17 pages • 34 minutes read
Lisel MuellerThe End of Science Fiction
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Growth of Technology
The speaker in “The End of Science Fiction” reveals their opinion about technological achievement early in the poem: “We are the characters / who have invaded the moon” (Lines 2-3). The word “invading” draws attention to a boundary that the speaker feels humans have crossed. The speaker does not say “landed” on the moon, or “visited” the moon, or even “reached” the moon; earthlings, via technology, went where they were not asked to go and possibly are not wanted. Now, the speaker points out, the technology that enables such invasions runs ahead of humans uncontained, as humans “cannot stop their computers” (Line 4). When the speaker tells the reader, “We are the gods who can unmake / the world in seven days” (Lines 5-6), “gods” (Line 5) is in lower case, indicating a loss of respect that accompanies the capitalization of a proper noun. The speaker suggests that modern humans have the capability to destroy what another, upper-case deity, like the God of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, is credited with doing in a week’s time.
In the second stanza, the speaker says, “Both hands are stopped at noon” (Line 7). The image of an analog clock with both dials pointing straight up, plus the use of the word “hands” (Line 7) suggests a kind of bondage, whereby some force is holding the passage of time captive. Time hasn’t simply ceased to progress by itself; time has been “stopped” (Line 7). Also in the second stanza, the speaker refers to the “numbers stamped on our backs” (Line 10). According to the speaker, humans relinquish human identity in exchange for a life of technology-assisted disconnect from our fellow humans.
Renewal
In “The End of Science Fiction,” the speaker proclaims that the age of science fiction is over. Humans are now “characters” (Line 2) who have run out of the potential to invent new things and new stories; therefore, humans must go back to their old stories in order to survive.
Mueller’s speaker presents old story ideas as if they didn’t already exist as ancient myth and parable, referencing stories from Greek mythology and the Bible in an effort to stimulate a return to human-driven narrative. The speaker does not name the book of Genesis, wherein Adam and Eve flee Paradise after Eve eats from the tree of knowledge, imploring the reader to “Invent a man and a woman / naked in a garden” (Lines 14-15). Nor does the speaker name Ariadne and Theseus, although the plot of their story—“a spool of thread / that leads a hero to safety” (Lines 19-20)-- is delivered in specific detail.
Mueller makes a statement in her poem about the importance of “ancient words” (Line 34) that recount both the triumphs and the foibles of human endeavor. The poet makes a case for the perennial value of retold stories that point out and point to human frailty and strength. She makes a case, as well, against forgetting and erasing human narrative in favor of a “lightweight” (Line 9) future in which humans willingly remove their most essential selves from the planet.
Heroism and Villainy
Throughout the many allusions to various heroes of ancient stories from the Bible and other sources, the speaker of the poem juxtaposes the theme of heroism against the villainy of the human “characters” (Line 2) the speaker introduces in the first stanza.
The first two stanzas of the poem employ a cynical, resigned tone as the speaker describes who “we” (Line 2) are now, thanks to technological advancement. To the speaker, humans have become villains who have intruded on the moon and who have the potential to “unmake/the world in seven days” (Lines 5-6). The speaker emphasizes the foreboding nature of humanity in its current form by drawing attention to the “lightweight, aluminum bodies” (Line 9) humans now possess; this comparison of humans to machines or robots suggests that the essential qualities that make humans humane have disappeared.
In contrast, the speaker hopes for human heroes like Jesus, “a child that will save the world” (Line 16) to once again become a part of the human story. The speaker mentions five different heroic human characters, all of whom save at least one life, one after the other, as if to remind the reader that redemption from villainy is possible. The list of heroes and their accomplishments is punctuated by commas, lending a celebratory urgency to the catalog of heroic deeds. This emphasis on human potential enables the reader to consider for themselves what it means to be a hero or a villain in this day and age.
