Imagination is the Power of Myth, the Rest is Painted with a Touch of Science Fiction: A Study of Mythology and Science Fiction

ABSTRACT At the beginning of human existence, myths functioned as realizations of the fundamental mysteries of life. In the absence of scientific information of any kind, societies devised creation myths, resurrection myths, and complicated systems of supernatural beings, each with specific powers and stories regarding their actions. At its best, science fiction generally tries to free the imagination and also opens up new avenues of perception. Its validity lies in its efforts to convey an exhilarating and life-enhancing appreciation of the mystery of the universe, of existence. The first science fiction was very much utopian; the following concerned a heavenly body and celestial body travel. As an effect, the genre arose out of the intensifying tenets that typify science and as initiative, and resourcefulness comprises the spirit of science. Through this paper, I will show how mythology and science fiction amalgamate and interconnect together. In the beginning, the inspiration for science fiction came from mythology, which means imagination changes into the reality of life.

continuous change." We always restrict ourselves below to the role of traditional mythologies in science fiction and to the literal, new mythologies, which are sometimes created within science fiction, usually in the context of explaining the way alien societies think. Mythology shapes the thought of science fiction. Ancient science fiction and technology develop their thoughts from mythology and after that science fiction changes its forms and is gradually technologically developed.
Ancient mythology is manifested in science fiction in two ways in which its archetypes are either reenacted or rationalized. The reenactment of myths is the additional advancement of the two cases. Behind the retelling of a story in an exceedingly fashionable context lies the feeling that, though specific myths grew out of a particular cultural background, the truths they express relate to humanity and stay relevant to all societies: the story of Prometheus, punished by the gods for stealing fire from the heavens, or its Christian variant, wherever Dr Faustus is doomed to damnation for merchandising his soul in exchange for knowledge, Prometheus direct about the Scientist's aspiration forever additional information concerning, that means of the Universe, and additional power over matter. The entry on the abstract breakthrough lists several such storieslike Arthur C Clerk's Rendezvous with Rama (1973) is endowed quite deliberately with echoes of ancient myths, the Promethean one particularly. However, to list mythic echoes in science fiction (as with most styles of prose fiction) would be impossible; there are too many. Even an inventory of complete science fiction analogs of myths as against mere echoes would be of an exhausting length.
Several of the foremost widespread mythic analogs are mentioned elsewhere during this volume. The retelling of the Christian legends is mentioned below faith and Messiahs, and re-workings of the story of Genesis are examined below Adam and Eve. The entry on Gods and Demons bears on mythology, as well as on supernatural creatures. Mythology in science fiction reflects a well-known truth that is undergoing social and technological amendment. The brand new is by its nature virtually impossible for science fiction writers or anyone else to envisage. Far more generally, the total ancient patterns of affection and death, aspiration, and reconciliation appear in an exceedingly new context. Several science fiction authors have imagined a sterile future that has consciously repudiated its myths and hence its past, only to be left with a terrible emptiness. Ray Bradbury's nostalgic The Exiles (1950) has literary and mythic figures exiled on Mars, perishing when the last of the books containing their stories are burned or lost; the emerald town of Oz dissolves a sort of mist; an Earth expedition is envisaged in solely a desert. Robert Silverberg's After the Myths Went Home (1969) has figures of myth reincarnated, via a time machine, for the diversion of a future that is full of ennui; familiarity shortly breeds, dissatisfaction, and also the myths are dismissed; the society, empty of variety and mystery, is destroyed by invaders. James White's The Dream Millennium (1974) depicts a crew of starship colonists, who spend much of their time in suspended animation, as able to survive because in their dreams they need access to a form of a Jungian substratum of racial memory; the attention they thereby derive from the mythic patterns in human history offers them the strength to survive in a new world.
