David Mitchell’s story “The Siphoners” is probably the one story that I could not truly picture as the future.
With the most other cli-fi stories, it seems as though that an apocalyptic future is inevitable since most (if not all) natural resources are gone. By having this, it makes society into a Social Darwinist society (of course were the weaker people are killed first). “The Siphoners” does have the Social Darwinism trait that seems to be associated with the cli-fi drama but one thing that it lacks is the possibility of the scenario happening. Possibly because this place is in a foreign country so maybe that is why I have a harder time trying to picture myself in the shoes of the characters.
I think that cli-fi stories that are able to put a real perspective on the climate issues are better at trying to push the issue because it forces the reader to think about possible scenarios that are likely to happen (based off science). For example, the reason why “Diary of an Interesting Year” as so effective and resonated so much with me, as the reader, was because I could easily picture the setting. From where I have lived in the United States, I have never saw a place that even remotely reminds me of the setting of “The Siphoners.”
Another thing that makes the story so hard to believe is the government structure that takes place in the story. By the story having an Emperor does not care about the elderly for the sake of the young, it is hard for me to picture that most people would be fine with killing their parents/grandparents because of a law. There are many instances in world history when people took a stand for an unjust cause. The story mentions nothing about how a group of people faced some sort of punishment for not following that law.
The story taking place in 2030 makes it harder to believe in this story. Granted, I know that the stories are made up, but as we discussed in lecture, part of the cli-fi genre was to hope that the author’s thoughts do not come true. I understand a lot has happened since the year 2000, however I feel like nothing that drastic can happen to were 60 elderly people could be killed and no one around the world would bat an eye. Out of all the possible scenarios, that flat out cannot happen unless something truly horrific happened soon (and yes I knocked on wood).
By the story having no indication that it takes place in the Kurdish region is the icing on the cake as to why this it was hard for me to imagine this as a foreseeable future. From the dialog in the story, it seems as though the uneducated characters even spoke with a southern-drawl.
All and all, in order for a cli-fi story to really emphasis the issue of climate change, the story must be relatable. The best stories are relatable and force the reader to remember the morals of the story. “The Siphoners” simply does not do this.
I agree with you that this story was unrealistic compared to the others. I did not connect with this story as much as the others and I don’t think it was a climate changed focused as the others. I do not see this as a real possible future especially not in 2030.
As the story began, I found it confusing and I think that is one reason why I did not find it realistic. I agree with the other students because this type of world would not exist in 2030. People fight for what they believe is right and killing the elderly would definitely not be stamen lightly. The story “Diary of an Interesting Year,” was more realistic and you could picture yourself in that society, but in the “The Siphoners” story it is harder to see yourself living that type of life.
I agree completely, and actually wrote a journal entry about this idea of lack of value for the elderly. A world where the elderly are killed at a certain age due to their lack of resources and agility seems a little absurd. In our day and age we have the utmost respect for not only our elders being our grandparents or older relatives, but even elders who are complete strangers to us. So killing them off, seems very unjust and impractical in our society, and I hope that I never ever have to live in a world that comes to that.
lol sure we do buddy. sure.
Dyuce — thank you for this interesting post. I think your reflections on how you had trouble relating as much to this story as compared to how you related to other stories speaks to a really important question regarding “cli-fi” and that is the question of how “realistic” a given story seems. You seem to raise three separate but interrelated points in this regard: the first has to do with whether the story’s setting is realistic; the second has to do with whether the characters are relatable (or in this case, speak in relatable ways); the third has to do with whether the story’s premise is realistic (this connects to a term a introduced in class a couple weeks ago: “cognitive estrangement”). In the case of “The Siphoners,” it seems like all three of these issues had something to do with you not relating as much to the short story.
Your reflections in this post seem to raise some really important questions about literature, such as: How “realistic” does a cli-fi short story need to be to be effective? How does a short story create that sense of “realism” (especially a short story that’s set in the future)? Or in other words, what techniques of narrative discourse lead to the story being perceived as “realistic”? Also, could there be a benefit to pushing the limits of realism, of trying to get readers to imagine difficult things that don’t seem (at least at first glance) to be realistic?
Hi, I was reading this post , and I had to comment about mitchell. Actually i’m reading his story, and politely the story has a lot to see with climate change. Just the point of him is through the consequences within the consequences, and is the population control. The climate change affects mostly nature and our environment but also will affect our society , so you may consider your point of view according to if it is not all true what we see. Still thanks because you helped me to see other point of views about the story.