How is science fiction different from fantasy, according to Le Guinn?
This secondary source written by Ursula K. Le Guinn highlights four particular genres relating to fiction in a literate sense including fiction itself. The first one that she brings up in her article is realism. I found this to be quite an amusing read as the use of realism in a piece of creative writing opens the door to fantasy. Both realism and fantasy correspond with each other in some way. The writer’s world of realism is one that appears to be true but has the potential to contain imaginative features. This could be taking a completely thought up character and throwing them into a non-fictional world. “Most modern fiction doesn’t contradict fact.” (Le Guin, 2005) It’s crucial that when it comes to fantasy realism that the writer does not eliminate all factuality in the writing process.
Ursula then moves on to write a bit about fiction and how it ties in with realism. This is when a writer toys with reality by creating a story that is meant to seem as though based off of real life occurrences. “Fiction is what didn’t happen, but realistic fiction pretends that it did.” (Le Guin, 2005) Fiction realism could be a writer thinking up an imaginative and therefore non-existent being and chucking them into the midst of an historic event. This gives the writer a grand opportunity to write about how this fictional character perceives the world around them. Science fiction is looked upon as being a very highly influential genre. Going by what Le Guin had included in the piece of text, Science fiction differs from fantasy due to landscape. Science fiction is more strict when it boils down to rules and limitations whereas fantasy is mostly about being imaginative.
Le Guin, U. (2005). Plausibility Revisited: Wha Hoppen and What Didn't.
Ok Joel. Your writing is easy to follow and you provide good interpretations of the secondary readings. Your answer didn't spend much time answering the question (How is science fiction different from fantasy, according to Le Guinn?). However, you did grapple with Le Guinn's perceptions of fantasy realism (and the now common genre of magical realism). Nice. Can you think of an example of an author dropping a fictional character into historical events - perhaps a movie?
ReplyDeleteThe thing I found interesting about Le Guinn's opinions on the differences was that they boiled down to the same differences I've found personally. Simply put that in fantasy anything is possible however in Sci-fi one must abide by certain rules or laws that can restrict the possibilities.
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