Lauryn McMiller

Professor Sarah Boyd

ENGL 146

24 April 2016

The Defining of Humanity and Drawing the Line Between Soundness and Insanity in Speculative and Dystopian Media

During the course of this class, we have read a number of novels and viewed several other forms of media to give us a deeper look into dystopian and speculative fiction. From these works we have been able to come up with multiple conclusions about what this elusive genre really is and what it is looking to expose. It is a very difficult genre to define because it crosses over so many categories. It is flexible to the point where it has varying styles, and therefore there are debates as to what works really comprise the genre and which one’s just have a few elements from it. The works that we have gone over in class that I believe best illustrate the purpose of this genre all focus on defining humanity and seeking to find the line that separates us from insanity. Speculative fiction focuses on finding the variables in life find that really make us tick. Being as dignified as we are as a human race, what are those things that cause us to lose our humanity? How far can we stretch the mind before it snaps? Each author or director of this genre contributes a work that seems to test a different aspect to see whether it’s presence, or more commonly its absence, is the thing that can redefine humanity, or drive it crazy. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and the shows Black Mirror and The Leftovers are each prime examples of the argument that speculative and dystopian literature attempt to make. The goal of speculative fiction is to expose the variables that we attribute to humanity and define the things that keep us sane by isolating each element on its own in an altered society.

The approach that speculative fiction takes is quite unique and I will use the analogy of a scientific experiment to explain it. In an experiment, there is an independent variable, a dependent variable, a control group and an experimental group. The purpose of the experiment is to test specific elements or aspects to determine whether or not they affect the outcome of the experiment. In other words are these things vital. Once an element is isolated through testing, one can either deem it necessary or unnecessary for set purpose. The independent variable is the aspect that is being altered or changed. In speculative fiction, it is the thing that the author sets as out of the ordinary that the main characters must deal with, whether it be a single factor or a whole societal change; for example, gender and sexuality in The Left Hand of Darkness. The dependent variable is what is being measured or gauged. In speculative fiction it is the gauge on how much the situation has taken a toll on the society and subsequently the main characters. The control group is the set that is left unchanged for the purpose of measuring them against the experimental group. Within speculative fiction it is the group that has somehow managed to remain unaffected or resistant to the independent variable. The experimental group is just the opposite and is the group that has been affected or altered based upon the independent variable. I decided to use this analogy because the purpose of a scientific experiment and speculative literature and media is quite often the same; isolate the variable that affects the whole.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin is our first stop in revealing the goal of speculative fiction. Keeping with the experiment analogy, the independent variable is gender and sexuality as we currently know it. In this society, there is no permanent or set gender. Anyone from Gethen could be in either a male or female form and function adequately in both. The reader’s preconceived notions about male and female behaviors are challenged while reading this novel. We saw this world through the eyes of Genly Ai, an earthling whose gender and sexual views align with the readers. Throughout the book, Genly’s views are not altered, he feels the same way about the race of Gethenians in the beginning as he does in the end. He is the control group while the Gethenians are the experimental group. He is adverse to their way of living and cannot seem to conform to their ideas, even though he has been living on this planet form over two years. “Though I had been nearly two years on Winter I was still far from being able to see the people of the planet through their own eyes (Le Guin, 38)”. This leads us to our dependent variable, we are measuring whether or not it is our sexuality, or moreover our identity that keeps us going. Le Guin examines and asks us to examine whether or not it is our sense of self, the way that we define ourselves that is our foundation and what keeps our minds at ease. When we no longer have those things, do we fall apart? Genly certainly cannot get the hang of it and it causes him to be repressed and closed off and unable to truly connect with anyone on the planet. He has shut his mind because he is unable to handle being a part of this world. According to Le Guin, it is our identity, our knowledge of who we are and confidence in our sexuality that gives us our sanity and acts as our foundation for humanity.