Reenactments of myth in science fiction take many forms. The best strives to deepen the emotional connotations of a story by distributing it with the reverberations of some great original, as C.S. Lewis will with success with the parable of the temptation of Eve in Perelandra and fewer with success with the Arthurian legend in That Hideous Strength., Lewis's friend Charles Williams reenacted Christian and pre-Christian myths in most of his novels, sometimes incorporating the pagan components so they emerged as substantiating for the Christian religion. Patricia McKillip's Fool's Run (1987) is one among many science fiction adaptations of the Orpheus story, maybe the foremost accomplished, set in a remote prison satellite, the underworld. Several writers have striven for a Homeric resonance by retelling Homer's Odyssey in science fiction terms, whether or not directly or indirectly; in the 1930s, Stanley G Weinbaum did this in a series of short stories, like Space Chantey (1968) by Lafferty and Dies Irae trilogy (1971) by Brian Stableford. Lafferty has several times reverted to mythic themes, notably in The Devil is Dead (1971) andFourth Mansions (1969); later these novels are categorized as mythic archetypes into four groups, where the eternal conflict leads to many of our troubles.
The supposed Cretan myth of the Earth-Mothers, and the king sacrificed to ensure renewed fertility, is often evoked in science fiction, naturally enough by Robert Graves, in Watch the North Wind Rise, since he is the best known popularizer of the myth in this century, particularly in his nonfictional (though anthropologically unreliable) book The White Goddess (1947). It is conjointly used, vibrant if bewilderingly, in Sign of the Labrys (1963) by Margaret St Clair, within which members of an extant witch or priestess cult prove best equipped to deal with an underground, Post-Holocaust existence. Prince José Farmer has conjointly been preoccupied with the image of ladies in science fiction as prototypic series, creators and destroyers, and with men as virile however as doomed horned gods, notably in Flesh (1960;rev 1968). Like Bradbury in The Exiles, Farmer makes very little distinction in most of his writings between literary and spiritual myths, superficial to take them as feeding identical human desires. All Farmer's work is endowed with mythology, whether or not the mythic creature may be a reincarnated god, a good white whale, or Tarzan; the mythology is also brand new made up by Farmer himself, typically based on ancient models. The simplest proverbial science fiction novel drawing on The White Goddess Is The Snow Queen (1980) by Joan D Vinge, in which she styles a complete planetary culture on Gravesian lines, adds thereto a secondary and more modern story taken from Hans Christian Anderson .
Many peoples and cultures have risen and died before the present day, the majority of them holding to some type of spiritual belief. However, there are three different mythologies that will be mentioned here, specifically those of Greek, Norse, and even a little bit of Roman culture. The settings of those old sagas are vastly accessory of today's various fantastic realms additionally as those of recent decades, except for the "divinities" present throughout the classical ancient tales like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; the stories usher in hosts of different lower life-forms like Cyclopes. Therefore many notice their means into C.S. Lewis' beloved Narnia series and so on. Another species whose name underwent no amendment from Roman mythology to the fantasy tale of Narnia was the fauns, the peculiar folks that possess a goat's legs and a man's torso. However, the traditional Greek conception of the Monocoli, or umbrella-foot individuals, might have additionally wormed its way into Narnia as their description is comparable to that of the Dufflepuds, or Monopods, that inhabit an island that is visited in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2006).
A modern comrade and personal friend of C.S. Lewis, professor J.R.R. Tolkien shared several constant interests. The author of such critically acclaimed works as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien drew his examples from all of the history and his skilled medieval research. Being a philologist (one who studies linguistics and literary texts), this learned man knew well of the languages of Icelandic and Old Norse and roughly 24 others, among them Latin and Greek.
He was enthralled with mythology, and we will be able to realize blatant traces of it in his stories. For instance, the name of Thor the Dwarf is the name of the Norse deity however with an addition. Likewise, Thor's grandchild Norse deity might simply be taken as a mesh of Thor and Odin from mythology. Though hobbits and orcs were his creation, Tolkien's terrible trolls are licensed to the Norse, as is the first name of the majestic horse Shadowfax, like Goldfax -a horse of repute in mythology. Each philologist; Lewis' sagas have earned cinematic adaptations. Mythology additionally impressed Marvel comic characters like the Norse deity and who have gone on to the large screen.
