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
Beginning
On the Moon
The Short Story:
- p. 242: “The Mare Crisium–the Sea of Crises.”
- Not to be confused with Mari the cat!
- Knowledge and the superior life form: “They left a sentinel, one of millions they have scattered throughout the Universe, watching over worlds with the promise of life” (p. 249).
- Progress: “The Egyptians could have done it [created the crystal-looking pyramid]…if their workman had possessed whatever strange materials these far more ancient architects had used” (p. 247).
- Scientific Speculation: “there are times when a scientist must not be afraid to make a fool of himself” (p.245).
- Even hypotheses one gets wrong after going about the scientific method are still important for creating knowledge.
- Technology for good and bad: “It is a double challenge, for it depends in turn upon the conquest of atomic energy and the last choice between life and death” (p. 249).
- The sentence immediately following the one above is “Once we had passed that crisis…”
- Clarke alludes to the double-edged sword of nuclear energy. It can be used for civilian purposes or warfare. In 1951, the thought of nuclear annihilation was on the rise.
- Role of Women: “I stood by the frying pan waiting, like any terrestrial housewife, for the sausages to brown” (p. 243).
Bradbury’s “There will Come Soft Rains” (1950)
This is a post-apocalyptic narrative, but it doesn’t have human characters–they’re all gone. This setting is worse than those of the Fallout video game series. What’s left behind is a robotic house that can’t keep the dog alive or a fire from spreading. The Anthology editors tell us the author, Raymond Bradbury, doesn’t trust science and technology (p. 234). For him, scientific and technological pursuits aren’t necessarily good–we can harm the planet. He provides a warning to readers about blindly accepting technology will fix everything.
Key things to consider
- p. 236: The Family’s silhouette and Hiroshima
- The normal routine for the day…looks like Leave it to Beaver in 2026
- There might have just been a nuclear war, but at least the household technologies keep the place clean.
- Most likely there’s a comment here about shutting out nature through technology.
- p. 236: Notice the house has “an old-maidenly preoccupation with self-protection which bordered on a mechanical paranoia”
- p. 237: The nursery was an artificial “nature,” recreating bugs, grass, and animal sounds.
- p. 238: The house reads Sara Teasdale’s “There will come Soft Rains” (1918…after World War 1)
- The penultimate stanza: “Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly.” - Ouch! That’s the overall theme. We aren’t significant to nature (except what we destroy). We have to create meaning to make ourselves masters of the environment.
- Teasdale’s poem most likely refers to a battle, but Bradbury’s short story (1950) uses the imagery from the poem to highlight nuclear apocalypse.
- In Western culture circa 1920, a growing sense of human insignificance and general meaninglessness of life begins to influence cultural products.
- Existentialism, which has a long history, is the idea that humans solely create meaning in a meaningless world (this is an introductory definition and doesn’t capture the entire philosophy).
- By 1950, the idea of nuclear annihilation was very much on the minds of most people in the United States and much of the world.
- The penultimate stanza: “Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
- The Fire
- p. 239: Even with all these safety features, the house still caught fire.
- p. 240: All that technology couldn’t save the house. Why would we think our technologies will automatically save us?
- Of course, to answer that, we’ll need to discuss whether or not technology is neutral…
- Fallout 3‘s Mister Handy recites Sara Teasdale’s “There will come Soft Rains”
- Mister Handy is a version of the in-home computer of the house
- In Fallout 3, there’s a religious cult, Children of Atom, that worships a nuclear bomb… (video should open at 2:45)
Next Class
We’ll cover whatever we missed from Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” and move onto discussing post-apocalyptic worlds and William Tenn’s “The Liberation of Earth.”