Weeks 7 and 8
Science fiction - PKD
1) What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science
fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?
2) According to
Mountfort (2006), what role does the I Ching have as an
organisational device in the structure of Man in the High Castle?
How does the use of this device illuminate the character of the novel’s
protagonists?
3What does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes
and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features
of science fiction?
4) What does Dick(1995) himself theorise about the I Ching?
1)What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?
ReplyDeleteSpeculative fiction and science fiction are genres that “move readers to imagine alternative ways of being alive” (Thomas, 2013). Two of them usually used with a lot of media from traditional texts – works to TV and movies to comics/graphic novels.
First, speculative fiction includes this question – “What if…?” It’s talking about the results of change that what’s real or what’s possible, not a certain event that how a main character would react. Speculative fiction must include this proposition: What’s possible in reality, but will never happen at all. Maybe it based on the impossible things at the first place. (E.g. what if zombies were real? What if the Nazis had won World War II? What if one man had x-ray vision?) This makes a genre of science fiction, fantasy, and horror later. Science fiction can be speculative, but not always.
Normally, Science fiction emphasizes on the science and technology of the future. It builds the story of new worlds where the characters can really exist in possible future. It’s not focusing on the present and the past, but it deals with the things in the future, in space, in a different world, in a different universe or dimension.
Suvin (1979) suggests that SF is a literary genre “whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (p.7-8).
I think SF represented what could really happen, and it means nobody knows that it will really happen or not. However, Speculative must never happen. It’s just a kind of supposition.
I’ll bring a good example from other’s saying.
“…a movie in which two astronauts get lost in space isn’t speculative because it could really happen within the realm of our existing knowledge of the world, as terrifying as that maybe be. A movie in which a group of astronauts discover an alien life form is speculative because- according to our current knowledge- it couldn’t happen in real life, since we know of no other intelligent life forms…”
There is simple question to define the speculative fiction: According to our current knowledge of reality, could this exist in the real world? If the answer is yes, it’s not speculative fictions. If the answer is no, it’s probably speculative fiction.
I guess The Man in the High Castle is speculative fiction. It is talking about the past accident (WW2), and that can’t happen again like the same way because every last moment is the past.
Reference
Neuqebauer, A. (2014). What is speculative fiction? Retrieved from http://annieneugebauer.com/2014/03/24/what-is-speculative-fiction/
Thomas, P. L. (2013). Science fiction and speculative fiction challenging genres. Greenville, USA: Furman University Press.
Suvin, D. (1979). Metamorphoses of science fiction: On the poetics and history of a literary genre. New Haven, USA: Yale University Press.
Definition of Science Fiction. (2005). Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson927/SciFiDefinition.pdf
Very good answer, Faye. Science Fiction had a bad reputation as a lowbrow genre; speculative fiction attempts to investigate serious issues, like the nature of reality and society,
DeleteComments:
DeleteHi Faye,
I think that The Man in the High Castle has a foot in both sub-genres of speculative fiction and science fiction.
I agree with your last point, I think that The Man in the High Castle is Speculative fiction as it created an alternative or ‘what if’ world where Germany and Japan defeated America and their allies during WWII. With that being said, I also think that the novel also falls under the science fiction genre as it is set in a world which shares many similarities to the ‘real world’.
Hi Faye,
DeleteI think your analysis of science fiction and speculative fiction is very good. I agree with Keren that Man In The High Castle has a place in both genres as it has conventions that conform with both the genres
Excellent answer Faye, very well researched and your English has improved immensely. I agree with your comment that The Man in the High Castle is 'Speculative Fiction'. Because It was written under the premise; "What if the Nazis and Japanese had won the war?". Over all I think that the alternative world that Dick writes about in the book is not that great and is very oppressed. I personally wouldn't want to live in country/world like that. However there are things in our current world that are quite oppressive and horrible, but we cannot escape them. For example things like; Global warming/Climate change, what is happening over in Syria, and right here in Auckland the rising of rents and house prices, over population, bad public transport, the cost of living and more and more people becoming homeless.
ReplyDelete• What does Dick himself theorise about the I Ching?
ReplyDeleteThe ‘I Ching’ or the ‘Book of Changes is a collection of practical wisdom, pertaining to every conceivable situation. It is an ancient Chinese manual that acts as an oracle, predicting certain events of the future. Dick (1995) stated that he used the I Ching as a creative guide, ceding decision-making about many aspects of the narrative to the text of the hexagrams.
Dick mentioned that when he poses a question to the I Ching, he receives divination as to what the characters in the novel should do next and what the result would be. In an interview (Vertex, February 1974), Dick mentioned that he used the I Ching as a plotting device in his work, “I threw coins and wrote the hexagram lines they. That governed the direction of the book.” An example of this in the novel is when Juliana Frink is deciding whether or not to tell Hawthorne Abensen that he is the target of assassins, the answer Dick got from the I Ching indicated that Juliana should and that is the direction he took concerning Juliana’s decision.
In regards to the importance of the I Ching in Philip K. Dick’s life, he stated that the I Ching gives advice beyond the particular, guidance that transcends the immediate situation. Dick believes that the answers the I Ching give “have a universal quality” and that if you use the I Ching long and continually enough, it will begin to change and shape you as a person.
