Monday, March 3, 2014

Stuck in Oblivion?

At what point does the narrator realize that the Vril-ya are planning on taking over the “upper world?”  It seems as though our narrator completely disregards all of the signs that the Vril-ya consider themselves to be superior to other beings (which they arguably are) and that they are planning to overtake the narrator’s world.  While the narrator is clearly at least somewhat intelligent, as he is able to acquire a vast amount of knowledge from the Vril-ya, he appears to be completely oblivious to what they are doing.  They pose various restrictions on him, such as not allowing him to walk alone in the town, and they refuse to tell him about certain parts of their culture, but the narrator seems to write off these occurrences as simple matter-of-facts and doesn’t take note of their peculiarity.  It will be interesting to see how the rest of the novel plays out and when the narrator will start to notice these signs, if he ever does.  

2 comments:

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  2. I don't know that it is entirely obvious the Vril-ya are going to take over the upper world. I do agree that the Vril-ya have a superiority complex and for good reason. They wield incredible power at their finger tips that facilitates wonderful creation and staggering destruction. Other than this power there is little to suggest the Vril-ya have any designs in conquering the surface except a subtle reference in their history. In the case you are correct -- that the Vril-ya have some under-handed plan to expand their domain to the surface -- the narrator's ignorance isn't entirely his fault. The Vril-ya can easily transfer knowledge between each other and the narrator. Therefore, they can control what the narrator is exposed to and in turn can manipulate his perception of their community.Moreover, the Vril-ya are intelligent enough to recognize the narrator's insatiable curiosity allowing them to distract the narrators mind with study. Despite all that I've said I still don't see the point of the Vril-ya to hide their designs from the narrator. If indeed they have control of vril they could easily emerge from the depths of the earth and sweep humanity off the surface and there would be nothing the narrator could do to stop them.

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