Andrew Kazim
Jill Kato
Writing 39B
16 January 2015
Is This Really What You Think it is? : A Study on Science Fiction and Dystopia
When one tries to define the genre that is Science Fiction, one starts to talk about futuristic technologies and things that seem like impossibilities to the human mind. Such things like flying cars, and personal computers that are surgically inserted directly into our nervous system. What science fiction can do, is only limited to the extents of your imagination. Dystopian literature tends to have the same connation, except people tend to add things like totalitarian governments, and oppression. However, these two genres are not necessarily globally defined this way. In Junto Diaz’s Monstro, Diaz uses an interesting…show more content… While the main character is there, Haiti, which is a country right next to the DR, is ridden with an illness simply known as La negrura or the blackness. A fungal infection that looks like mold that covers the bodies of the people. It not only affects their skin, it affects their mind, making them go insane, when they leave their homes. There are large portions of the story where the main subject of the writing is the main characters interest in girls, and what his friends are like. The reader almost forgets that the main plot is about the illness that is going to end the…show more content… Usually when we think about science fiction we think of robots, and aliens, and lasers and space. The setting is usually an uber-futuristic version of a pre-existing city like “New-New York” in Doctor Who or Tokyo in Big Hero Six. Readers don’t usually associate third world countries like the Dominican Republic as settings of science fiction stories. However, if one was to disregard the setting of the story and look at some of the characteristics one might be able to understand why it is that Monstro is a science fiction story. A major element in the story that points towards science fiction is the usage of the word “glypt”. Glypt means nothing. It has no definition in the English language. The only thing that one can find when searching for the word is a Greek prefix that roughly means a method of writing. Not coincidentally when Junto Diaz uses the word glypt, in context it means a method of instant messaging that people within the story use. A technology where one can send messages, money and pictures. There might be other uses but they are not mentioned in the story. This might not seem like a futuristic technology, but at the time that this story was written, smart phones where barely making an introduction into our society and the ability to do all these things on one portable device was not yet available. Therefore at the time,