Blog Set 3 Radiation and Global Terrorism

Two stories, different outlooks on life with the happenings of post war and global terrorism.

We come to terms with a mother who looked passed her child imperfections and saw nothing but a perfect baby but it is not what it seems. In this story That Only a Mother by Judith Merril (1948) shows the outcomes of radiation and conception. Margaret, who is alone at home expecting a child and going through a psychological battle with her thoughts is consumed by her thoughts about her child, if she will become a mutant as other children that have been born due to their partners working around radiation. There is some change of location that we usually do not see much in the Sci-Fi genre which is a home as many of us live in except it has technology related enhancements such as “On the way to the kitchenette, she pressed the button that would start breakfast cooking” (pg.212) now we all know we do not have a button that automatically starts cooking our breakfast for us only in the sense you would see this in a Sci-Fi story. Throughout the story Margaret is oblivious to the truth about her child until the end when her husband finally meets their baby and sees that the child does not have any limbs at all and goes into a “bitter spasm of hysteria.” I’m assuming that as the other fathers who had mutant babies did was being called “infanticides,” which is the mutant-children being killed by the fathers but none have been convicted for it so at the end it seems the husband, Hank, killed the child, “His fingers tightened on his child- oh god, she didn’t know…” come to find out that while he was on duty his wife was making up this perfect child up in her mind and writes to him about it. The only person in the world that can see through all your imperfections and love you more than anything is your mother and that is what we see here, she forgets the war, the radiation-mutations and finds herself humble with the limbless child she has and throughout the story when she reads about the mutations in Hiroshima she keeps repeating to herself, “but my baby’s all right.” It was an interesting take on this genre due to it did not have much science fiction tropes but you can tell for its time it was in a future-like place.

In We See Things Differently by Bruce Sterling(1989), you see how the Arabs look at us in their eyes and it is not a pretty sight, “the land of ignorance. This was America. The Great Satan, the Arsenal of Imperialism, the Bankroller of Zionism, the Bastion of Neo-Colonialism” (pg.612). This is how the Arab in the story thought about us when he landed in Miami. To see how America is portrayed in this story is horrifying but is it not where many people see us going? Now this story shows many different things that we can all relate to seeing such as, the greed for money that we can see in our society today, “It is very easy to buy Americans. The mention of money brightens them like a shot of drugs” (pg.613). Sexuality is depicted in this story as to show that the Arabs see us American women as sex symbols for the American men, as he says “Like all American women, she was dressed in a way intended to provoke lust.” It is a sad truth but is that not how some women get what they want? like we say here in America “sex sells.”  There is some hostility between the Americans and foreigners in this story but as long as there is something in it for them they throw that issue to the side. They speak of how America always was giving away money and helping other countries out then they get the blame when Moscow was blown up by some “Afghani terrorists,” Charlie persisted that the Americans had something to do with Moscow.  Towards the end of the story Charlie basically sets up Boston by sharing some lethal cocaine that was laced with a virus. In the story towards the end Charlie shows that religion is why he did what he did to Boston and to himself he killed a man for god. Now tell me what you think about this story it has more depth into it than I can write about but I have my reasons for believing some of this as well as other things but I am only human, so did this story really end on a religious note or did it all come down terrorism?

UPDATE:
       In class we went over these stories and our professor gave us an insight to the story "We See Things Differently" and she was telling us that Boston might have been the President in this time where politics and everything else is no longer standing but a Rocker who is well protected as a President would be as well as looked upon by the people the same way. If this is true than we see why Charlie shared the cocaine with him and basically killed him and it was all to keep America down when they were finally starting to get back on their feet slowly. The title of "That Only a Mother" is very ironic to the story because as the saying goes "he/she has a face that only a mother could love, in the story you see the denial that the mother has towards her daughter's mutation and still thinks she is perfect. These stories became more revealing when we discussed them more and depth and it is always interesting to see how my classmates perceive of the story and what they find that others did not notice.