MODULE 4.

Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction is a broad genre that encompasses stories that take place in imaginary
worlds as a result of one or more “what if…?” questions. It explores the “what ifs” of what is
possible in the world.

Types of Speculative Fiction

 Science fiction deals with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or
individuals. The premise may either be based on or flatly contradicts scientific facts and
principles.

 Fantasy uses magic and supernatural elements in plot, theme, and setting. Magic is
central to the fantasy genre. These stories often involve journey or quests.

 Utopian fiction presents a world that is ideally perfect in all aspects of society.

 Dystopian fiction presents a futuristic, imagined world in which there is only an illusion

of a perfect society, but is in fact one which is oppressed through corporate,
bureaucratic, technological, moral or totalitarian control.

 Apocalyptic fiction deals with the end of civilization either through nuclear war, plague,
or some other general disaster.

 Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such disaster. The time
frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the struggles of survivors,
or some time later when the existence of civilization before the catastrophe has been
forgotten.

 Alternate history is set in worlds in which one or more historical events unfold
differently based from how it did in reality. It is based on the idea that for every event
that occurs or a decision made in our reality, there is another place (a parallel universe)
where the event or decision turned out differently.
MODULE 4.4

Six Word Story

Six-word stories are short stories that are only comprised of six words. Nevertheless, they are
considered stories because they have elements that makeup fiction. Although, some elements
are not directly stated, but implied.

Example:

Ernest Hemingway's Six-Word Story

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

1. What is the story about?

The story may about a baby who was never born, so his/her parents sold the shows. It
can also be that the baby may have been born, and died. Or, it can have also happened
that the parents gave the baby away. But, in a lighter side, it can also have happened
that the shoes just do not fit the baby; that is why the parents sold them away.

2. Who are the characters in the story?

The parents and the baby

3. Where is the story set?

It can be in a garage sale, a mall, or in a thrift shop

4. What is the conflict in the story?

If the story is about the first three mentioned in Number 1, the conflict could be that the
shoes hold painful memories so the parents gave them away. But if the story is the last
mentioned, the conflict could be that the shoes do not fit the baby.

5. What is the theme of the story?

There are things people should move on from. Or, if things do not fit, sell them away.
Elements of Story in Focus

a. Setting or background

b. Characters

c. Problematic situation

d. Complication

e. Crisis

f. Climax

g. Falling action

h. Resolution of the problem

i. Diction

j. Mode of narration

k. Mood
MODULE 5.1

Reading Selection

Read the poem, “Treasures of the Deep” by Koh Buck Song on pages 225-226 of your book

Treasures of the Deep

Koh Buck Song

[1]
it is the endless story

every time, of periodic inventory checks,

efficiency-driven to clear the shelves, 

sweep away the cobwebs, 

unload the past, 

reload for the future

[2]

but there is a cost 

to zeal in this department, 

the inability to crystal-ball

the future sentimental value of present possessions, 

for treasures of the deepen tangled in the seaweed

of other accumulations 

become unrecoverable even

with sea hunts under the bed: 

cowboys and Indians, soldiers,

full set of primary school uniform,

comics, first teddy bear, if any...

[3]
before you know it,

the souvenirs are precious few

and out of production

like a box of kuti-kuti,

plastic toys of another era,

and the mud of time

can pile so full

regret is an impotent tool

MODULE 5.2

A. Surrealism

   According to Abrams (1999), “surrealism was launched as a concerted artistic movement in

France by Andre Breton’s Manifesto on Surrealism (1924). “It was a successor to the brief
movement known as Dadaism, which emerged in 1916 out of disgust with the brutality and
destructiveness of the First World War, and set out, according to its manifestos, to engender a
negative art and literature that would destroy the false values of modern bourgeois society,
including its rationality and the art and literature it had fostered.”

         Abrams furthered that “The expressed aim of surrealism was a revolt against all restraints
on free creativity, including logical reason, standard morality, social and artistic conventions
and norms, and all control over the artistic process by forethought and intention. “To ensure
the unhampered operation of the “deep mind,” which they regarded as the only source of valid
knowledge as well as art, surrealists turn to automatic writing (writing delivered over to the
promptings of the unconscious mind), and to exploiting the material of dreams, of states of
mind between sleep and waking, and of natural or artificially induced hallucinations.