Another bestselling book (like; Graves's) was The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) by Joseph Campbell (1904Campbell ( -1987. Several myths that create their manner into science fiction are filtered through a form of Campbellian sorting method. Among them, the Farmer's books, mentioned higher than, a very pure example being Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972), a spoof life during which Farmer attracts Campbellian concepts concerning the character of the Hero. Filmmakers have usually spoken concerning his use of Campbellian concepts concerning myth, and his Star Wars (1977), which are meant to possess several mythic resonances, incorporate these (as, indeed, will each second work of science fiction mythology). One aspect of Farmer's winsomely packrat angle toward the story can even be found in Sam Lundwall's sarcastic Alice 's World (1970), during which a space vehicle returning to an abandoned Earth finds a grotesque form of mythic and literary beings currently living there.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972) is one of the most famous works by Wolfe in which, like the Le Guin stories, the bearing of a story on reality is constant and unpredictable; on par maybe with John Crowley -whose sensible Engine Summer (1979), as an example, plays cruelly with the thought of a cyclic story in a very Post-Holocaust Ruined-Earth venue -Wolfe makes the foremost subtle use of the story of any modern science fiction author. Clashes between discretion and predestination, the primary signifying an outward thrust and therefore the second an inward pressure from the inexorable past, occur, as they need to, altogether mythological science fiction written by folks that are awake to the results of their themes. Definitely, it is Wolfe's pre-eminent subject -particularly in The Book of the New Sun (1980)(1981)(1982)(1983) -because it is, with the stress rather additional on the story as an elegiac lure, Crowley's conjoint.
Myth and science fiction have a protracted and tangled past. Myth won't to be thought of as a sort of primitive science -thanks to justifying noticeable events. Myth is a trial to know the riddle of the planet, the universe around the North American nations, and understanding the universe is strictly what science tries to do. During this tradition, some science fiction writers produce myths for the aliens and societies that they produce. Doing this adds depth and richness to the story. Drawing from already established myths from right here on Earth has the identical results. If we tend to observe stories and collective unconsciousness, we will conclude that psychologist Carl Gustav was a Swiss man of science and student of Freud who became fascinated by the manner-bound pictures and symbols appearing in the dreams and spontaneous fantasies of his patients. On researching these, he would discover the same myths and symbols in ancient classical works or obscure alchemic texts. A psychologist came to the conclusion that there is a standard supply of story which means that it is universal regardless of culture or period. He referred to as this as the collective unconscious, where he contrasted with the nonpublic or individual unconscious represented by Freud. The personalities that inhabit the collective unconscious he brought up as archetypes, which were identical to what in previous times were referred to as gods. It is these same archetypes that are seen time and again, in stories and legends, in numerous guises however continually with identical underlying structure.
Joseph Campbell studied Sigmund Freud and as a psychologist he used myth in science, and though he never met Freud, he was greatly influenced by him. Campbell's conception of the story was supported by Jung's technique of dream interpretation that revolves around the use of symbols. Campbell's mythography is more approachable than Jung's, and it is straightforward to envision how a film producer might apply it to his work. Nonetheless, it is not necessary to be acquainted with Joseph Campbell or Freud, like a film producer or the Wachowskis, to put in writing the first story. The total scheme of the archetypes, and universal mythic consciousness, is that it is one thing that seems ad-lib. All one desires is that inspiration. The tackiest novels do it will incorporate first or mythic themes although do it bonk very well. Whereas conversely, a genius like J.R.R.; Tolkien did not read his contemporary psychologists or Joseph Campbell in the least, like them he went straight to the source. Jung, Campbell, and philologists all state that we all share an intrinsic knowledge and magic in our lives. This being the case, it is bound that fantasy in some kind or alternative can continuously be with us.
