An essay on Speculative Fiction
AN ESSAY
"Speculative texts through the creation of distinct worlds can challenge or reinforce understanding of ourselves and how we live in the world"
Utopian and Dystopian composers employ the creation of distinct worlds as a medium to covertly express political concerns. The fictional worlds created by Aldous Huxley and Ursula K. Le Guin in “Brave New World” and “The Dispossessed” elucidate prevalent social issues of their respective contexts, provoking alternate understandings of humankind. By examining the relationship between scientific development and the human condition in the distinct fictional worlds, Huxley and Le Guin pertain to the moral uncertainties of the contemporary reader.
The distinct worlds created by Huxley and Le Guin allude to major political concerns of their time. Written in the post war era, Huxley satirically amalgamates his concerns of the rising dictatorships in Europe, the American invention of mass production and subsequent rise of monopolistic capitalism in “Brave New World”, while Ursula K. Le Guin utilises a reversal in perspective to examine America’s advanced Capitalism and involvement in the Vietnam War from an outsider’s point of view in “The Dispossessed”.Conforming to the convention of an all-powerful totalitarian state, the leader of which is revered and worshipped by the citizens, Huxley presents a political structure that echoes the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini in Italy and the “internal hierarchy” of Russian Bolshevism in the 1930’s. The totalitarian power of the “World State” and quasi-religious worship of the “Almighty Ford” satirically voice Huxley’s fears of the rising American consumerist culture infiltrating England and the rest of the world. The United States, a rising cultural and economic power of the time, saw Henry T. Ford’s application of mass production through assembly line, the product of which was “the introduction of our Ford’s first Model-T…” automobile. Ford’s industrial philosophy
"Speculative texts through the creation of distinct worlds can challenge or reinforce understanding of ourselves and how we live in the world"
Utopian and Dystopian composers employ the creation of distinct worlds as a medium to covertly express political concerns. The fictional worlds created by Aldous Huxley and Ursula K. Le Guin in “Brave New World” and “The Dispossessed” elucidate prevalent social issues of their respective contexts, provoking alternate understandings of humankind. By examining the relationship between scientific development and the human condition in the distinct fictional worlds, Huxley and Le Guin pertain to the moral uncertainties of the contemporary reader.
The distinct worlds created by Huxley and Le Guin allude to major political concerns of their time. Written in the post war era, Huxley satirically amalgamates his concerns of the rising dictatorships in Europe, the American invention of mass production and subsequent rise of monopolistic capitalism in “Brave New World”, while Ursula K. Le Guin utilises a reversal in perspective to examine America’s advanced Capitalism and involvement in the Vietnam War from an outsider’s point of view in “The Dispossessed”.Conforming to the convention of an all-powerful totalitarian state, the leader of which is revered and worshipped by the citizens, Huxley presents a political structure that echoes the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini in Italy and the “internal hierarchy” of Russian Bolshevism in the 1930’s. The totalitarian power of the “World State” and quasi-religious worship of the “Almighty Ford” satirically voice Huxley’s fears of the rising American consumerist culture infiltrating England and the rest of the world. The United States, a rising cultural and economic power of the time, saw Henry T. Ford’s application of mass production through assembly line, the product of which was “the introduction of our Ford’s first Model-T…” automobile. Ford’s industrial philosophy