Learning Log #7 - Speculative Fiction

Last updated 8 months ago

1 question

Read the following quotation from the famous dystopian novelist Margaret Atwood:

If you’re interested in writing speculative fiction, one way to generate a plot is to take an idea from current society and move it a little further down the road. Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future. (“What is Dystopian Fiction?” Masterclass, 2019).

speculative fiction - a type of fiction in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements

Required

What does Margaret Atwood mean when she says, “Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future”? Apply your thinking to 1984, which was imagined by Orwell in 1948. How can the issues he raises through the novel relate to current events up through today and even beyond?

Respond with a full five-sentence paragraph as well as a minimum of 100 words.