The story "The Star" by H.G Wells, to me seemed to be going nowhere. Yes it does fall under the science fiction genre but it really did not fascinate me in any way. What it does use is a lot of science, like using the word "observatories" and "instruments" which makes this story sound very legitimate. H.G Wells makes us feel a little tense when he wrote " "it is nearer!" (page 42) but I feel like that is the only sort of build-up we have going on in this story. I do like the fact that H.G Wells writes about when "it" is getting brighter and nearer, the people have a kind of tension and they start to think all these thoughts; whether it be final moment thoughts and how they would spend their last moments together or people thinking how fascinating the big bright light is and not really thinking about the end of their world as they know it. Some people are oblivious and some are not, I think if I saw a bright light coming from the sky I would start to question things like " is this bright thing that is approaching earth good or bad?" When you put yourself in that situations, reactions from many different people may vary but the result at the end is the same.
"Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler I thought was really good. It shows how humanity works and that not everything is like a type of Utopia. The dystopic "near future" stated in this story is quite opposite that of a perfect society. This story to me shows how imperfect society is and miscommunication we have as people. Most of us do things on emotions while some logically think events through but that was not the case in this story. I still do not quite understand the reason or origin of the miscommunication but is shows how we use assumption and jump into conclusions. At the end Butler shows how communication is key to a civil society and that we must use it at all times.
In "Speech sounds" you said you still did not understand the miscommunication anf the reason for that is due to the virus that plagued many leaving them dead or impaired in someway such as not being able to read or write but being able to speak or vice versa things like that was what left them being unable to communicate as we usually do which made it unique in a sense that regardless of the impairments they still found ways to communicate with each other even if it was hard.
ReplyDeleteThank you for clearing that up! As I was reading the story I tried to wrap my head around that concept but I couldn't
DeleteI also couldn't get into "The Star" because it was just to slow. I would have also reacted and asked the same questions about the bright star in the same way. The people in the story took the whole situation to calmly.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness I was not the only one who wasn't able get into "The Star". For me it lacked mobility and it used a lot of science, and I know science fiction does involve science hahah! but too much science makes it seem like a research paper
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ReplyDeleteOne thing that really stuck with me with what you just said about "The Star" was how some people were oblivious to their ending and intrigued with their destroyer. I saw that part in the text but I paid not much attention to it. But now that you've mentioned it, I'm thinking, "Wow."
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