         “Surrealism was a revolutionary movement in painting, sculpture, and the other arts, as
well as literature; and it often joined forces, although briefly, with one or another revolutionary
movement in the political and social realm. “The influence, direct or indirect, of surrealist
innovations can be found in many modern writers of prose and verse who have broken with
conventional modes of artistic organization to experiment with free association, a broken
syntax, nonlogical and nonchronological order, dreamlike and nightmarish sequences, and the
juxtaposition of bizarre, shocking, or seemingly unrelated images.”

B. Elements of Surrealism 

1. Juxtaposition of elements that do not seem related - there are always elements in the
story that is surrealistic which contradict one another. 

2. Association of bizarre things- there is an incorporation of the uncanny (magical or

unexplainable events in the story.

3. Irrational things or events- the unexplainable events in the story are irrational or do not
make sense, but vital in the story.

4. Manifestation of the unconscious- the bizarre and irrational things or events reveal

something about the unconscious (cf. Sigmund Freud) of the (main) character/s.

5. Revolution- the literary selection deviate from traditional literary pieces.

MODULE 6.1
A. Postcolonialism

1. It refers to an historical phase undergone by the Third World countries after the decline
of colonialism.

2. Many Third World writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a
postcolonial culture.

3. Postcolonial literatures:

               - experience of colonization;

               - foregrounding the tension with the imperial power; and

               - differences from the assumptions of the imperial center.

(Montealegre, 2012)

B. Postcolonial Concepts

1. Postcolonial Space: The body where (de)colonization happens

2. Center: It is where culture, power, and civilization seemingly lie

3. Margin/Periphery: Anything that lies outside the center

4. Hegemony: Describing the success of imperial power over a colonized people

5. Other/Subaltern: Colonized Subject; “Inferior Rank”

6. Othering: Process of creating an “other”

7. Other Other: A term used by Dr. Isagani Cruz which refers to a colonized subject being
other by another colonized subject

8. Decentering: Removing the authority outside of the center

9. Decolonization: The process of revealing and dismantling colonialist power in all its

forms.

C. Goals Postcolonial Criticism

In literature, the goal of postcolonial criticism is to expose the colonial nuances in it, and to
decolonize the text, decentering the authority in the selection.

MODULE 6.2

Wole Soyinka

 Although Wole Soyinka may be best known for his challenging plays, he is also a
distinguished poet and a passionate political activist.

o He has been arrested at least ten times for his outspoken criticism of
government corruption in his native Nigeria.

o His activist impulses also inform his creative work, which often tackles difficult
social issues through blistering satire.

 Soyinka’s resolute advocacy, in art and in practical politics, has earned him the
reputation as “the conscience of Nigeria.”

 As Soyinka matured, he became more aware of the tension between traditional African

identity and Western-style modernization.

o He has described his writing as “preoccupied with the theme of the oppressive
boot, the irrelevance of the color of the foot that wears it and the struggle for
individuality.”

o He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, for being a writer “who in a wide
cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.”

MODULE 7.1
A. Latin American Literature and Magic Realism

The perspective of the European colonizers inspired most Latin Americans to write in a specific
genre which they used to decolonize the influences of the Europeans, magic realism.

Latin American countries include those in Central America (such as Mexico), Caribbean (e.g.
Haiti, Bahamas), and South America (Colombia, Brazil).

The term magic realism was coined by Franz Roh. He was concerned with the characteristics
and tendencies discernible in the work of certain German painters of the period, especially the
neue Sachlichkeit artists of Munich. Gradually the term came to be associate with certain kinds
of fiction.

In Latin America, the genre was used mostly to fiction, especially those written during the
1980’s with the likes of Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Alejo Carpentier.

