RR - All You Zombies

This week we have to do a reader response on a story we read. I have chosen the extremely complex, "All You Zombies." With reader response I am going to walk you through my personal experience when reading this story and what exactly I took away from the piece. Reader response is a very effective method in analyzing literature. Though the author generally has a major theme or topic he is attempting to convey, different readers interpret the story or aspects of the story very differently. It gives us different perspectives based on various reader responses and helps us look at things in a different light; a light that perhaps would have never been discovered if it was not for that response from  another reader. We all draw our own conclusions from what we read, but with the help of others, opinions of which we would otherwise never even think about, we can conquer the true meaning of a story from all angles. "All You Zombies," was, and excuse my language, a mind fuck. It is basically about a man who, with the help of time travel, is somehow his own mother and father while at the same time the offspring of the conception. Along this story we learn of the very detailed life of the main character and the things that have happened to him to cause this odd result. Its hard to say if I really enjoyed the story. It was definitely very interesting; I have never read anything like it. It was indeed quite confusing and at times hard to follow. This took away from the story, and I am sure other readers felt the same way. I think by the end, however, I had a pretty firm grasp on what the author was attempting to get across. One thing learned was that beware of a friendly conversation in a bar, you might get more than you asked for. I think this was the first time time travel was really explored in this fashion, at least the first text I have experienced it in. We generally think of time travel as a simple concept of going back and forth in time. This story showed as how it could actually change events in the past and future and how these events can in turn fuse with others to make a complex puzzle of history. Definitely a must read for scifi fans, but approach with caution.

Theme

This week we discussed theme and how it enhances a story. The theme of a story is extremely important in establishing early on and maintaining consistency throughout. It can be seen as essentially the foundation of an idea for a story upon which the characters and events that take place build on. A theme is typically the first idea that an author has for a story and uses it as a jumping off point. They begin by saying, "I want to write a story about humans and their dependence on technology or the importance of family." This then flourishes into a story from which different characters interact and engage in relationships with each other while dealing with different obstacles that are thrown at them. Along this path, their relationships and experiences are direct examples that support the theme and aim to further the authors intended idea. One of the stories we read was, "Second Variety." The story details a world war involving the Soviets and the United Nations. After almost complete annihilation, the United Nations responds to the Soviets attacks by developing a lethal model of robot intended to even the score. The two superpowers then meet to come to a truce, but discover that the robots have somehow created an alternate version of the robot model, one that looks and acts like a human in every way. The major theme that I found to be present in this story was identity. The different characters, after discovering this new type of robot, began to question each other as to who was the second variety and who was an actual human. When it was discovered that one person was actually a robot, it caused the remaining characters to question everything. The theme of identity and relating to our surroundings is very primitive in the sense that we will do what we must to survive. When one thing that is so familiar to us is in question, everything becomes that way. I think the interactions between the different characters during the story enhances the theme of identity and keep the story flowing. With a strong theme, a story will always have the ability to convey its message to its readers.

Conflict

This weeks concept is desire. Desires of a character and their motive within the story. I chose to highlight Dr. Frankenstein in our reading of Frankenstein. In class we discussed conflict in detail and how a characters desires encounter this conflict. This is a very important aspect as every character in every story has some goal there intend to achieve. Along the path to achieve this goal, there is generally some sort of conflict that they will face. This conflict, depending on the character and how vital their goal is to the story itself, is a crucial piece is developing a fictional story and how it will flow. The reader gets to know the character and learns of their desire. They then tend to side with this character and sometimes have an emotional bond with them and it becomes the goal of the reader to achieve this goal, through the character that they are reading. Dr. Frankenstein is in so many words, obsessed with creation. Through his experiences with the death of his mother and relationship with Elizabeth, his love, the doctor is set on the idea of creation and the power that it brings with it. In our reading, we see Dr. Frankenstein experiment with the human body, both how it is built and how it falls apart. He is enthralled with every aspect of his experiments. The conflict we come to see is after he brings his creation to life. He is absolutely disgusted with what he has created and cannot bear to even look at it. He struggles with internal conflicts with himself and questions his motives to bring this, "thing," to life. The resolution of this conflict goes beyond our reading. I am, however, familiar with the story and know that the monster goes on to destroy everything and everyone that the doctor loves. This internal conflict that we see in this story defines Dr. Frankenstein. What began as an obsession and also as his life's work, ends in utter disaster causing the doctor to question everything in his life. We can see now the effect conflict has on a character and the story itself.

