As this was the first time I tried to look at science fiction in a scholarly, objective way, I tried to figure out the intricacies of the genre and what all goes into a piece of science fiction based literature. I remember the first day of lecture for this class we spoke about how science fiction was a sort of tool to imagine possibilities and rivaling options to the ones society is currently implementing. I thought this was pretty cool so I focused on it in my post. As the topic was omelas, I jumped on the ‘capitalism is lame’ theme and wrote about the parallels between the story and how capitalism requires losers and is ultimately unfair. This was fun for me because I’m a pseudo-socialist and making fun of capitalism is fun for me. I think I did a good job of connecting the fictitious story to a real world narrative or moral which I have come to understand is the main point of science fiction. In this way, this specific post was very important for me concerning this class as it has continued to shape how I think about it.

I think I approached omelas to English-y because I’m an English major. For example, I think science fiction is more interested in exploring the possibilities of what it can think to come up with rather than making sure it aligns with the modern English canon type way to achieve literary merit. We discussed this idea in one of the first lectures and I think its an interesting way to approach literature in a different way. It like how I love Star Wars a lot but don’t care for the acting.

It needs work specifically because getting too caught up in the literary elements of omelas is kind of missing the point. I think its trying to convey an idea much more than anything else so to focus on things other than this overall point is to misunderstand science fiction.

To improve this first post, I would look into the specifics of the author’s political affiliation, the time period omelas was made, and then what kind of political events were happening when and where that was. I think a greater understanding of where the author was coming from would help me to understand why the story is the way it is and then gain a better understanding of what it is trying to say.

Close reading is important for any kind of work that is important. I think of close reading in relations to Paradise Lost because I love it and because it is so important to read it closely. I didn’t really like Paradise Lost until I had it explained closely and it meant much more to me once I understood the subtle things at work. I always hope to gain similar experiences reading other works closely in terms of getting more from it. Close reading is important because the author took a long time to write whatever you are reading so skimming through something is sort of disrespectful. Its also not really worth reading something if you aren’t going to invest the time to read it closely.