The Advantages to the "Unreality"

The “unreality” created by Dr. Hoffman’s machines is interesting because it seems to create the perfect environment for a postmodern analysis of Carter’s novel. The machines operate by distorting everybody’s view of reality by creating an “unreality” in which the desires of those affected by the machines is unearthed from their subconscious and projected into a new reality. That is to say, everybody views their own different version of reality and that there is not one true reality. When I first thought about this I immediately made a connection to postmodernism in that postmodernists would say that this is how history and literature should be viewed and that there is no ultimate truth or ultimate reality where the different observations made by individuals are little more than their perceptions of certain illusions (or “unrealities”).
With that said, I also found it interesting that one could easily apply any of the methodologies learned in class to this book. Postcolonial, race, gender, gay/queer theory, and modernism could all be used to analyze this book. I also feel that the robust nature of the text that allows for this sort of analysis is what made it such a difficult book to sift through. Most books immediately lend themselves towards one theory or the other and allow the reader to establish a method of analyzing the book at an early stage in the text. Carter’s book just seemed to keep the reader off-balance and made for an interesting read. Just looking at the range of methodologies used in blogging on the text one immediately notices the array of analyses and should realize why we read this book for a critical reading class.