Course Title: Topics in Literature

Instituto de Idiomas / Lenguas Extranjeras

Course Instructor: Steven K. McClain
smcclain@uninorte.edu.co
310-659-4007

Topics in Literature Analysis Map Compositions 1 to 4

REMEMBER: On the below maps’ reading lists (i.e. maps for Compositions 1 to 4),
no text (i.e. fiction or critical source) should be repeated. To encourage wider reading,
an SF&F text may be employed only once!

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ANALYSIS MAP COMPOSITION 1

Analysis Composition 1 Anchor Question: According to the definition of science

fiction proposed by Darko Suvin in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics
and History of a Literary Genre (1979), is Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’ (1984) a
work of science fiction?

Analysis Composition 1 Thesis Statement (i.e. Your Answer to Anchor Question): In

agreement with Darko Suvin’s definition of science fiction in Metamorphoses of
Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre (1979), Octavia E.
Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’ (1984) is, I argue, a work of SF.

Analysis Composition Format Here Employed (i.e. Compression Essay vs. Analysis
Screenplay vs. Analysis Fiction): ANALYSIS FICTION

Analysis Composition 1 Chose Your Own ADVENTURE Enjoyment Reading List

1) APA-Correct Bibliographical Listing FICTION 1
Butler, Octavia E. (2007) ‘Bloodchild’. In Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York:
Routledge, pp. 103-145.

2) APA-Correct Bibliographical Listing FICTION 2

Lovecraft, H. P. (1990) ‘Dagon’. The H. P. Lovecraft Archive. 20 August 2020.
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.aspx
(Accessed 25 January 2021)

3) APA-Correct Bibliographical Listing FICTION 3

Stine, R. L. (1996) Ghost Camp. Milford: Complutense University Press.

4) APA-Correct Bibliographical Listing FICTION 4

Shakespeare, W. (1998). A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In W. Clemen (Ed.), Four
Great Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth
Night, The Tempest. New York, NY: Signet Classic / New American Library / Penguin
Books.
5) APA-Correct Bibliographical Listing CRITICAL SOURCE
Suvin, Darko. 1979. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of
a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Analysis Composition 1 Cited Evidence Quotations

1) APA-Cited Evidence Quotation FICTION 1
“Extraterrestrial religious practices include the fanatical worship of large robotic dogs”
(Butler 2007: 37)

2) APA-Cited Evidence Quotation FICTION 2

A “whale-sized, bipedal specie” (Lovecraft 2020: 52)

3) APA-Cited Evidence Quotation FICTION 3

The “dark magic of the dead” (Stine 1996: 15)

4) APA-Cited Evidence Quotation FICTION 4

“I am that merry wanderer of the night” (Shakespeare 2.1.44)

5) APA-Cited Evidence Quotation CRITICAL SOURCE

SF text will include a setting and/or a character very different from the “times, places
and characters” (Suvin 1979: viii) AND The scientific rules of reason seen in the
‘author’s epoch’ (Suvin 1979: viii)

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Student-Philologists’ Full Name: Bob Thingum
Course Instructor’s Full Name: Steven K. McClain
Topics in Literature: Analysis Composition 1
Deadline Date of Submission: 14 August 1984
Anchor Question Here Employed: According to the definition of science fiction
proposed by Darko Suvin in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and
History of a Literary Genre (1979), is Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’ (1984) a work
of science fiction?

Butler’s Bug-Eyed-Monsters:
Regarding ‘Bloodchild’ as a Work of Suvinian Science Fiction

Once upon a time in Tiny Library, ‘Dagon’’s Fish-Giant met ‘Bloodchild’’s

Alien-Insect in a wood near Dog Tower. Towering over an autumn oak, the monsters

shook fin and tentacle.

Grinning while scratching a scaly underarm, Fish-Giant was quick to state—

worried at what an extraterrestrial insect might decide to do if bored—that in agreement

with Darko Suvin’s definition of science fiction in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction:

On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre (1979), Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’

(1984) was a work of SF.

Not to be intellectually outdone by a fish, the spacefaring Alien-Insect—while

ejecting a purpled egg from bearded jaws with a metallic burp—added that Suvin

contended that an SF text would include a setting and/or a character very different from

the ‘times, places and characters’ (Suvin 1979: viii) of realist fictions which—being

mimetic—are similar to the extradiegetic world of the author and/or reader.

Vomiting up copious gallons of brown seawater while squinting under the forest

sun (as Fish-Giants are want to do), Fish-Giant added that Butler’s ‘Bloodchild’, as a

science-fictional text in agreement with Suvin’s definition of SF, included: (1) a non-

mimetic setting, i.e. the extrasolar alien planet of Connecticanaan where ‘extraterrestrial

religious practices include the fanatical worship of large robotic dogs’ (Butler 2007:

37); and (2) non-mimetic characters, i.e. large robotic dogs, products of bio-mechanical

experimentation carried out in subterranean laboratories run by the cyborg scientists of

Connecticanaan’s ruling caste (39).