Our next stop is the 2014 TV series The Leftovers. Of the examples I will be discussing, this is the one the most closely aligns with the experiment analogy. First off we have a percentage of the population that has mysteriously vanished, leaving no answers or clues as to what might have happened to them fro the remaining population. 140 million people have disappeared without a trace and the residents that were left on earth are of course completely baffled and people are coping in different ways, some more violently than others. The independent variable here is the sudden departure of the select residents leaving the “leftovers” or the experimental group on earth. The dependent variable is the reactions of the leftovers. We are observing and measuring the way that they are dealing with their loss. Looking to see who and what they blame and what they turn to. Will anyone figure out the answers or can they just move on with their lives? Lastly, the control group is the subtracted residents as they are not being altered or affected by the independent variable.

From the pilot episode alone we can see that things are not as they should be and the people remaining in this society are beginning to fall apart. There is a division among the leftovers, a group that would like to honor those taken away and move on with their lives while trying to forget about the past. The opposing group is one that wishes for everyone to remember what has happened and to keep it with them as they feel this is the best way to honor the taken. There is also opposition within families. Our main character’s, Kevin Garvey, family is falling apart with a marital separation and disobedient and distant children, everyone seems at odds with one another even though no one is truly to blame for this occurrence. Instead of banding together in a time like this, everyone seems to travel down their own confused path because their minds cannot take it. They are breaking and beginning to pass the thin line over to the side of insanity. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that they want answers. Yes people were taken away but why, and how, and why those people (Gary Busey, but not us?!). The religious and biblical explanations such as the rapture are not taken seriously because the group that was taken away was not considered especially holy. This leaves the residents unsettled and on edge, and is the ultimate cause of their inappropriate behavior. The director of the dystopian show, Peter Berg, is making an argument in speculative fiction. His argument is that it is our need for consistency and knowledge that makes us tick. He exposes this by showing us the behavior of the leftovers and reveals that the ultimate cause for this behavior is not knowing what happened to the people who were taken. Without the comfort of knowing what is going on, we as humans are unable to take control of the situation and therefore helpless. These characters are a wreck and they are creating enemies out of their own brothers. Berg argues that our quest for knowledge and need for knowing what is happening in the world is the thing that defines our humanity and keeps us from losing it.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Never let Me Go, is the next piece in which my thesis is tested. In this novel, there are a group of clones whose only purpose is to serve as donors for the human population. They grow up in schools from young ages and go through a lesser quality of life until it is time for them to become “carers” and eventually donors. During their time as carers, they tend to the needs of their donor patients until it is their time to take that place. Once the are donors, the give up their organs one by one and eventually “complete” and end up donating all of their vital organs. In this case, our independent variable is the creating of this “experiment” which are the cloned donors that humans have created. The dependent variable is the reaction of humans, those who interact with the donors, but are not they themselves giving anything up. The control group is a little harder to define here but is ultimately the group of clones as they are being added, not changed and they have nothing to do with our measurements (dependent variables). This leaves the humans as the experimental group as they are the ones being affected by the independent variable.

We can see the reactions of the normal people towards the clones through both the guardians and Madame. In the beginning of the book, we do not know very much at all about the mysterious Madame and most of the clones think she is just evil. Their first personal encounter with her does not go so well as she “she just froze and waited for us to pass by. She didn’t shriek, or even let out a gasp”( Ishiguro, 30). We come to find out later that she actually treats the clones in a frigid way because she knows their fate and is unsettled by it. She can hardly stand to even be in their presence and doesn’t know how to behave when she comes in contact with one of them. Madame is the character that we as readers are most likely to identify with as we are learning the situations of the clones. Cloning in our current society is highly controversial and when we are talking about human cloning it becomes and even more sensitive topic, and for such purposes as this is terrifying. Because of this, Ishiguro asks us to examine whether or not it is our ability to ignore, and our need for survival that truly runs us. Most humans in this society completely avoid the clones and they have been placed in a separate living space and have restricted access to the outside world because humans, like Madame, are unable to cope with the evil thing they have created. By separating themselves, they can ignore what they have done and pretend to view the clones as things until they really believe it. The guardians attempt to make the clones lives as pleasant as they can for the number of years that they are under their care and some of them even want to take it farther than that and let the children know what their end purpose is so they can be prepared. The clones serve for the sole purpose of providing healthy organs to humans that are in need. This will to survive drives humans to take the life of these clones all so they can live a little bit longer. Unlike the other works I have discussed, this novel is a bit different as we are not watching how the human character is reacting to set phenomenon, but we can still see what we need by observing Madame and the guardians. Ishiguro asks us to examine whether or not its is our desperate nature to survive and our insistence on ignoring things that we are not proud of that makes us who we are and prevents us from crossing the line over to frenzy.

