Literature of Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Bloodchild

Discuss how the text(s) you read for this week's assignment did or did not reflect the values and perspectives of majoritarian culture. This piece did not reflect the values and perspective of majoritarian culture in the ways that it was portrayed as distinctly alien, and that humans were the invaders of another planet, and that in order to survive, humans had to have relationships with alien creatures that laid eggs inside of our intestines and organs. This storyline specifically is not something that people tend to think of on an everyday basis. The young main character of the story being chosen as the one to carry the alien babies, and going back and forth on whether to go through with it or not, is ultimately somehow a little bit closer to how we think. If there is any major decision we have to make as humans, it is often dragged out and thought over the possibilities many times before finalizing anything, let alone if other people's lives are at stake. This piece does re...

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Discuss the types of reality rendered in the works you read and watched for this week's assignment. Describe the effects of this reality on the narrative and the implications for the presumed reader. Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson is a multi-narrative science fiction novel that takes place in what seems like the distant future. Like many other novels of this genre, the reader is thrown in without explanation and is constantly trying to keep up and figure out what's happening. While this was new and intriguing at the beginning of the novel, I found this very hard to follow throughout and stay interested in. The realities in this novel seem very convoluted and obscure, with terms like cyberspace and stims filling the scene. Every narrative in this novel has a completely different setting, and tone that for a long time in the book it seems as though they are not connected at all. I think that the effects of this technologically enhanced reality opens a lot of ideas fo...

Bloodchild

Bloodchild by Octavia Butler What is your reaction to the text you've just read? My reaction to Bloodchild by Octavia Butler is a mixed one. It seems as though there's a boundary between the so-called alien or Tlic's perspective and the human or Terran perspective. People that had witnessed the transformation of the society from it's original state to one that lives symbiotically with the Tlic's are much more resistant to the idea of the Tlics and may even despise them. Particularly the brother in the story that had seen the pain and even death that can come as a result of them implanting into people. The implanting itself is a very disturbing image that can result in a nauseous feeling. The image that comes to mind when they describe the worms crawling inside of people as Tlic's young babies is revolting. Although it begs the question of whether it's possible to have symbiotic relationships to this extent with other species, and is this something that ...

Allyssa Ellis

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