Alien-Insect, while picking a triangular larva from between skin folds of the

aforementioned ejected egg (as Alien-Insects are want to do), rocked the hatched

creature between jointed tentacles and, worried at the clarity of the Fish-Giant’s

examples, and intent on gaining the upper hand, stated that in accord with Suvin’s

definition of SF, the non-mimetic textual elements of ‘Bloodchild’ were, in Suvinian

terms, empirically validated, i.e. obedient to rules of reason at play in the world of the

author and/or reader. Alien-Insect clarified that the large robotic dogs of Butler’s

Connecticanaan, and the cyborg scientists that construct them are, in biomechanical

terms, possible in relation to the cognitive norms, i.e. the scientific rules of reason seen
in the ‘author’s epoch’ (Suvin 1979: viii), that is to say, the late twentieth century of

Octavia E. Butler’s North America.

Hoping to distract Alien-Insect from the philological sparring match Fish-Giant

feared he was losing to the brainy extraterrestrial, Fish-Giant, following a stealthy flick

of fins, then ensnared Alien-Insect’s larval young. Tossing the hatchling into the forest

air, and catching the larva in his toothy mouth, Fish-Giant swallowed and—his appetite

sated—then stated that in contrast to ‘Bloodchild’’s concordance with Suvin’s

definition of SF, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), H.P.

Lovecraft’s ‘Dagon’ (1917), and R.L. Stine’s Ghost Camp (1996) included non-mimetic

(i.e. anti-realist) settings and characters which violate the rules of reason (i.e. cognitive

norms of science) of the author’s epoch and reader’s extradiegetic world.

Not willing to surrender their larval young and fearful of losing a literary debate

to a oceanic monster, Alien-Insect, employing a darting, prehensile, stinger-like tail,

removed the swallowed young from the belly of Fish-Giant who—with a howl, a burst

of blood and a frown—collapsed onto the forest floor and died. Seeing that concluding

the Butlerian analysis fell solely to them, Alien-Insect, addressing their purple hatchling

then in tentacles cradled, stated, in a cooing, paternal tone, that Shakespeare, Lovecraft

and Stine’s texts did not qualify as science-fictional in relation to the conceptual

parameters established by Suvin’s definition. Alien-Insect then added—confident that

they could not, just then, be contradicted by Fish-Giant—that in A Midsummer Night’s

Dream, Puck (i.e. Robin Goodfellow) acts as a supernatural forest-based, servant-clown

to the King of Fairies who, in the play’s third act’s opening scene, happily demonstrates

his ability to swap the human head of weaver Nick Bottom with that of a donkey. Alien-

Insect, intent on their fanged child’s education, clarified that said magical

metamorphosis disobeyed rules of anatomical reason and, as such, lacked Suvinian

empirical validation in relation to the cognitive norms of biology seen both in

Shakespeare’s epoch and that of the modern reader.

With a sad smile and a dismissive nod at the fallen corpse of Fish-Giant, Alien-

Insect then stated that, similar to the magical feats of impossible anti-science seen in

Puck’s transformation of Bottom’s head, Lovecraft’s ‘Dagon’ includes a humanoid fish

giant, a ‘whale-sized, bipedal specie’ (Lovecraft 2020: 52) impossible in relation to the

cognitive norms of evolutionary zoology at play in the early twentieth-century world of

the author (i.e. Lovecraft) and the twenty-first century setting of the reader (i.e. Bob

Thingum).

Nostalgic for the best books of their unearthly childhood, Alien-Insect added

that Stine’s Ghost Camp included impossible (i.e. anti-scientific) persons as seen in the

countless white-uniformed ghost campers of the story’s setting, Connecticut-based

Camp Moon Cheese. Said ghost camper hope, claimed Alien-Insect, to possess the body

of adolescent protagonist, Fenton Bright using ‘the dark magic of the dead’ (Stine 1996:

15), an element both anti-Suvinian and nonscience-fictional. Having concluded their

speech, Alien-Insect—their rescued young tucked safely under the joints of several

tentacles and slithering in the direction of their vast steam powered spacecraft—dragged

the body of Fish-Giant behind them with the slimy hand-like help of their prehensile

tail.

Works Cited
Butler, Octavia E. (2007) ‘Bloodchild’. In Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York:
Routledge, pp. 103-145.
Lovecraft, H. P. (1990) ‘Dagon’. The H. P. Lovecraft Archive. 20 August 2020.
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.aspx
(Accessed 25 January 2021)
Stine, R. L. (1996) Ghost Camp. Milford: Complutense University Press.
Suvin, Darko. 1979. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of
a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press.