The last stop on our mission to reveal the purpose of speculative and dystopian fiction is Black mirror. This is a TV series modeled after the classic, late 50s TV series “The Twilight Zone”. The show is not storyline driven and therefore each episode is a work on its own. I will focus specifically on the episode we viewed in class called White Bear. As it turns out, White bear is a public correctional facility in which criminals are taken to live out their days while enduring daily punishment. The instance in this episode is a young woman named Victoria who has been an accomplice to her boyfriend’s kidnapping and killing of a little girl. She is sentenced to relive everyday in torture as the facility has actors and a set made up just for her to believe that she is in another situation so they can tear that away to ultimately remind her of her horrendous crime. Each day she is drugged and “reset” so that she will not remember what is really going on and she will believe that the play is the real thing. The director of this show, Charlie Brooker Annabel, seeks to ask his viewing audience a question by creating this show, just as all speculative and dystopian creators do. He asks us to draw the line between justice and savagery. Once again with our experiment analogy, the independent variable is the correctional facility itself, the dependent variable is the reaction of the audience (in the show), and the experimental group is the audience (in the show). People from anywhere can just come in, even with their kids, and just view the torture they put their prisoners through every day. This episode was quite disturbing to watch, as it proved quite difficult to justify the severity of their punishment. The interesting part is, the audience in the show was not disturbed at all, and they contently watched and even joined in and cheered the torturers on. Brooker Annabel exposes yet another variable that could be the contributor to out definition of humanity. Is our thirst for justice the thing that gives us our drive and our strength? How far will we go to achieve what we believe is the answer for justice, and will we accept it even then?

The genre of speculative and dystopian fiction is broad in nature and is quite flexible in its reach, but one thing remains quite clear in this genre; it’s intent. The intent of speculative fiction is the same in every novel, every show, every type of media in this category. The goal and purpose is to expose the variable that define humanity and find the line between what we know to be rational and irrational. There are several methods for doing this and there are an endless number of variables to test and ergo the reasons the genre is so broad. We often do not have the answer to the questions that speculative fiction poses, but we can still learn form the stories and scenarios the genre gives us. Speculative fiction provides a unique and interesting way to think about the world we live in today and also often our own daily behaviors. Although difficult to pin down, this genre is always a successful experiment in thought.

This is gong to sound wrong, but here it goes, I have always been really interested in human experiments. I don’t mean the kind that physically/mentally tortures people for amusement, but the kind that allows us to see how people react when their everyday surroundings are no longer present. This is the reason I found “The Leftovers” so interesting. We hit on some really great points in class and a point was brought up that really resonated with me. It really amazes me how people react to the unknown. Humans are at the top of the food chain, we have invented many things and come up with spectacular theories, but all in all, there is still so much we don’t know. There are so many unanswered questions and questions no one has even thought to ask. All of this being said, I think it is pretty funny that we pretend that there are not things we don’t understand. We get so frazzled and bent out if shape when we don’t have the answers to something. We become unsettled, and as the Leftover’s illustrates, we gradually lose our ability to even function.