Dick hypothesise that the I Ching shows a person an alternative way to conduct a situation. He speculates that the I Ching will analyse the situation more accurately than a person as it gives a different perspective. Dick believes that the I Ching questions practicality and morality as it offers an individual a choice to choose from, would you do what you think is right or would you do what you think is practical?
In conclusion, Philip K. Dick, not only utilized the I Ching in his work, “The Man in the High Castle”, he also implemented the ideologies of the ‘I Ching’ in his life.
References:
Dick, P.K. (1995). Schizophrenia and the I Ching. In Sutin, L. (Ed.), The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick (pp.175-182). New York: Vintage
Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.
Vertex Interview with Philip K. Dick [Interview by A. B. Cover]. (1974, February 6). Vertex, 1(6).
There are ten consultations with the Oracle in The Man in the High Castle. They are replies that Dick himself gathered from the I ching, when he asked it questions regarding critical decisions that characters had to make in the book.
ReplyDeleteFor example; “how they should interpret events, what they should do next and what the results will be.
At the same time, these consultations provide a record for Dick himself seeking advice as to how he should proceed in the writing of the novel and it’s plot development. Thus, and this is a point to which we will return, Dick regarded in a sense that the I Ching itself as having in a sense wrote High Castle.”
The oracle readings that dick integrates into the text, at the critical points in the character’s lives, may seem like something of a vivid ‘background image’ or subtext, to the “uninitiated reader”. However in saying this, the consultations show the ‘physical’ seams of construction of the novel. “They also constitute its central organisational device and functions as his meta-narrative: the text as oracle, however ultimately enigmatic it may prove.”
The ten consultations also bring to light the ‘subterranean’ fate lines that connect the characters who never meet in the book, but their decisions and actions end up affecting the other characters in concrete ways. The first two consultations are undertaken in quite quick succession, the first by a factory work Frank Frink, who desires to gain a better position in the factory in which he works; so that he can win his ex-wife back.
The first consultation concerns confronting his boss: ‘How should I approach Wyndham-Matson in order to come to decent terms with him?’ “It results in the somewhat ‘fatuous’ Hexagram 15 Chi’en: Modesty, which predicts ‘The low will be raised up, the high brought down.’ (p.18). On ex-wife Juliana Frink he asks, “Will I ever see her again?” (p.20). The answer is the ‘sobering’ Hexagram 44 Kou (Coming to meet). It warns The maiden is powerful. On should marry such a maiden.’ : an augury he’s received before regarding her.”
Reference;
Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.
Continued from previous post:
ReplyDeleteThe following two consultations (3 and 4) are both undergone by Mr. Tagomi, a Japanese official who is looking for a gift for a visiting trade representative; Mr. Baynes from a pinoc (White American) Robert Childan, who is a antiques and collectables trader. ‘I inquired of the oracle, “Will my meeting between myself and Mr. Childan be profitable?” and obtained to my dismay, the ominous hexagram “The Preponderance of the Great” (p.23). This Hexagram Ta Kuo, which pictures the roof-poles of a house sagging to breaking point, has one ‘changing line’ activated (each hexagram has six changing lines, zero to all of six may be ‘activated’ in the reading)
Which offer more specific advice to the exact nature of the situation. In this case:
Nine in the fifth place:
A withered poplar puts forth flowers. An older woman takes a husband.
No blame. No praise.
From this he concludes that Childan is not going to sell him anything good. Tagomi’s second question is:
“Will I be able to deal with Mr. baynes successfully?” (p.25). The result: 46: Sheng (Pushing Upwards), with two changing lines. From the Wilhelm/Baynes translations commentary on the second line.
Tagomi somehow concludes that ‘Mr. Baynes was not what he seemed; that his actual purpose in coming to San Francisco was not to sign a deal for injection moulds. That in fact he was a spy.’ (p.26).
It is important to note that Frink and Tagomi consult the oracle twice, and that they both do it in a similar way and for similar circumstances-delicate interpersonal situations; Frink to approach his boss about a role change and Tagomi with buying something for an important visitor.
Reference;
Mountfort, P. (2006). Oracle/Cybertext in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. Conference paper, Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association annual joint conference, Atlanta, 2006.
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ReplyDeleteWhat does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features of science fiction?
ReplyDeleteThe Man In The High Castle is a science fiction novel by Philip K Dick set in an alternative reality where Nazi Germany won World War II. Throughout the novel we are given a look at the way the world could have ended up and the lives the western allies could have had to live under the control of a powerful evil government controlling America.
In Eric Browns 2001 analysis, he talks about many of the central themes in the novel and the key themes in relation to the genre of science fiction. The most important theme and idea in this text is the idea of an ‘alternative reality’. Brown (2001) states that “(Dick) was obsessed with the idea that the universe was only apparently real, an illusion behind which the truth might dwell.” Dick’s perception of reality was one that inspired him throughout his writing with the theme covered in many of his other books.
Science fiction is defined as “fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.” Brown writes of Dick “He wrote about big ideas in his fiction, but never lost sight of the fact that science fiction was about the effect of events on individuals.” Within this novel Dick writes of the effects on people with themes such as society and class, power, politics and how they deal with conflicts in their life.
References:
Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin.