Literature and science

My scientifically informed readings of Philip K. Dick's Ubik (1969) and Pamela Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe" (1967) consider entropy's multifarious meanings from both thermodynamics and information theory. Additionally, rather than relying upon overarching assumptions about the texts' cultural moment, I explore each fiction's presentation of entropy as negative or positive. For Dick, the loss of female mothering accelerates the heat death of late-capitalistic society, with entropy a negative, destructive force. Zoline, however, recognizes the injurious ramifications of entrapping women within the gender role of self-sacrificing wife/mother; her protagonist purposefully accelerates entropy production to destroy such a closed system.

This study examines the themes of alchemy and transformation in Paradise Lost and seventeenth-century thought. Beginning with an overvieiw of the historical roots of alchemy, this study analyzes the ancient, underlying philosophical concepts that marital union produces the birth of the soul and that destruction is necessary for this birth. Alchemical references identified in Paradise Lost include animal lore and direct alchemical images, which demonstrate Milton's knowledge of alchemy and his deliberate use of the alchemical metaphor. These themes support the proposal that Milton, a Christian humanist, uses alchemy as a metaphor described in this study as "divine alchemy," which begins with his belief that Christians, inheriting original sin, must submit themselves to a transformative process similar to transmutation to restore right reason and, ultimately, achieve salvation.

This project considers the future, and the hope for humanity within three dystopian science fiction works : Mordecai Roshwald's Level 7, Cordwainer Smith's "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," and James Tiptree, Jr.,'s "The GIrl Who Was Plugged In". There are many aspects and different manifestations of hope in science fiction, even in authors who show readers the darkest side of human nature and what will become of humans, and by default earth, if an effort is not made to change the world's direction. Though some dystopian stories show horrible possible futures, there is an underlying hope within these stories that the story will change readers' thinking about how the future might unfold. It is because there is a chance to save the world that science-fiction-authors tell stories about disasters, destruction, and post apocalyptic scenarios. It is within the hopeless story lines that hope for humanity manifests itself.

This study is an examination of the several themes and conventions of science fiction that seem to appear in the texts of Samuel Beckett. Expectedly, many of the texts produced by both science fiction and Beckett just before, during, and immediately after World War II share similar concerns; though perhaps less expectedly, these two relatively unlike bodies of work can be used to help better understand and illuminate one another. In Waiting for Godot, nuclear anxieties shed light on the play's apparent post-apocalyptic landscape and the profound emptiness that permeates the stage. In Molloy, Hugh Kenner uses Centaur imagery to explain the title character's Cartesian relationship with his bicycle; however, contemporary sensibilities at the time of the novel's publication suggests a cyborg reading of the Molloy/bicycle hybrid can also be productive. And in Krapp's Last Tape, the tape recorder serves as a figurative time machine, which allows readers to consider the ways technology continues to allow for the capture of time and subsequent reflection.

Einsteinian relativity forever altered our understanding of the metaphysics of time. This study considers how this scientific theory affects the formulation of time in postmodern narratives as a necessary step toward understanding the relationship between empirical science and literary art. Two novels by Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five, exemplify this synthesis. Close readings of these texts reveal an underlying temporal scheme deeply informed by relativity. Furthermore, this study explores how relativity manifests in these texts in light of the block universe concept, Gèodelian universes, and strange loop phenomena. Vonnegut's treatment of free will is also discussed. All of these considerations emphasize Vonnegut's role as a member of the Third Culture, an author who consciously bridges C.P. Snow's two cultures.

As realist and naturalist writers at the turn of the twentieth century adopted a scientific spirit of objectivity, they reflected the emphasis many contemporary scientific studies laid on the forces of the natural world in shaping the character, behavior, and ultimate destiny of man. In this literary mood of "pessimistic determinism," fantasy literature began to experience a resurgence, providing a marked contrast to naturalism's portrayal of the impotence of man to effect change in his circumstances. I examine fantasy's restoration of efficacy to the human will through a study of two representative works of the opposing genres: Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. As I demonstrate, the former naturalistic novel emphasizes the impotence of its characters in the face of powerful natural world, while the latter contemporary fantasy novel uniquely showcases man's ability to effect change in his world and his destiny.

The organ of hearing, in John Milton's Paradise Lost, is inextricably connected with both the physical and the spiritual; it is the point of entry through which Satan's words enter Eve's brain, subsequently process, and lead eventually to the fall of mankind. Its symbolic importance is also indisputable, as it is a metaphor for the feminine passivity and penetrability that make Milton's Eve a particularly vulnerable target. There is, however, already a pre-existing connection between the ear and its role in Paradise Lost. The seventeenth-century medical texts of Milton's contemporaries gender the physiology of the ear and the process of hearing and therefore contribute to its importance in the pivotal temptation scene; that is, the rhetoric surrounding the physiology of the ear is the down fall of humankind in the epic poem. As a result of the dangerous connection between science and language, Milton's characters are already predestined to sin.