Tuesday, September 19, 2017
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?
5) A Scanner Darkly is not really Science Fiction but a thinly disguised autobiography.
A Scanner Darkly is true Science Fiction in that it takes a trend in society, in this case surveillance, and takes it to its logical extreme.
Comment on these two different views with reference to the film and/or the novel and what you can discover about the author's life.
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ReplyDeleteWhat does Dick(1995) himself theorise about the I Ching?
ReplyDeleteDick used a Ching.
The Man in the High Castle used it Dick because a number of characters used it. he threw the coins and wrote the hexagram lines they got. That governed the direction of the book. Like in the end when Juliana Frink is deciding whether or not to tell Hawthorne Abensen that he is the target of assassins.
Also He importance of the Ching own life. Ching gives advice beyond the particular, advice that transcends the immediate situation. For instance: “The mighty are humbled and the humbled are raised.” If you use the I Ching long enough and continually enough, it will begin to change and shape you as a person. It will make you into a Taoist, whether or not you have ever heard the word, whether or not you want to be.
The I Ching, was developed by ancient Chinese thinkers and philosophers, and painstakingly refined over many centuries. Today, many top mathematicians, scientists and physicists consider The Ching to be a valid system of prediction which anyone can use to make good decisions, and he also to explore the deep inner nature of the one own subconscious mind.
He thought technique about improving the story. The book is created by pieces of this sort of Ching method.
Reference:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle) ,
www.primevideo.com/High-Castle.
Brown, E. (2001). Introduction. In Dick, P.K., The Man in the High Castle (p.v-xii). London: Penguin..
1) What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?
ReplyDeleteThe difference between science fiction and speculative fiction is that science fiction is all about dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Speculative fiction is about taking our exisiting world and changes it by asking "What if?". A good explanation of this is by Neugebauer, A. (2014) "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 may 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".
The Man In The High Castle is a speculative fiction as the story tells us that Germany and Japan had ruled half of the United States. Obviously in real life this story is false which fits of the example of the difference between science fiction and speculative fiction. According to Atwood, M. (2017) "the difference between science fiction is it has monsters and spaceships and speculative fiction is it could really happen”.
Reference:
Atwood, M. (2017). Speculative or Science Fiction. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/10/speculative-or-science-fiction-as-margaret-atwood-shows-there-isnt-much-distinction
Neugebauer, A. (2014). What Is Speculative Fiction. Retrieved from http://annieneugebauer.com/2014/03/24/what-is-speculative-fiction/
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?
The Man in the high castle is a novel written by science fiction author Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in an alternative history world, where the Nazi Germany and Japan won the World War 2. The difference between science fiction and speculative fiction is about imaginative concepts. Due to “The Man in the high castles” narrative where Nazi and Japan won World War 2, I think the genre of the novel is a speculative fiction as according to Atwood, (2017) “speculative fiction is about taking our existing world and change it by asking the question “what if?”. The man in the high castle is a good example of a speculative fiction as the narrative show or question what could have or what if the Nazi Germany and Japan won the World War 2.
Atwood, M. (2017). Speculative or Science Fiction. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/10/speculative-or-science-fiction-as-margaret-atwood-shows-there-isnt-much-distinction