Please print out a copy of Frederick Pohl’s short story “Day Million” and Joanna Russ’s short story “The Second Inquisition.”  Please read both stories from start to finish.  Then, briefly write about your response to each in your reading journal.  Afterward, please read both stories again, this time taking notes and attending to some of their elements as fictional texts (plot, character, setting, narrative perspective, figurative language, themes) more carefully, their historical and authorial contexts, and their relationships to various issues related to science fiction as a genre and to some recurring elements or properties of science fiction texts.  Afterward, please write some more about each story, what you now understand about it, and questions that you have about it.
Finally, please post three paragraphs in response to this post BY MIDNIGHT, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, the first briefly summarizing Pohl’s story and describing it in terms of its elements as a fictional text, the second briefly summarizing Russ’s story and describing it in terms of its elements as a fictional text, the third explaining what you found most interesting about each story.  [Please note: if it is easier to write about each text separately, feel free to use the third paragraph to write about Pohl’s story and add a fourth for Russ’s story.]  Finally, feel free to post one to three questions that you have about the stories or that you would like to pose to the authors of the stories.
Though not required, please feel free to post links that you may have consulted in the process of reading the stories and why you found them helpful.  What is required is that you read the stories carefully, write about them in your reading journal, and think about them in the context of our class discussions, Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” our discussions about that story, the issues and topics raised in the “Introduction” to the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction and the collection of responses gathered in “Why Do You Read Science Fiction.”  We will be discussing the stories and your responses to them in our next class session.
Day Million by Frederick Pohl paints a reality that the homo sapiens may have trouble wrapping their heads around. This short story details a relationship as foreign to us as the cosmos. A union in which an aquatic creature and a cyborg promise themselves to each other. In addition, the aquatic creature, Dora, is actually a male on a genetic level. This means Dora contains the XY chromosome, but all of her physical features are what twenty first century humans perceive as feminine. The cyborg, Don, can only process love on a mental level. His robotic parts have left him numb to touch. Even the physical aspect of this romance seems alien to a present day reader. Pohl’s most prominent element in this story is using real actual science (Biology & Taxonomy for Dora and Physics & Prosthetics for Don.) After examining this text, I can only think that Pohl’s theme for this story was to show that love is not between man and woman but between lovers.
The Second Inquisition by Joanna Russ came across as a peculiar read. Sci-fi usually suggests that the plot is somewhere in the distant future. Yet, there are many exceptions to that false belief, such as Frankenstein. During 1925, a small family entertain an out of the ordinary looking guest. The mother and father know little about the visitor and never seem to scratch past the surface. Although, it is their daughter who comes in contact with the visitor’s true self. Even though the visitor writes herself off as a circus act, she actually is a time traveler. I believe Russ uses time travelling to suggest the flaws in old traditions with the presence of the visitor.
In my opinion Day Million was my favorite read. I appreciated the comical warnings the text had for readers. I would have liked it to be around the same length as The Second Inquisition. I really appreciated how Dora was explained, from her genetic makeup to her age and habitat. I also liked the pacing, especially when it is explained how Don perceives love. As for The Second Inquisition, my favorite was when the visitor describes how the circus views people who aren’t capable of the feats a carny. What she really was describing was how the time travelers looks at people in 1925, and other time periods alike. It feels symbolic of how the present can find society’s past to be barbaric.
Thanks, Jonathan. This is an excellent and very thought provoking post. Please make sure that you follow MLA guidelines for title formatting. Titles of short works must be in quotation marks, i.e., “The Second Inquisition,” and titles of longer works must be italicized or underlined, i.e., Blade Runner. For more information about MLA style guidelines: What Is the MLA?
Pohl’s story “Day Million” tells the story of two lovers in the distant future, and what constitutes as their identities, their lives, and their ideas and practices of love in their society. The narrator confidently tells us how bizarre we’re supposed to find these practices, and then reminds us how strange and different this society is to ours as our society is to our distant ancestors.
Russ’s story “The Second Inquisition” tells the story of an unnamed teenage girl in 1925, and how she sees her own life in comparison to a strange visitor living with her. The visitor’s abnormal appearance and mild defiance of social norms causes the girl to question the visitor as a stranger, but as she learns that the visitor is a future time traveler with much more exotic knowledge and experiences, she sees the visitor as a friend and questions her own society.
The interesting thing about these stories is that they have the same message, but delivers them to us as the readers in two different methods. Russ’s story begins with the perspective of a normal society and slowly introduces the possibilities of experiencing new things and questioning our choices. Pohl’s story, instead, begins with the seemingly absurd and demands us as the readers to accept things as real possibilities that we should consider.
Thanks, Robert. You make some fascinating insights and thereby raise some very interesting questions about both stories and the relations between them with this post.
Frederick Pohl’s ”Day Million” is a futuristic text, with an omniscient narrator. The story is not told from the perspective of the characters. The story begins with a sort of twist, a love story that is not the norm. The heroine is a girl who is not a girl. We are already made aware that our characters are not characteristically “human.” They fall in love at first sight. But, they separate in the physical sense. This confused me. I suppose the point was Pohl makes with this physical separation is that true love can transcend anything. In the case of Dora and Don, they use machines to remember or to transmit their love. Analogues store the memories they wish to keep. And in the end, we find that Don has been in love many times with many others and will be again.There was Diane, Rose and Alicia. The reader, presumably some dull character living in the suburbs in the 60’s thinks this is all very strange and I suppose I do too. But science fiction means suspension of belief and of realism.
