Trey Terrell
Mrs. Moltz
English III
April 1, 2014
Sci-Fi novels have been around for almost a century. Sci-Fi has the most potential of any genre to capture and explore the imagination of the world we know , or don’t know. Like any other genre Sci-Fi has tried to teach us lessons , or warn us of our arrogant choices as a whole civilization. But like all things, it changes with time. Sci-Fi writers adjust their styles accordingly based on current economic, political, or environmental problems around the world. The language in the writings change as well in an ongoing effort to keep up with the trends of popular culture.
It could almost be said that writers dumb down the language throughout the years due to television becoming stronger and stronger in the entertainment world. People started reading less and watching more. Young people became less interested in the poetic writing style of authors who were once part of the Sci-Fi golden age, and more interested in how to look or dress like their favorite actor or musician. Even certain trademarks of the genre changed. The archetypes and conflicts changed to contrast things closer to more modernized problems of the current decade. Lead characters became younger as authors started to try and attract the younger audience.
Novels of the 1950s such as Crucifixus Exam by Walter M. Miller, Jr. had a very complex style of writing that was almost poetic and often focused on something small with very much detail. On the other hand later writings like James Patterson’s Maximum Ride have almost all child characters who are quite relatable for anyone 10-17 years old. The writing is also very young, straightforward, and direct to the readers for a much more “kid-like” reading experie...
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.... The most apparent reason being is that the 1950s were a time of fear, tidiness, maturity, and scientific wonder. Authors took advantage of readers’ imaginations by portraying unknown worlds and using the fear of nuclear war to help the suspense of their storytelling. In modern times, people have television to show them worlds beyond their own. Science has shown us more realistic happenings from things like radiation fallout, and the fear of nuclear warfare is no longer a constant staple is Americans minds. People now look for more relatable stories about relationships and struggles of a lacking economy, or the day-to-day troubles of being a teenager with all the hormonal problems to deal with.
As long as the world changes, literature and writings will change. Whether to adjust to certain trends, political issues, or as the reflection of American culture changes.
Wood, Karen and Charles. “The Vonnegut Effect: Science Fiction and Beyond.” The Vonnegut Statement. Vol. 5. 1937. 133-57. The GaleGroup. Web. 10 March. 2014.
Margaret Wise Brown is not the only author that has been able to adjust her writing style to better suite different age levels for children. Another author that could fit into this category would be Ruth Krauss, author of “A Hole is to Dig,” and many more other great children’s books. Both of these authors’ genres could be categorized as simple and defining. For example, Margaret Wise Brown wrote the famous book, “Goodnight Moon” and compared to Ruth Krauss’s book, “A Hole is to dig”, it is easy to see these attributes of writing style.
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
The fifties was a learning year and the 60's became the time to express everything that they learned. The 60's was a time for new and innovative ways to entertain the people. Since the blacklisting continued in Hollywood, the making or films became very difficult to express. The restrictions, such as the production codes, kept the big corporations to produce films that had no interesting subjects. These films also had to be films that show no signs of communistic values. The film industry was failing to bring in the audience to the theaters. With the TV making a big wave all over, the U.S. the film industry was losing it is money. Then in 1961 something big happened, 20th Century Fox took apart its lot. This act was one that led to a chain reaction. Studios were assuming the role of distributors. This would allow the independent companies to come in and add a new flavor to the silver screen. During this time films changed it's traditional film making ideas. Things started to get graphic, more violent, sexual and more expressive. Movies had found a new look and with the production codes now gone and the blacklisting ending, there was an explosion of ideas that would be presented to the United States.
The 1950's represented the cold war era, symbolized by the red scare, anti-communism, potential nuclear war, and McCarthyism. Patriotic loyalty and conformity demonstrated an allegiance to our country. Citizens who spoke out against US government policies experienced surveillance, being black listed, and labeled communists. The sensationalized conviction and execution of the Rosenberg's for spying, jeopardized our countries' national security and reinforced anti-communism propaganda. Moreover, students practiced emergency ducking under their desk drills to prepare for a nuclear fallout and families purchased bomb shelter for protection. The hyper-vigilance, fear, paranoia, and post - traumatic stress that permeated our country's landscape of being under siege, intensified with the polio epidemic.
Darko Suvin defines science fiction as "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device" (Suvin 7-8) is a fictional "novum . . . a totalizing phenomenon or relationship" (Suvin 64), "locus and/or dramatis personae . . . radically or at least significantly" alternative to the author's empirical environment "simultaneously perceived as not impossible within the cognitive (cosmological and anthropological) norms of the author's epoch" (Suvin viii). Unlike fantasy, science fiction is set in a realistic world, but one strange, alien. Only there are limits to how alien another world, another culture, can be, and it is the interface between those two realms that can give science fiction its power, by making us look back at ourselves from its skewed perspective.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, literature changed and focused on breaking away from the typical and predicate patterns of normal literature. Poets at this time took full advantage and stretched the idea of the mind’s conscience on how the world, mind, and language interact and contradict. Many authors, such as Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Twain, used the pain and anguish in first hand experiences to create and depict a new type of literature, modernism. In this time era, literature and art became a larger part of society and impacted more American lives than ever before. During the American modernism period of literature, authors, artists, and poets strived to create pieces of literature and art that challenged American traditions and tried to reinvent it, used new ways of communication, such as the telephone and cinema, to demonstrate the new modern social norms, and express the pain and suffering of the First World War.