Science fiction may be a genre of scientific chronicles, which frequently occur in various time frames apart from that up to date. It is the mixing of scientific principles and fantasy, exploring potential outcomes of technological innovations. In archaic cultures, mysterious phenomena are typically attributed to the supernatural and religious. Through supernatural tales and sacred rituals, primitive communities explore the relation between experiences and dreams and associate pilot of human visions and aspirations. One Aztec legend speaks of the divinity god, whose human figure traversing on barren land would have starved to death if not for a passing rabbit. The rabbit offered its life to avoid wasting him and god was therefore emotional that he imprinted the rabbit's image within the moon's light-the rabbit moon folk-tale.
Other mythologies depict merely fictional creatures just like the image as an original product of the human imagination. In a very similar vein, fictional myths of primordial cultures clarify phenomena that they had no hope of understanding. The Chinese thought that the goddess Xi He carried one among her 10 sons across the sky. Every one of them was a sun. Science fiction, which uses the human imagination to explore our future, additionally tries to grasp its uncertainty by making stories. Doubt concerning future events diode to a spontaneous endeavor to manage this incomprehensible world. Take the normal ceremonial dance of the Aborigines as an example. Such superstitions do not have any origin in experimental information. On the contrary, fantasy tends to stem from established observation. Darko Suvin, a science fiction critic, defines the science fiction genre as "the literature of psychological feature estrangement" since it attempts to obtain bound legitimacy by showing science. Science fiction posits the introduction of a novum (new idea) of a scientific nature, principally through technological innovations like transferal (instantaneous matter transport). This can be as a result of fantasy that tends to be a futuristic movement. Authors style innovative machinery and pioneering theoretical ideas, generally before scientists ensure them. Science fiction writers conceive of the longer term. They mirror upon patterns of affection and death, aspiration, and reconciliation in a very recent context, by encouraging a fashion of marvel and willing suspension of disbelief within the reader. In AD 190, Lucian of Samosata wrote the primary science fiction story wherever the protagonists take a visit to the moon, encountering alien creatures and getting involved in celestial warfare. Later, many texts and poems incorporate this type of technology and themes like flying machines, the hunt for immortality, an alternate history of our planet, fantastic voyages in space, and time travel. These mirror the culture and scientific progress of the time. Victorian-era writers, Wells and Verne, mirrored the innovative machinery of the commercial revolution, whereas Abbott, in roughly an equivalent amount, mirrored in Flatland on the newest concepts exploring additional dimensions in space.
Science fiction has additionally been galvanized by philosophical Romanticism. From a Romantic perspective, science, reason, and technology are not enough -as idols or absolute gods, they will be harmful to the human spirit. From a romantic perspective, we would like to be Greek deities in addition to Apollonian in our approach to the longer term. We would like to contemplate human feelings, which means in imagery related to our directional future. Fantasy arouses all the various and elementary emotions in humans, together with worry, hope, joyousness, depression, joy, sorrow, awe, humility, and humor. Also, ascertaining the central Romantic ideals of beauty and art and also the Romantic stress on narrative literature (instead of abstract theory) as a mode of understanding life, science fiction will be viewed as art and the maximum amount as scientific and technological extrapolation. Fifty-eight science fiction, as a literary and inventive kind, tries to imagine the longer-term in narrative and esthetic kind. The longer-term may be a story -actually several stories. Literature and art educate and encourage in a way that a theory cannot. Speculative stories and inventive visions regarding the longerterm are essential dimensions of future consciousness. Similarly, the non-secular and mythological approach to the past and also the future anchored their ideas and visions to stories and prototypical characters that humans may relate with. Such ancient stories are galvanized and educated and identical.
