Science fiction has been defined many different ways over the years, though no clear definition has come out on top. There are many different aspects to science fiction and what it consists of. The most popular and recognizable characteristics are science, technology, time travel, scientific method, different worlds, and catastrophe. By including these it helps the reader identify the story as a work of science fiction. Because science fiction’s primary focus is science, it comes naturally that it becomes the main focus of the story. The way an author decides to depict the use of science varies greatly from story to story. Some may choose to use science in a good way, while others may show the negative impacts science could have. In “Nine Lives” by Ursula Le Guin and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne each author shows how characters can be connected or driven apart by science.
“Nine Lives” is a story that takes place on the planet Libra, where two men, Pugh and Martin, go to work. There they are joined by a Tenclone, a group of ten clones sent to help them with their mission. They are created from the cells of one man and are able to do tasks much more quickly and efficiently than humans. In the end, nine of the ten clones die, leaving Kaph the only clone left. Le Guin leads the reader to believe that the clones could have feelings, and ultimately she shows the connection between the three main characters.
In “Nine Lives”, the reader knows that the clones are not real, but a product of science. This leads the reader to question whether or not this product of science is capable of feelings. Darko Suvin says that Le Guin’s writing “lies in the quest for and sketching of a new, collectivist system of no longer alienat...
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...awthorne, the important aspect of his story is for readers to understand that science, if used improperly, can destroy relationships.
Works Cited
Huntington, John. “Public and Private Imperatives in Le Guin's Novels.” Science Fiction Studies 2.3 (1975): 237-243. JSTOR. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.
Rosenberry, Edward H. “Hawthorne’s Allegory of Science: ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’” American Literature 32.1 (1960): 39-46. JSTOR. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.
Suvin, Darko. “Parables of De-Alienation: Le Guin's Widdershins Dance.” Science Fiction Studies 2.3 (1975): 265-274. JSTOR. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.
Uroff, M.D. “The Doctors in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 27.1 (1972): 61-70. JSTOR. Web. 3 Nov. 2011.
Le Guin, Ursula. “Nine Lives.” 2011. PDF file.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia, n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2011.
There are stunning parallels between Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" and the film The Truman Show in terms of character, action, and structure.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Enriched Classic ed. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.
In “Rappaccini's Daughter,” Dr.Rappaccini is visibly the most insane character. He is described as, “But as for Rappaccini, it is said of him-and I know the man well, can answer for its truth that he cares infinitely more for science than mankind” (Hawthorne, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” 4). Dr. Rappaccini cares
In "Rappaccini’s Daughter", Rappaccini is the scientist and father of Beatrice. He is devoted to his scientific studies and to his daughter’s well-being. Rappaccini is the creator of plants with poisonous extracts thus only Beatrice can attend to. Her father had altered her touch and made it deadly to protect her from the evils in the world. She is forced by her father to live in his world without any human contact, instead she can only embrace her "sister" plant in Rappaccini’s garden. Beatrice’s sister plant is the only one that she can handle and embrace without it dying in her hands. As Hawthorne shows her closeness to her pl...
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Hawthorne’s stories young goodman and rappaccini's daughter both compare to the biblical tale of the garden of eden. in the next few paragraphs you will see how they are alike.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter is perhaps the most complex and difficult of all Hawthornes short stories, but also the greatest. Nathaniel Hawthorne as a poet, has been characterized as a man of low emotional pressure who adopted throughout his entire life the role of an observer. He was always able to record what he felt with remarkable words but he lacked force and energy. Hawthorne's personal problem was his sense of isolation. He thought of isolation as the root of all evil. Therefore, he made evil the theme of many of his stories. Hawthorne's sense of the true human included intellectual freedom, passion and tenderness (Kaul 26).
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.
Mary Shelley’s Sci-Fi horror known as Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus has become a classic novel in history. This dark tale touches on every subject of humanity. One of Shelley’s biggest themes is a big question in the science world we live in, nearly 200 years after publication of the book. That question being can science go too far, is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Shelley uses the plot of her story to serve as a warning to readers to be careful when dealing with this imaginary line. Shelley’s tale of a mad scientist and the repercussions he suffers from his experiment is a timeless story. As technology is being pushed to the brink of morality in the modern day, this question has become a huge part of the modern world of science we are living in.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Sam Houston State University. Sam Houston State University, n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
In the Nathaniel Hawthorne tale, “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” we see and feel the solitude/isolation of the scientific-minded surgeon, Dr. Rappaccini, likewise that of his daughter, Beatrice, and finally that of the main character, Giovanni. Is this solitude not a reflection of the very life of the author?
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Scarlet Letter”. American Literature: Volume One. Ed. William E. Cain. New York: Pearson, 2004. 809-813. Print
Science, soon, developed the Big Bang Theory, which states that Earth was created by the attraction of atoms. The nineteenth century society was afraid of science because it contradicted their beliefs, and was afraid that the results of science would lead to the destruction of mankind. Thus, the study of science was limited because of fear of its effects. The fear of the effects of science is expressed in literature. Novels like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Time Machine, and Frankenstein showed the dangers of science and that science would soon lead to the destruction of mankind.
“Hawthorne shows in the tale that the inner world of human experience is a complex and ambiguous mixture of good and evil (Stallman 2).” Hawthorne portrays that the existence of good and evil is part of life and that a person can make a decision which way to go. From the story, Hawthorne presents to the reader the character of Doctor Rappaccini, a scientist who experiments with poisonous plants and later on injects poison into his daughter Beatrice that to transform her into achieving superhuman qualities. The transformation of Beatrice as well as her lover, Giovanni into a poisonous being raises the question whether they are good or evil. In the novel “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates figurative language, descriptive details, and allusions to portray the dual aspects of good and evil in each character to convey to the audience that humans embody both goodness and evil.
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.