Most people seem to have this innate need to be in the know with whatever is going on and when they don’t have that, it can drive them crazy. But my thing is, we already know there are many things we don’t know or probably can’t comprehend, so why fall apart when these things happen? This is a rhetorical question and it is not to say that I don’t relate to  people on this I completely understand the reactions of the people in the show, it’s just that looking in from the outside, I wonder why people react the way they do. Other than a percentage of the population going missing, not much else has changed. All of the violence and despair has been brought on by the people themselves, not by whatever catastrophe that took the people away. This happening did not alter the earth, or people’s minds or anything like what you might see in a horror movie, it simply took people away. Not to say that that’s not a big deal, but it is literally just one thing. You would think that this would cause people to band together and come to  resolution, but instead it just causes them to drift further apart.

This pilot episode reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode I saw once. It was called “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”, and in the episode aliens came to a friendly neighborhood and began tampering with their possessions, making their cars start on their own and their lights flicker uncontrollably. The residents, who are originally civilized and nice to one another began turning on one another, believing that the alien traitor was among them. Eventually they began attacking one another and they completely lose their minds. The ending scene is the aliens sitting back and watching saying that humans are so easy to fool and turn against each other. They claimed that this is how they would conquer the world. They would not even have to attack or invade or start a war, just have us kill one another and their job would be done. I found this episode very frightening, because it is so realistic. I could certainly see this happening, because just like in the Leftovers, when something tragic or suspect happens, people turn against one another instead of turning to one another. We are often our own worst enemies.

In book 6, V decides to put Evey through a series of “tests” in an attempt to set her free. He sets up a very realistic situation in which he not only mentally tortures her(solitary confinement), but physically as well (shaving her head, dunking her in water, etc). He breaks her down to her most vulnerable state in order to show her the power and freedom that is available once you have nothing left to lose, but still have something to live for. This is V’s definition of true freedom that he feels he has reached and wants Evey to experience as well so that she can understand his mission and purpose. Initially after finding out that V was behind her torture, Evey is overwhelmed with anger and disappointment. She feels V has betrayed her and cannot believe he was able to go through with harming her this way. Eventually V convinces her that this experience has made her stronger and has “set her free”. It takes her a while but she eventually admits that she does feel free.

Alan Moore is making an important point by including this message in the book. Moore is saying that true freedom is letting go of all of your possessions, the things that you think make you you, until you have nothing left to lose. By doing this, you make yourself invincible to the world; you take away any power they may have previously had over you because there is no longer anything to threaten you with. There is nothing to hold over your head if you have no fear. Using this definition of freedom means to alleviate any fear.

Although I understood V’s motive for putting Evey though this, I don’t believe that he had the right to do this to her. This does not mean that it was not successful because even Evey herself admitted that it was, but was V right in taking matters in his own hands and forcing her to see things his way? I say no. V is an extraordinary character with admirable amounts of skills and intelligence, but he also has some major flaws. He wants to be the judge, jury and executioner, and this is not right. It is constantly his way or the highway and no one is right all of the time.

V has gone though and incredible amount of pain during his time at the camps in which he was given inhumane treatment and this has made him into the person he is in this book. Evey similarly has gone through her share of troubles by losing her loved ones and being forced to live alone which has made her into the person she is in this book. Who is to say that V is handling his situation any better than Evey? Sure V seems to have his life together, but neither of these characters has attained peace. They are both restless in their own ways because neither of them has truly moved on from their situations. When we first meet Evey, she is awkward and confused but determined to try something new. V throughout the book is determined to get revenge on those who wronged him and set this government straight. Neither of them can ever sit still for very long. This leads me to the conclusion that since they are both restless and without peace, V doesn’t need to teach Evey in this area even though he tries to anyway. Setting Evey free is another way of saying he wants her to be at peace with her situation. V himself is not at peace with his situation, so how can he convince Evey?

One important theme in many dystopian novels and movies is the value of identity. Identity is so key because it can refer to many aspects of an individual. These categories of identity can include gender, socio-economic status, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion just to name a few. Dystopian novels and movies are renown for creating worlds and societies in which these things are taken away with the intention of revealing the magnitude of identity. The Handmaid’s Tale plays on this idea by creating this land of Gilead where everyone in some shape or form has lost significant parts of his or her identity. The women have caught the worst of this and have been reduced to mere tools for reproduction. The loss of identity in this novel is one of the main reasons there has been little to no resistance from the absurd laws of this society. Losing one’s identity takes the fight out of you and makes it much easier to conform to something even if you know that it is absolutely wrong.