As we have tried to illustrate and make a case for, science fiction is mythic and cosmic, and addresses the elemental queries of human existence; however, it will thus occur through the minds and experiences of distinctive characters, therefore personifying the journey into the longer term. Given its various roots, science fiction is extremely philosophical, with totally different writers posing different views. It tells several storiesfrom several points of reading -with many alternative designs -concerning all aspects of the longer-term. It emerges on the far side of the monolithic visions of the Enlightenment. It is postmodernist, knowledge-based, and often counter-cultural. Science fiction is interdisciplinary. As a result of its Romantic and scientifictechnological roots, it pulls along the humanities with science and technology. Since it is mythic, cosmic, personalized, and infrequently involved with such problems because of the means of life and intellect and evil, it brings along the secular-scientific with the religious-spiritual. Since science fiction progressively has emotion on the far side, straightforward extrapolations on science and technology brought into its arena issues with the longer-term of the human mind, human society, culture, values, ecology, and therefore the atmosphere; it attracts upon all areas of human inquiry and study. As a result, it takes from these different dimensions of reality and integrates them into stories and eventualities; it is really a knowledge domain, examining how technology, the atmosphere, society, values, and therefore the psyche all interact with one another. Science fiction has many alternative functions and strengthens and edges future consciousness in various ways. It stimulates multiple dimensions of thought, exercises the important and rational intellect, and stretches the speculative and inventive imagination. Science fiction will draw the reader into important reflection on modern trends wherever these trends may lead.
As mentioned earlier, science fiction frequently involves "thought experiments," wherever the implications and ramifications of future hypotheticals are thought out. One's intellect, and thinking capacities may be challenged and stretched through the scientific, technological, and philosophical speculations in science fiction, for instance, as with the high-powered cosmic cogitations of Stapledon and Baxter. One may describe a minimum of some science fiction as speculative cosmology, philosophy, and even theology set in a narrative format. Science fiction expands one's imagination by participating in "possibility thinking." Various worlds and in-numerable strange realities are unreal in science fiction. Multi-faceted, extremely realistic scenario-building often happens in science fiction. Future situations involving technologies, ecologies, geologies, economies, 59 societies, governments, habitations, psychologies, and moral norms and values are represented and forced along into cognitively compelling, elaborate worlds. Science fiction does not solely predict the longer term but rather influences it. Fantasy describes the longer term in nice sensory and descriptive detail and creates a robust emotional impact on the reader. The longer-term is given in personalized terms, with unforgettable and accessible characters possessing varied first qualities. Fantasy generates holistic expertise of the longer term, impacting all dimensions of human psychological science. It combines the abstract and therefore the personal -it is a universe of ideas and individual characters. It unites knowledge and feeling. It creates a virtual representation of the longer term since it creates such elaborate and descriptive visions of attainable future realities. It gets someone puzzling over the longer term, feeling its pathos, and now and then motivating the individual into changes in behavior. As a result of it, each critiques and extols different trends and infrequently has morals to its stories, while it addresses human values and ethics. Novels like A Canticle for Leibowitz, Brave New World, Stranger in a Strange Land, and Behold the Man have robust ethical, if not spiritual, messages embodied in their narratives. Science fiction engages the complete human mind.
In general, science fiction possesses a collection of complementary functions and powers. Usually, it unites apparent opposites. It is scientific and mythic -Romantic; it is both rational and emotional; it combines the strengths of spiritual inspiration with rational understanding. Science fiction may be seen as each "thought experiment" and creative vision. There is a personalized dimension to fantasy; however, equally it will be crammed with theory, technological detail, and cosmic abstractions. Whereas it tries to predict and perceive the longer-term, it conjointly tries to inspire, entertain, terrify, and mesmerize. It functions both as robust drama and literature and futurist extrapolation. Science fiction will influence the longer term and not merely anticipate it. It is high recreation, as extremely reflective and infrequently crucial for up-to-date times. Fantasy extols the promise of the longer term; nevertheless, it is crammed with warnings, fears, and apprehensions concerning the future. It shares similarities with ancient fantasy and mythology; nevertheless, it is conjointly a creation of the modern world; it ties the past and also the future along because of the mythology of the future. Science fiction creates the dream world of tomorrow to illustrate our nature. Mythology uses stories passed down through generations about fantastic worlds and people, doing extraordinary things that are then generally employed to explain certain aspects of the universes we perceive. So, science and technology has taken the very beginning concept of mythology and adapts it in an extraordinary and unique way.

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Notes on contributor
Sanjukta Chakraborty, Ph.D. Research Scholar, and Faculty of Adamas University from the Department of English Language and Literature, specializing in Linguistics and ELT (English Language Teaching).