Hello bloggers. I am back for the final week. The semester is finally over! Its been an interesting one to say the least. We have read some pretty cool stories for sure. There were a handful of more off the wall stories as well. I would definitely say that my reading comprehension has improved, especially for the science fiction genre. I think its safe to say that I have a much better grasp on fiction. Style of writing, technique, characters, etc. Some of the stories we read really blew my mind! There are some crazy writers out there. You read a story and you say, "how the hell did he/she come up with that? What were they smoking?" Favorite story of the semester you ask? I am between Burning Chrome, Liar!, and The Nine Billion names of God. Each story spoke to me in a different way, but all positive. Wait, I did really enjoy Bears Discover Fire, I gotta put that in there also. That was a pretty cool concept. Another thing I took away from this course was a better understanding of how vast and diverse the genre is. We read stories about sex, time travel, mother nature, economics, politics, robots, and of course outer space. Being a film buff, I would love to adapt of of these stories into a movie. There were definitely some good concepts. I gotta say, as I have said before, I was bummed we didn't read 2001: A Space Odyssey, only my favorite sci fi story of all time! Oh well. Well I don't have much more to say other than I did enjoy it. I think it will help me in the future in analyzing other genres. It always seems to help when you have an outside perspective. Well I guess I can say my first ever blog was a success. Maybe I'll keep it going? Probably not, but I enjoyed it while it lasted, peace out yall.

Welcome back bloggers. The semester is almost over so, I'm on little or no sleep. This week's prompt is on setting. Where does the story take place, what's going on around the characters, time, climate, etc. These are very important factors in a story, well, it really depends on the story. Some more than others, but either way setting generally plays an important role. This week we had to choose a story that we read to analyze. Of course I chose Bears Discover Fire. Maybe my favorite story of the semester. I mean come on, bears are scary enough already, now they have learned how to wield fire? A pretty cool concept if you ask me. Anyways, setting definitely played a major role in this story. It takes plays in a heavily wooded area of the country near Virginia, Tennessee, Western Kentucky, that region. For those of you who are unaware, an area with a pretty dense population of bears; bears of all kinds as well. All over the area, the main characters, along with surrounding communities, notice bears everywhere are gathering together and lighting fires. They have replaced the common practice of hibernation with this new activity. Mainly gathering and making these fires on the outskirts of the forests and the medians along the highways. This shows that these bears are directly interacting with the human world. They are now closer than ever. I thought setting played a major role in the sense that if this took place anywhere else, chaos and destruction would follow. Imagine if bears arrived in an urban area like New York or Chicago. People who are not used to wild life more than something you would see in a zoo would not know how to react other than, "we must destroy these bears before the torch our asses!" Because this story took place in a more rural area, they adjusted to this new concept quite well. Also, as we see in the end of the story, the bears take to the locals quite nicely. They allow them to join their fire and sit with them as equals. Bobby, a farmer, Wallace Jr., an innocent child, and Bobby's mother approach the situation with curiosity and acceptance. Setting shows us that not everything is accepted everywhere and people are very different from you, depending on where you are.