The 1950’s were an important time for events around the world, changes in America, and changes in pop culture. On June 25th 1950 South Korea was invaded by North Korea (Legrand 680). In 1952 President Truman signed the Japanese Peace Treaty which officially ended World War II (Legrand 708). Nuclear attacks were a large threat in this time “Kids were told about the threat of a Cold War nuclear attack, but it didn’t mean much to them and didn’t really affect their lives (Miller 2).” In America, it was on January 31st of 1950 that President Truman gave the order to build a hydrogen bomb (Legrand 675). That bomb was tested in May of 1951 in the Pacific (Legrand 700). It was also in 1951 that the amount of time a president could spend in office was changed to two terms (Legrand 649). Citizens did not think that a nuclear attack would happen so things like money and music were more important. “Americans averaged an income of $1,436 for each man, woman, and child in 1950… (Legrand 705).” It was in the 1950’s ...
It was the 1960’s in America, a time of social consciousness, fear, war, distrust in government, and rebellion. It was a time in which bomb shelter ads on TV were common place. It was a time of tension and fears for communism creping though our neighborhoods and infiltrating American ideals. We were at war with a nation. After World War 2, there were two dominant nations, the United States and the Soviet Union. Political ideals and control over Germany would separate the allies into bitter rivals and enemies. The fear of the Soviet’s use of nuclear weapons was constantly in the backs of our minds. It was a global ...
Peter hunt’s ‘Instruction and Delight’ provides a starting point for the study of children’s literature, challenging assumptions made about writing for children and they are trivial, fast and easy. Children’s literature is a conservative and reading it just to escape from the harsh realities of adulthood. It’s probably the most exciting for all literary studies, and a wide range of texts, from novels and stories to picture books , and from oral forms to multimedia and the internet , so it presents a major challenge and can be considered for many reasons. It is important because it is integrated into the cultural, educational and social thinking for the success of the publishing and media, and it is important to our personal development. Things that may seem simple at fist, how children understand the texts, how these differ from the
A children book is an extremely substantial and significant form of literature. It educates, affects and amuses at the same time. Although its main audience are the small children, the majority of adults in fact enjoy this type of literature as much as children do. This can be explained by the capacity of children literature to deal with great themes and topics that are too large for adult fiction. (Philip Pullman) For its great importance, the style and technique by which it is produced, is a major concern for both of the authors and critics. One technique has a particular impact in the children book, that is to say, illustration. Bearing the visual nature of children in mind, we understand that their books should be delivered with
History, current events, and social events have really influenced American Literature. Authors have been influenced by the world around them and that has reflected in their works. This can be seen throughout the many eras studied in this class. It can also be seen in all types of literature such as playwrights, fiction, non-fiction, and poems. It can also be seen in all of the different writing styles such as, realism, modernism, and post modernism. It is important that American Literature has been influenced this way because Authors have shown us their personal views and insight to situations one would not get out of a history textbook.
American literature over the Great Depression was a quite settle time since no one had strong education but more experience. With new ways of government rulings “2 thinkers whose idea had the great impact on the period were the Austrian Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and German Karl Marx (1818-1883)” (Bayom 1712) are changing people’s way of thinking. With Communism rising both outside and inside the US and poverty made people start to question society logic on the rich and lower class. Even with all the change from the wars “American Literature…not separated family roots” (Bayom 1713); families were able to stay together but moved on from different ideas and view of life. New ideas of way of life were starting to change literature this time “between the two world wars found itself… attacking the old-style idea of tradition literature” (Bayom 1716). The American people slowly progressed from a straight conservative view to a more liberal view on lifestyle and society. The Great Depression authors were able to change how writers write after authors “writers before World War I had faith in society and in art, writers after between 1914 and 1945 had faith… writers after 1945 had lost even faith and never the faith in themselves that had inspired and sustained writer between the wars.” (Bayom 1713). The change in how writers wrote their books happened because of the depression and which they were forced into poverty and little hope for their future. Harper Lee showed us about how her life was with racism and poverty mixed in with the outcome of sadness and depressing from it. The writers in the 1930s were so influential that “[authors during the Great Depression] remain strong… as teaching of American Literature in college... on the premise that these earlier writers constituted a true American literary traditional worthy of study alongside the British” (Bayom 1713). Big writers
The years leading up to and during the modernist period were tumultuous. Attitudes and lifestyles were changing as people sought new philosophies of life and cast off the previous ways of thinking that proved to be no longer relevant in a rapidly changing world. Authors, such as William Faulkner, used the elements of modernism to pen stories for this new era.
Science fiction deals with the impact of actual and imagined science on society or individuals. It mostly speculates the technological advancement that may be obtained in the near future. Although most of the story is based on fiction, different elements of science that exist in the real world are also depicted in it. Some schools show science fiction movies to the students to enhance the learning process, while others only rely on text books. Not all classroom materials can be covered by science fiction narratives. However, making this genre a part of the education system can help students learn better and become more enthusiastic about any subject matter.