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Social Criticism in Two Science Fiction Novels from the 1950S and 1960S

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Social Criticism in Two Science Fiction Novels from the 1950S and 1960S Social Criticism in Two Science Fiction Novels from the 1950s and 1960s Pauline Kimman Ghent University Student ID: 01409997 Submitted on August 7, 2015 For Completion of Masters of Arts in American Studies Acknowledgements First of all I should like to thank all the academic staff of the MAAS program and my supervisor Prof. Codde in particular. I am eternally grateful for my family’s unconditional support throughout the academic year. My friends have been equally supportive, and I acknowledge how fortunate I have been to have had them by my side. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1: The Space Merchants (1953) ........................................................................ 9 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 Synopsis............................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 The Fictional Reality ..................................................................................................... 10 1.4 The Protagonist ............................................................................................................... 11 1.5 Social Issue: The Class System ............................................................................. 15 1.6 Social Issue: Corporate Power ............................................................................... 21 Chapter 2: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) ................................ 26 2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 26 2.2 Synopsis............................................................................................................................... 27 2.3 The Fictional Reality ..................................................................................................... 28 2.4 The Protagonist ............................................................................................................... 29 2.5 Social Issue: Man and the Machine ..................................................................... 32 2.6 Social Issue: Religion .................................................................................................. 35 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 41 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................... 45 3 Introduction In a lecture series at the University of Chicago in 1957, Cyril M. Kornbluth, co-author of The Space Merchants, suggested that since ‘the science fiction story does not turn the reader outward to action but inward to contemplation,’1 it had failed as social criticism. While sci-fi readers’ track record as social revolutionaries is not particularly noticeable, it is specifically the genre’s ability to engage its reader in ‘contemplation’ which I argue is distinctive and essential to the genre’s affiliation with social criticism. Numerous attempts have been made at defining science fiction as a literary genre. Without lingering on the complexities of defining the genre, it is essential nonetheless to decide on one clear definition when tracing its historical context. Assessing this context will provide a better understanding of the genre’s position in literature, whilst highlighting the rationale for my choosing this genre. I propose this definition: science fiction is speculative fiction in which socially and politically relevant content concerned with contemporary developments in science and technology is projected onto predominantly futurological alternate realities.2 Science fiction historical background In his Science Fiction (2005), Roger Luckhurst addressed the different origins of science fiction. These origins, Luckhurst finds, are ‘precursors to the lowly image of pulp fiction in 20th century.’3 He finds that science fiction’s origins can traced be back in different ways, ‘depending on how SF is conceptualized.’4 The first origin dates back to exotic travel narratives in the eighteenth century. ‘[T]he encounter with the other’ is what links these two genres. A second origin is utopian writing like ‘Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) [which] honed the strategy of an idealized ‘no-place’ (u-topos) that critiqued the political constitution of the extant state by unfavourable comparison to the imagined ‘good-place’ (eu-topos).’5 Thirdly, Luckhurst considers the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to be ‘a vital premise for the emergence of the genre.’6 He mentions Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as an example of this type of writing, which considers ‘the human implications of the scientific experiment.’ The last origin discussed by Luckhurst reaches back ‘to the Bible and 1 Kornbluth, C. M., “The Failure of the Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism” in Davenport, Basil; Heinlein, Robert, A.; Kornbluth, C. M.; Bester, Alfred; Bloch, Robert, The Science Fiction Novel: imagination and social criticism,“ 3rd ed. (Chicago: Advent Publishers, 1969), p. 56 2 This definition is inspired by several scholars and writers; C.N. Manlove (1986), A.E. Levin, Yuri Prizel (1977), David Seed (1999) 3 Luckhurst, Roger, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 16 4 Ibid., p. 15 5 Ibid, pp. 15-16 6 Ibid., p. 16 4 classical mythology,’ which relates to ‘the expansive, even sublime imagination of SF.’7 Even though Luckhurst provides evidence for the different origins of science fiction, he finds that science fiction does not date further back than circa 1880. ‘In the 1880s, urban life was itself a machine ensemble, with everyday communication, public spaces and popular culture increasingly routed through machines.’8 Science received more attention from the public with the rise of Scientific naturalism and Darwinism. Luckhurst finds that ‘The Origin of Species was written in a way that made it particularly open to metaphorical extension.’9 Luckhurst uses Darwin’s degeneration theory as an example which has been used in texts like Robert L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1885) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Luckhurst refers to these texts as ‘fictions of the science,’10 where fiction becomes the ‘metaphorical extension’ of science. Adam Roberts, the author of the science fiction novel Salt (2000) and lecturer at Royal Holloway, tries to define the genre in his book Science Fiction (2000). While he equally lists the authors mentioned by Luckhurst as being part of the history of the genre of science fiction, he finds that ‘none of these books just mentioned belong to a recognised genre - a specific type or species of literature - called Science Fiction.’11 Both Luckhurst and Roberts agree that it was not until the 1920s that the genre of science fiction was identified. Luckhurst gives several reasons to explain why ‘distinctive SF genre publishing begins in the 1920’s.’ These include: ‘the extension of literacy and primary education … the displacement of older forms of literature … the arrival of scientific and technical institutions … that comes to confront traditional loci of cultural authority’ and ‘the context of a culture being visibly transformed by technological and scientific innovations.’12 What Luckhurst finds particular to the development of science in America post-1880 is the way in which ‘[t]he mechanical engineer and the practical inventor became social heroes.’13 The ‘Edisonade,’ a term coined by John Clute, refers to this era. Luckhurst calls it the ‘inventor mythos,’ which portrayed ‘the lone inventor as an innocent victim of industrialist barons and capitalist speculators.’14 While the ‘Edisonade’ focused mostly on the scientist, Luckhurst finds that the science fiction that followed was more ‘an ideologically conservative and barely literate investment in inhuman mechanism.’15 Hugo Gernsback was the most influential figure in the further development of science fiction as a genre. The magazine Amazing Stories which he launched in 1926, featured a 7 Ibid, p.16 8 Luckhurst, Roger, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 29 9 Ibid., p. 23 10 Ibid., p. 23 11 Roberts, Adam, Science Fiction (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 3 12 Luckhurst, Roger, Science Fiction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), p. 16 13 Ibid., p. 24 14 Ibid., p. 53 15 Ibid., p. 59 5 variety of short stories which combined science and fiction into what he termed ‘scientifiction’ in 1924.16 The term science fiction only emerged in 1929. Although Gernsback’s stories officially coined the term ‘science fiction,’ he has been criticised nonetheless. In 1973, Brian Aldiss ‘attacked Gernsback ... as one of the worst disasters ever to hit the science fiction field.’’17 The reason why these stories have often received such criticism is that while Gernsback often took pride in ‘the predictive accuracy of his inventions,’ Luckhurst notes that he was equally known for ‘[a]bandoning any interest in those other mechanics - of plot, of melodrama.’18 This type of writing is also called ‘pulp fiction’: a distinction ‘that mapped onto class and automatically determined the cultural value of journal content.’19 While science fiction continues to receive criticism for its
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