| 概要 |
In one of his SF magazine column essays "ImagiRation", Asimov er[iphasizes the need for realism even in science fictien. No doubt SF stories cannot do without some fictitious arrangements: a time mach...ine, warp navigation, a gravitator etc. However, Asimov still wants to achieve plausibility by adding some realistic expressions to the subsidiary details: warp navigation cannot be omitted, but by adding the passengers' feeling of their physiological wrongness at the time of the warp he can achieve a sense of reality. Also in SF works, the author cannot do without giving the readers some sclentific informatiofl, which generally tends to disturb the natural smooth flow of the story. The readers rnay be reluctant to accept the author's position as a science teacher. In his early short story "Marooned eff Vesta", Asimov tries to make up for such unnatural, cumbersome weak points through some literary devices. He creates three characters: A somewhat unintelligent individual, an ordinary individual, and a scholarly hero. The conversations between them have the effect of laying the groundwork for the readers, who can get the necessary information more smoothly through the gradual phasing-in of the exposition. Also, the readers can preserve their honor because they do not need to be so conscious of their scientific innocence. The twe of the characters, the somewhat unintelligent person, and the ordinary man, serve to disclose their innocence in place of the readers. Besides, Asimov gives some repetitive expesition of the story of the way to make it surer to the readers: not by giving a mechanically pedagogic way of review as practised in school, but by an intelligent game of analogy. The third person, the intelligent hero, tries to compare their broken spaceship to a natural satellite of the asteroid Vesta. It outlines the story of the accident of the spaceship and the present urgeitt situatioll of the three survivors so cleverly that the readers can be tmconscious of the repetitive quality of the narration. Asimov also shows his superb technique in his stylistic spproach to realism. In describing the hero's inexperieflced spacewalk, he subtlely uses an unbalanced, awkward sentence-construction which illustrates the dangerous possibility of the hero's breaking away from the spaceship. All in all, Asimov's work "Marooned off Vesta" is cleverly informative, keeping the readers least conscious of the author's inevitable pedagogic role of imposing essential scientific knowledge, thanks to the natural, exquisite flow and development of his story-telling, his kind consideration for the readers' pride, and his superb stylistic technique for realistic description. These literary devices and tactics should be applied not only to SF works but also to our actual, practical communication of any scientific information続きを見る
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Mendeley出力
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