Day: March 11, 2024

“The Comet”

“The Comet” by Du Bois is a science fiction story with underlying social commentary from an Afrofuturistic perspective. Sci-Fi stories often involve post-apocalyptic settings. In “The Comet”, the protagonist, a male African American, finds himself in a world where the majority of people in New York have been killed by a comet. He stumbles across a wealthy White woman, and for a brief period, they believe they are the only survivors on Earth. The two come from very different backgrounds and would have never interacted prior to the comet strike, but when faced with the end of the world and only each other to rely on, these preexisting racial and class barriers dissolve and they form a human connection. This fictional setting prompts the audience to imagine a world where racial and socioeconomic status no longer matter and consider the irrational nature of racial and class discrimination in the real world. “The Comet” therefore uses a post-apocalyptic setting commonly seen in Sci-Fi stories for rhetorical effect. 

Upon reading the text, I reconsidered the absurdity of all forms of discrimination. Oftentimes, when the privileged are stripped of their privileges, they become just average human beings. Consider social status. People are often born into the social class that they belong to for most of their life, and people of higher social status often inherit their status from their predecessors. However, without those predecessors, privileged individuals would not possess such privilege. The same goes for wealth. Wealthy people live prosperous lives, but without their wealth, they would just be average human beings as well. This was seen when the wealthy White woman in the story was forced to rely on the protagonist when her status and wealth no longer mattered and she was on an equal level with him.

Overall, it was very interesting learning about Afrofuturism and perceiving social issues from the perspective of African Americans.

The Comet

In “The Comet”, W.E.B. DuBois utilizes genre conventions of science fiction to comment on racial and class inequality in the U.S. Like many sci-fi stories, the conflict unravels once the city has become a post-apocalyptic world and everyone is dead, except for the main character, Jim. Prior to the death that the comet has caused, Jim’s experience as a black man is narrated through his thoughts of bitterness as he feels the subpar treatment he receives from his white colleagues. In fact, the only reason he survived was because he was ordered to do the undesirable and dangerous job of searching an underground vault. With the same luck, the white woman he later meets avoided death by coincidentally being in her darkroom developing photos. While these two characters come from painfully contrasting walks of life, they are both survivors of the comet that could have easily killed them both. Mortality does not discriminate between race or varying degrees of wealth. Their humanity is shared through this daunting experience. As they search the city together, the labels that they carry with them everyday begin to fall. Jim is no longer a black man, he is just a man, who is somewhat timid but still has protective instincts. Ironically, in the absence of humanity, he has become humanized. The weight of Julia’s wealth dwindled in importance as soon as she found herself needing Jim for assistance. Her money gave her the power to never be in need of anything in life, but all of a sudden the only thing she needed was a friend.

Along with the genre conventions of science fiction, DuBois’ narrative decisions contribute to the impact of the story as well. For example, Jim’s name is hardly mentioned throughout the story and Julia’s name is only mentioned once, at the very end. DuBois’ decision to omit their names places a larger focus on the essential facets of their characters: their race, their class, and their position in society as a result. Additionally, DuBois’ style of omniscient narration when conveying Jim and Julia’s thoughts illuminate the way racism has infiltrated their existence so implicitly. Rather than providing dialogue, reading the thoughts of the characters feels more reflective of the slight, subliminal ways white supremacy truly permeates the world. For example, when Jim first looks at Julia he thinks, “Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she scarcely would have looked at him twice” (56). And as Julia finds her trust for Jim in limbo she thinks, “One moment she was terrified, then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath” (58). At this moment, Julia is finding it difficult to erase the thoughts that infiltrate her white, female mind when faced with a black man. But if DuBois were to verbalize these thoughts, they would not be as powerful or hit the reader in the same way. Racism and class inequality are not just ideas that some of us learn about, they inhabit our thoughts and our bodily reflexes. Thus, I think DuBois does a great job in conveying this message through his very specific rhetorical choices throughout “The Comet”.

Time Capsule

In Atwood’s “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet, she utilizes conventions of dystopian fiction to critique society. Atwood structures her piece into five progressive sections. The first section uses imagery to emphasize the importance of God. The second and third section discusses the creation of money which became a problem. In the text it states, “It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created…famines…” Atwood uses personification to show how money became powerful enough to create disasters. When humans place too much value on something, power is created upon it. Each of them desires more power than others. The “famine” that Atwood mentions likely represents the aftermath caused by fighting for money and power. The fourth section and fifth section talks about the formation of deserts which further shows how money is corrupting society. The text states, “Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts.” This exposes the greedy nature of humans because even though they were aware of the destruction caused by money, they did not proceed to stop. Humans become attracted to personal gains that they ignore the impact of their actions on others and society as a whole. All in all, Atwood’s use of dystopian fiction conventions brings awareness to major issues that can lead to the end of the world. In doing so, it challenges us to see what the future may hold.