From hard science fiction to soft science fiction: The hero’s journey and visions of utopia and dystopia

Abstract

This thesis examines the concepts and ideas found in the speculative genre known as Science Fiction (SF) across two periods, the Golden Age (c.1938s-mid- 1950s) and the New Wave (c.1964s- early- 1970s). The former was characterised by a sense of optimism, and it reflects a level of confidence in scientific innovation and rationality. This period embodies a belief in technological progress that was clearly seen in the pages of magazines such as Astonishing SF. Conversely, the New Wave period was characterised by anxiety and uncertainty brought on by the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. The period witnessed a fusing of psychology, ethics, and cultural speculation about the limits of technological and scientific progress that simultaneously promised boundless human expansion set against the threat of imminent and universal apocalyptic destruction. The increasing militarisation of science and technology led to concerns regarding the future of humanity, and SF provided a lens for readers to help them understand these changing ways. These developments also impacted the way utopias and dystopias were depicted in the genre. The following works are discussed in detail: Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint (1959) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) and Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). All these texts charted how humanity’s uncertainties, fears and anxieties grew during the 50s and into the 60s. SF imaginaries capture broader cultural fears and anxieties, especially regarding the potential afforded by rapid technological advancements. During this period the genre moves from a spirit of optimism to one of pessimism, and I will show how SF writers used techniques such as Darko Suvin’s concept of cognitive estrangement, along with subverting Joseph Campbell’s classical tropes of the Hero’s Journey (HJ), to capture this change. All the texts under discussion exhibit an increasing ambivalence (if not hostility) to technological innovations. This of course is one of the central ironies present within SF narratives as supposedly utopian worlds contain within them their own dystopian antithesis, which has been discussed by Tom Moylan (2018), Ruth Levitas (1990), and Fredric Jameson (2007). This thesis offers a more nuanced perspective and understanding of how SF attempts to reflect social and cultural changes. Specifically, it will examine how the broad change from utopian to dystopic imaginaries in the periods under discussion parallels changes in cultural views of the role of science and technology in contemporary society. The specific contribution of this thesis to the wider field of SF literary studies rests in its detailed examination of how SF writers utilised narrative techniques such as cognitive estrangement and re-worked tropes associated with the HJ to better capture how the periods under discussion were influenced by the emergence of new technology. Narrative techniques such as cognitive estrangement, along with the reworking of traditional heroic tropes and journeys, successfully capture the changing nature of culture and society in the face of unprecedented technological innovations. Through in-depth analysis, the thesis demonstrates how SF narratives not only capture changing social and political climates, but they also simultaneously offer a critical commentary on humanity’s relationship with technology, including views on its potential. As we shall see, this creates a complex dialectic where supposed utopias always carry within them their dystopian alternatives.