Monday, March 3, 2014
Are We Human or are We Dancer?
When the narrator of Edward Bulwer-Lyntton's The Coming Race first encounters the Vril-ya he is instinctively filled with fear despite the beautiful and benevolent countenance of the mysterious being. Soon his fear is quelled through a magical experience he later learns is the product of the Ana's manipulation of vril -- the all unifying property of the universe that humans understand at the most rudimentary level. The Vril-ya and their apparent omnipotence are sobering for the the narrator and for me. As relatively clever creatures we humans like to consider ourselves the superior denizens of the earth and the existence of the Vril-ya challenges our notion of superiority creating a sort of cognitive dissonance. In particular the scene in which Aph-Lin tours the narrator around the Ana community evokes the imagery of a human leading a chimpanzee, "[Aph-Lin] took me by the hand... In a few moments a crowd collected round us, examining me with great interest, as if I were some rare wild animal"(44). Though the Vril-ya force us to see ourselves as non-exceptional animals it is hard to ignore the parallels between the Vril-ya and humans. Like us, the Vril-ya believe themselves the most sophisticated and intelligent beings on earth and harbor a disdain for lesser, barbarous creatures "Nations which, not conforming their manners and institutions to those of the Vril-ya, nor indeed held capable of acquiring the powers over the vril agencies which it had taken them generations to attain and transmit, were regarded with more disdain than the citizens of New York regard the negroes"(88). Moreover, Bulwer, while describing the Vril-ya's qualities, refers to them as human. This word choice is intentionally meant to draw similarities between the Vril-ya and humans. Bulwer's combination of painting humans as animalistic and reflect human qualities in the omnipotent Vyril-ya produces a sobering picture of humanity.
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Dancer! Dancing monsters rather. Like "Frankenstein," "The Coming Race" suggests that we are always monsters of our time. Seeking knowledge makes us monsters. We seek knowledge—in its best form—in order to progress. In other words, our progress is tied to mutation, or evolutionary theory as Darwin would say. If we conformed to transformism and developed naturally, would we be monsters? I don’t even know what transformism would look like because society is constantly pushing our “natural progression” through technological/scientific innovation (finding ways to change the eye color of babies and what not). For this aggressive pursuit of knowledge, we are always monsters, but we are monsters of our time dealing with different anxieties. I argue that the plot of both texts we have read thus far reflect our social anxieties of now and then. In terms of “The Coming Race,” the Vril-ya women convey society’s anxiety over women’s rights. The women have some power but not much because Bulwer is uncomfortable with the notion of women’s independence. We have similar anxieties today.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I’m a huge fan of the title! Bulwer-Lytton’s depiction of the Vril-ya draws a lot of attention to the way our society is structured and what aspects of it are imperfect, but a great deal of that also deals with the innate differences between the Vril-ya people and humans. As the narrator began to show more interest and sympathy for the barbarians of the subterranean society, Bulwer-Lytton really began to make his argument that the Vril-ya society was a true dystopia. I was given the impression that the Vril-ya demonstrated a lack of true compassion and instead were just a race of unfeeling beings with a sense of morality and because they wielded limitless power, they lacked anxieties that make human societies maybe a bit less perfect, but ironically a lot more capable. Our imperfections/anxieties are what allow us to progress and while evolution makes us more perfect, we are always left subject to other imperfections. I agree with Megan that we are quickly approaching an age where our technology is leaving us capable of accelerating the evolutionary process and we consistently push the limits of evolution. Bulwer-Lytton is warning us of exactly this. If we advance too quickly will we reach an age where we can advance no more? Is this type of age really any better than what we live in now? The narrator I believe serves the purpose of showing us that this isn’t the case. He shows that the Vril-ya are still flawed. Flawed in ways that they may not consider flawed, but flawed in ways that we do and flawed enough that he has good reason to be afraid of them because they are just as monstrous as humans.
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