Women have been stripped of their socio-economic status and have no say in decisions or any type of individual freedom. They are continuously supervised and forced to take on new names. The naming system seemed of little importance to me at first, but as I thought about it more and more I recognized its significance. By taking away this one last piece of identity, previous bonds and ties to the past society were broken and there is a major loss of hope. If these women could have just held on to their real names, maybe they would have kept more of a tie to their previous lives and therefore been more willing to fight to get back their lives. By enforcing this new naming system, these women were forced to separate themselves from their previous lives. As we saw from the narrator’s point of view, there were many times where she did not even want to recall or remember what her old life was like because it was just too painful. Instead she invested her mind and imagination in her forged identity and blocked out her past. This forged identity served as a control and prevented a lot of possible resistance and uprisings from the citizens of Gilead.

I think that identity is so important because it is such a heavy influence on our decision-making. I found myself while reading this book and Kindred asking why these main characters did not take action or why did they not take it sooner. Why didn’t Dana keep trying to escape of why does Offred not take matters into her own hands when she is given so many opportunities? I know it is wrong to say what you would do in as situation if you have never been in it, but I still wonder if I would be up for making the big decisions. What I have found by reading these books is that when your identity is stripped, you are reduced and making those hard decisions becomes even harder. Societies like this design it this way so that there is more “order” and less room for challenges. When I look at it this way, I find myself empathizing with characters and enjoying the novel more.

There are many lines and passages in this book that made me analyze and consider what it is that actually divides the sexes. Sure, we are built different physically which allows us to function differently, but why is there such a cultural and social barrier between us? Are our ‘gender roles’ innate, or do we learn to put ourselves and others into categories? These thoughts led me back to a concept that I learned in both Biology and Psychology; it is the nature vs. nurture debate. Are we a product of our genetics, or our environment and personal experience?

At one point in their journey, Estraven asks Genly what a woman is and if they differ greatly from himself, a man. The hesitation before Genly’s response is understandable. When Estraven asks this question, I found myself trying to come up with answers along with Genly, and it was indeed challenging. It is not something we think about often, yet we still behave within our designed roles. In his answer, Genly includes a list of observations:

“the heaviest single factor in one’s life, is whether one’s born a male or female. In most societies it determines one’s expectations, activities, outlook,, ethics, manners-almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages, Clothing. Even food. Women…women tend to eat less…”

As I read this, I divided this list into the nature and nurture categories. All but one are nature characteristics. The only biological (nature) factor listed is generally speaking, women have less of a capacity for food than men. Based on Genly’s interpretation, gender is definitely a result of nurture. For the most part, as children, we are told what is expected of us. We are given a Barbie doll or a racecar, told that it’s a man’s world, taught to be more (women) or less (men) sensitive, allowed (men) or not allowed (women) to burp at the table, allowed (women) or not allowed (men) to roll our eyes, told to wear a dress or pants, and told whether to get a steak or a salad. With all of these rules and barriers, it is almost impossible to form your own identity. Maybe if we were allowed to make individual decisions before we were drilled with expectations and stereotypes, we would be a more ambiguous population.

After that quote, Estraven asks if women are mentally inferior, Genly replies that he is unsure and remarks that they usually don’t turn up as notable people in terms of skills or achievements, but he doesn’t think hey are stupid. This response led me to ponder whether or not our gender roles inhibit us from performing at our full capacity. If it is already ingrained in your mind that you are inferior in terms or math and science and philosophy, and all you see in the history of these fields is men, then you are discouraged to even try because you fell like you have already lost. What it does not speak to is aptitude or ability. Jut because someone might be frightened to try something, doesn’t mean they do not have the capacity to perform.

All in all, Ursula K. Le Guin did a good job of making readers analyze gender roles and open our eyes to the discrepancies that come up when we rely so heavily on them to dictate our lies.