What does the Post-Apocalyptic genre offer regarding the future of the human race?
In "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury, technology dominates and essentially becomes the only "living" thing remaining. Contrary to how society currently views and associates with technology, the power dynamic between humans and technology in this short story is reversed, where technology worships humans and is not that intelligent because it is unable to detect that there are no longer humans living in the house. The major similarity, though, is the purpose of the technology and how it is designed to make the lives of the people easier. This is reasonable because technology should logically only make our lives easier as time goes on.
Another aspect of Bradbury's depiction of technology worth noting is how technology repeatedly defeats nature. Throughout the novel, the house uses its beneficial technologies for self-preservation against nature, such as keeping the bird out and killing the dog. Bradbury makes the technology out to be almost a force of evil that can't be reckoned with. I don't quite agree with this illustration because no matter how amazing and sufficient technology may seem, it is man-made and I feel like the natural order of the world will always triumph.
"Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler portrays another aspect of this argument that still centers on the idea that the demise and destruction of humans is inevitable. Although there isn't a direct relationship between technology and the state of the human race during which the story takes place, the lack of humanity in this society is still due to a man-made disaster that wipes out all of the unique traits that define us as humans and individuals. Through this short story, Butler makes a point of showing how losing key characteristics that make us human like communication will result in violence and mutual destruction.
The post-apocalyptic genre focuses on narrating societies where humanity is either wiped out or severely impaired and modified, predominantly due to man-made causes. From both of these stories, the overarching idea is essentially that there is no hope for humans in the future because our desire (and possible greed) to experiment and develop new products in the hopes of making society better and life easier will be the ultimate cause of our downfall.
The analysis of the post-apocalyptic genre is interesting and the cause of humanity's downfall, as seen in these stories, is humanity's own. Although, whilst it does seem that Bradbury is allowing technology to defeat nature, note that in the end, nature does come out on top with the fire. Not only will humanity one day fall, but both stories you reference also put emphasis on technology falling as well.
ReplyDeleteI found this analysis interesting because it analyzed how the fall of a society and the beginning of a post-apocalyptic era is often caused by flaws within the people of the society themselves. A lot of apocalyptic stories in popular culture leave you wondering "how could something like this happen" and usually explain it with something like a global pandemic or a geological disaster. However, apocalypses can also be caused by people setting society up for its eventual downfall.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some really interesting points. When you mentioned how technology, ultimately, is man made and therefore nature will out do it I immediately thought of the machine. There is a part in the machine were the son reminds his mom that although the machine seems all powerful and smarter than us men are the ones made that machine.
ReplyDeleteBoth stories made me fearful of technology, which is what I wrote my blog post about. Bradbury does a good job of portraying a society where technology has completely taken over, and it made me consider the possibility of our society becoming like this in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think your point about post-apocalyptic worlds being caused by man-made things is interesting, because it is true that there is a lot of greed in our world, and sometimes that greed causes very bad things. I think these stories also serve as a kind of warning against what can happen if we don't each do our part to keep that evil human nature from causing some sort of apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteI think we can see this in our own world right now. Currently its March 12th and basically all of the world is on quarantine. It feels like the beginning of some YA dystopian novel. But I think this disproves the idea that every person will focus on greed or something similar. I think right now people are coming together and trying to feel normal. In times of struggle I think humans will come together.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting because in almost every post-apocalyptic story, it's always that we as humans did something to destroy ourselves and society. Which quite frankly is terrifying because it begs the question: where does our humanity go in times like these? Right now, the world is basically on lockdown while health officials are trying to figure out what to do with COVID-19. I'm scared about us not having enough supplies because of how empty the stores are now--it seems that we are letting our greed get the best of us, but at the same time there are a lot of restaurants and stores that are helping those in need. I'm hoping for the best.
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