This past week in class, we had a great discussion about nature and environment. This topic led into a great debate on how these terms can be interpreted and how they, "should be used." At first glance of the terms, they may seem easy to define, but as we learned in class, many different people have many different definitions and uses for the two words. Some said that nature has an organic base to it and is untouched by mankind as opposed to other artificial things we see around us. Others said nature could be altered, but as long as it was once considered nature, like a tree placed inside of a mall, that would still fall under nature. Environment was generally defined as everything around us, both natural and man made. This was definitely one of those debates that led to the typical, "but what if..." You could go on all day about what if this or what if that. The point is how you define the terms. There really isn't a wrong answer. I personally defined the words as nature being untouched by man, while environment includes both aspects of natural and artificial. This week's blog assignment included using an article, image, video, or anything else that represented the nature/environment debate. As seen above I have chosen to use an image. I simply found it using Google images, but I didn't just search a random picture, there is meaning behind it. This past weekend was the Masters. For those of you who do not follow sports, it is arguably the biggest golf tournament of the year and even possibly the most prestigious event and prize in sports. I found a picture of one of the tournament's signature holes, the12th hole. As you can see above, it is a very pretty hole with a lot to look at. I chose to highlight this aspect, however, because golf is a great example of how we fuse nature and man made sports. A lot of the things you see are great examples of nature. Trees, bushes, grass, water, etc. But I can almost assure you that when the earth was created, there weren't little yellow flags sticking out of the ground, or a rock bridge perfectly arching over the water. This shows us that there are many man made features present in this image. This brings about the debate mentioned earlier, can this still be regarded as nature? It looks like nature, but it has been cleverly designed and altered to challenge the golfers who attempt to conquer it. It's hard to say. It really depends on how you define nature and environment. I personally consider things like this as, "nature plus." This basically means that I consider it to be nature, but with a few additives. Also, my definition of environment is an all-inclusive concept that involves everything around us, no matter where it came from. I really enjoyed this assignment because I found it interesting to try and define these concepts. When you first look at them, they do indeed seem easy to convey, but oh the contrary. I thought the above image would really help express my point of view and stance on the topic itself. Hope you enjoyed it bloggers, see you next week.

Hello again fellow readers. On the cutting board this week is The Nine Billion Names of God and how Marx's ideas on society functions in terms of culture, economy, religion, etc. First off let me just talk about how excited I was to read this story. Being a HUGE fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as you probably have read in one of my previous blogs, as soon as I saw Arthur C. Clarke I could not wait to dive into the story. Although relatively short, I really enjoyed the story and how it flowed. It read very quickly, but in a good way. This was the reason I chose to analyze this story for this week. I really understood where it was going, leaving me with virtually no confusion, as with stories we have read in the past. This story mainly focuses on religion and essentially the purpose of mankind on earth. To the monks in the story, the purpose of man is to discover the true name of God. If this can be achieved, God will end the universe, thus ending the human race. Upon learning this, the two computer programmers, of course, think this is a bit absurd and make plans to escape the blame at the end of the process. Marx had a relatively "anti religious" view on religion. He viewed as a downfall of society and that it held back innovation. The monks in the story have been told of this mission to find the name of God, a mission that has been passed down for centuries through many generations. They have no choice whether to give the mission a rational thought of whether it makes sense or not. Are they to go against something their ancestors began thousands of years ago? How could they possibly do that? The westerners, however, who have been employed to run the computer that will eventually discover the correct combination, think about this in a much different way. Marx's ideas would obviously favor those of the computer programmers and their plan to escape before a possible failure of the end of the universe, as the monks have predicted. Marx feared an outbreak of chaos as a result of religion, something seen in this very story. Its hard to say religion is necessary, but even harder to say it should be forbidden. I believe Marx had some innovative ideas, but something more in the middle seems most effective. Before I conclude, I have to mention that last line. A real mind fuck, excuse the language. Falling stars? I guess one would conclude that the universe has begun to end. But what if that's not what the author meant? What did he mean? I am personally a big fan of leaving the reader with a cliffhanger. (see Shutter Island) Gives the story much more flavor.