Speculative Fiction Definition And Examples

 Speculative fiction explores not only the future but visions of life itself, expressing a warning of the the way human societies are headed. Yeats wrote the poem ‘The Stolen Child’ that combines mystery and irish mythology into the fantasy world of mythical creatures and a so called ‘better life’. The magical realism that the authors of speculative fiction try to project through narratives of things that can potentially happen in future taking things from the present reality and expanding on those ideals.

“The ones who walk away from omelas” is a fictional story of a better life and the sacrifices that are made to maintain happiness, representing the fictional fantasy. Based on the questions of reality and of survival, acting as warnings humans continue to take dangerous paths. Although the theme of it being fiction refers to it being not true, unreal or not based on facts the purpose proposed is to develop an understanding that it hasn’t happened yet but it could happen.

A short story of horror “click clack the rattle bag” written by Neil Gaiman, is a foreshadowing example of “monsters” or “creatures of the dark”. These unexpected twists brought to each story and each poem that makes you question society and what life is heading into. William Butler Yeats was the author of “the stolen child”, he describes a ‘ leafy island’ ‘to the waters and the wild’ in the first stanza implying a better, unrestricted, mystical place separating him from all the harm of the real world.

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Brought the world of freedom and innocents ‘stolen from the pains that this child doesn’t realize surrounds him. W.B yeats is an irish man who generally take the scenery and tales from his culture into his writing using his personal desire to see ireland of simpler times, describing depth to this vivid imagery. The imagery is portrayed to be appealing, the flora, heroins, the throat, the ferns, “dim gray sands with light” and the descriptions of water contrasting a sense of relief, colours, lighting and a free flowing life. 

Maintaining the innocence with child-like games “chase the frothy bubbles” portraying the youth that still exists. This poem was written just after the times of conflict and war, “full of berries and of the reddest stolen cherries” luring him with food into this mythological place away from the hunger, the death and the sadness. “A faery hand in hand” the protection, trust and reassurance of safety. This poem is a representation of the fantasy side of speculative fiction, with the mystical creatures and magical land spoken through the eyes of another, hopes and dreams carried in one place. Some authors of speculative fiction portray a more unfortunate side rather than happy, questioning societies morality in life. “The ones who walk away from Omelas” is the ideal of happyness and the ‘perfect life’, the reason to this joy is a suffering child that is locked in a cage taking in the hatred and suffering of the people in Omelas. 

Two opposite views have been expressed through the nature of society and the ones from omelas, one being that if happiness is based on someone else’s suffering then its not truly happiness itself and that sometimes societies happiness overrides the pain of one person or in this case child. In reading this story the perceptive meaning is that their feeling of happiness and joy is a psychological impact on the minds of these individual, meaning they believe that they can only be happy if there is one person suffering for them but if the child was removed would everyone be sadder until they realised. It is a moral question to whether you would walk away as the title suggests the story agrees with the those ‘who walk away from Omelas’. Based on the image of how awful happiness would be if it was based to pain of one child, the author based it around to thought that was posed by philosopher William James. 

The people of Omelas are observed to be selfish in that their own happiness more important than one’s freedom. The short story can link up to historical times when there were slaves to the higher power of whites, and the political side being the child suffering living under the city represents the working class supporting the upper class with low pay labor work. Stories and texts of speculative fiction can portray to imagery of a perfect place like the land represented in the stolen child and omelas based on insecurities on society to even horror in the fears of reality. Often bedtime stories are told like fairy tales with happy endings and no monsters, hence to make it not scary but “click clack the rattle bag” is no bedtime story. The imagery of a young boy telling a scary story about click clack the rattle bag to his sisters boyfriend. The story full of monsters described to create suspense in the atmosphere as the darkness continuing through the rooms they walk through. The boy mentions how they come from the dark, foreshadowing a unexpected outcome. A cliff hanger is left at the end as they enter a completely dark attic, with the sound of rattling bags in the wind, what make this such a suspending element to end with is that through the description of the click clack monsters they are ‘not what you would think’. The disturbed thought that they could be anything, anywhere and comes in unexpecting moments, leaves a disturbed suspicion and fear. Often scary stories consist of jumpscares, blood and even death but by the boys description the chick clacks is limited to anything and they way they attacked was much like a vampire but not only drinking blood. This short story isn’t so much a vision of where society is headed although small contribution can be noted to reflect that society is getting harder and darker as if walking into different stages in life, not everything is as it seems to be.

Often the phrase is used that speculative fiction is an umbrella genre, connecting to the more fantasy fiction genre, in particular science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero, utopian, dystopian and supernatural are just a few of the key elements that contribute to speculative fiction. The analysed text, presented by these authors, express examples of speculative fiction through their visionary aspects, the magical world of a better place, hidden darkness of reality that society creates to the more horrific signs of of where we has humans are headed as years go by. Often historical mishaps are used to create these visions and adding moral questions to relate back to the reader, bringing an understanding of warnings.