Characteristics:

a. Mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the futuristic or the bizarre
b. Skillful time drifts
c. Convoluted (Complicated) and even labyrinthine narratives and plots
d. Miscellaneous use of dreams, myths, and fair stories
e. Expressionistic and even surrealistic description, arcane (mysterious) erudition (knowledge),
the element of surprise or abrupt shock, the horrific and the inexplicable (Cuddon, 2013)

Examples:

a. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Cien Anos de Soledad – A character, Rosa, the beautiful is so
beautiful that when she died the heavens opened up, and she ascended.

b. Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits - A character Clara, is clairvoyant (has precognition), and
she can see spirits of the house

c. Machado de Asis’ Epitaph of a Small Winner - The narrator is already dead/a ghost.

d. Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate – The main character, Tita baked a cake for his
sister’s wedding, and because the groom is the love of her life, she wept while baking. In turn,
the guests also wept while eating the cake.

B. Magic Realism vs. Surrealism

 
Surrealism Magic Realism

High Fantasy Mid Fantasy

Psychological Political

One cannot distinguish the bizarre from the real. It is clear what magic is and what reality is.

Surreal and real are intermingled The magic/ fantastic is brought to reality

The bizarre may (not) be magical. The bizarre is magical.

C. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

         One of the most known writers is the Colombian Nobel Laureate of 1982, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in 1927 in the small town of Aracataca, situated in a tropical
region of northern Colombia, between the mountains and the Caribbean Sea. He grew up with
his maternal grandparent – his grandfather was a pensioned colonel from the civil war at the
beginning of the century. He went to a Jesuit college and began to read law, but his studies
were soon broken off for his work as a journalist.

In 1954 he was sent to Rome on an assignment for his newspaper, and since then he has mostly
lived abroad – in Paris, New York, Barcelona, and Mexico – in a more or less compulsory exile.
Besides his large output of fiction, he has written screenplays and has continued to work as a
journalist.

         

He died on April 17, 2014 in Mexico City.

His Nobel citation:

“for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a
richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts.”

MODULE 7.2
The Banana Massacre

         The Banana Massacre was a massacre of as many as 3000 United Fruit Company workers
that occurred between December 5 and 6, 1928 in the town of Cienaga near Santa Marta,
Colombia.

        The strike began on November 12, 1928, when the workers ceased to work until the
company would reach an agreement with them to grant them dignified working conditions.

After several weeks with no agreement and no work, costing the company severe financial
losses, the conservative government of Miguel Abadia Mendez, sent the army in against the
strikers, resulting in the massacre.

Pablo Neruda

          Pablo Neruda, whose real name is Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on July 12,
1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who
died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the
town of Temuco, remarried Doña Trinidad Candia Malverde.

         

         The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela
Mistral, head of the girls’ secondary school, who took a liking to him. Between 1927 and 1935,
the government put him in charge of a number f honorary consulships, which took him to
Burma, Ceylon, Java, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Madrid. The Spanish Civil War
and the murder of Garcia Lorca, whom Neruda knew, affected him strongly and made him join
the Republican movement, first in Spain, and later in France, where he started working on his
collection of poems España en el Corazon (1937).

         

          In 1939, Neruda was appointed consul for the Spanish emigration, residing in Paris, and,
shortly, afterwards, Consul General in Mexico, where he rewrote his Canto General de Chile,
transforming it into an epic poem about the whole South American continent, its nature, its
people and its historical destiny. In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile, and in 1945 he was elected
senator of the Republic, also joining the Communist Party of Chile.

         
         Pablo Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 “for a poetry that with
the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams.”

MODULE 8.1

The Pigeons Listen to Us Converse

Roberto Amato

The pigeons listen to us converse. 

We talk about things that are almost impossible:
the open-air theatre of Terpsichore
the sated man who is nonetheless a model of virtue 
the trilogy of Parmenides (who was not a philosopher 
but a Byzantine topographer).

Pigeons are highly intelligent notwithstanding their tiny heads

which wobble.
At a certain point they block our path  
and start to question us subtly.
Yes
they’re right: Terpsichore had to do with dance 
and the sated man didn’t actually have celestial revelations.
Parmenides divided the world into three slightly unequal parts.

(and it marked the beginning of disaster).

MODULE 8.2

When selkie comes 290-292