Russ’s “The Second Inquisition” features another girl, however, this one lives in 1925 and she meets a strange visitor, whose appearance is entirely foreign to her. She learns that this visitor is from the future, and naturally, she is curious. This story was much less strange than the aforementioned.
Pohl’s work was entirely outlandish from beginning to end, and Russ’s work was more “typically” science fiction. Pohl’s work was so outlandish that it took me reading it twice to enjoy the story. I found myself incredulous at the idea of a love story that only happened on a Wednesday and in which there was more than one great love.
In the short story, “Day Million,” by Frederik Pohl, we are taken deep into the future to glance at a story about two individuals, Dora and Don. Though they make look different from us, they are in every right human, just altered by evolution and augmentations. In addition, the story is about how they choose to express their love; which are in ways that might seem wrong us in modern times. Due to the reader’s ignorance of the future, the narrator believes that the reader is looking at the two with disgust. For these reasons, the narrator feels the need to constantly stop the story and remind the reader that the life of Dora and Don are perfectly normal in the society of the future. Through these constant reminders, the narrator is scolding the reader for their bigotry.
Much like Pohl’s “Day Million,” society’s future also plays a role in, “The Second Inquisition,” written by Joanna Russ. This story follows a girl and a visitor that seems peculiar at first. Much like the reader in Pohl’s story, the girl begins to judge the visitor on his differences. It is not until it is revealed that the visitor is actually from the future that the girl begins to question her judgement and her own social norms.
Pohl and Ross’s stories both share a similar theme about the judgement we cast through our expectations lead by our social norms. In Pohl’s story the reader receives constant reminders, used by the narrator to scold the reader for their bigotry. Even though the reader is only analyzing Dora and Dom through their time period’s social norms. We see an identical message in, “The Second Inquisition,” where the girl is constantly judging her visitor through the lens of her society’s social norms. It is not until she is made aware that he is from the future, where his behavior and appearance is the pinnacle of ordinary, that she begins to cast him in a different light. In collaboration, both short stories try to educate the reader on how ridiculous it is to judge someone because of how different they are from them. In short, they are trying to convince the reader to never judge a book from it’s cover.
“Day Million,” by Frederick Pohl is about what the narrator describes as a “normal” love story that takes place in the future, thousands of years from today. I honestly think this story is weird, but I should keep an open mind. It allows to look at the life of Dora and Don, both being what we would normally consider as strange; Don being a cyborg, and Dora someone with gills and a tail. Don immediately asks Dora to marry him the second they meet each other. As a result, they exchange something that we might consider to be phone numbers. However, it is later revealed this is used to have a simulation of sex any where and at anytime. The narrator explains that this love story is pretty normal in the future compared to the present moment.
“The Second Inquisition,” by Joanna Russ is about a girl that gets acquainted with the company of a stranger. In the beginning, she judges this visitor on his appearance and the way he is acting around her. This impression sticks with her until she discovers that he’s from the future. Her opinion is not only swayed, she also begins to question what she perceives to be normal in the first place. The moral of this story is not to prejudge someone based on their appearance alone.
In believe that, “The Second Inquisition,” by Joanna Russ is better even though they basically taught the same lesson. Although I can admit, “Day Million,” is different from other stories. The story takes the whole true love comes in different forms, to the next level. Like imagine marrying a cyborg? Maybe the future does seem that way with our technology advancing, soon we’ll be engaged to our phones.
Guys that was me ^ sorry
Day Million is set in the far future, where what we perceive as human qualities and human character has faded into a distant memory. Humans (if they can be described as that) have achieved a greater understanding of gene manipulation and body augmentation, pushing the boundaries in modifying every aspect of the human body. The story follows two people, a cybernetic man, and a chimera women, that meet on an “elastic platform” and become smitten with each other; in that same moment decided to get married too. However, the word marry carries a different meaning in this future world because a married couple of the future do not stay physically with each other, rather they exchange a mathematical analogue or digital copy of each other. Whenever they feel the urge to see that person again they simply insert the analogue into a Symbol manipulator and interact as if the person is right beside them.
Joanna Russ’s story, The Second Inquisition, in my opinion, was a head scratcher because it had me very confused about the plot. The story is narrated by a young teen who lives with her parents, father Ben and mother Bess, in a quaint little town. The narrator details her impression and conversations with “the visitor”, a mysterious lady who is boarding with them. The visitor is described to be unusually tall for a women, fond of reading books, and speaks with a strange dialect. As the story progresses, the visitor is revealed to be a time traveler who seemed to be running away from someone, made evident when she asks the narrator to help her kill another presumed time traveler and speaks about things as if they are archaic.
Both short stories, Day Million and The Second Inquisition, contained many fascinating ideas and perceptions. The cybernetic man of Day million may seem like an overused theme in Sf, but I still find it interesting how he can fall in love with a women he briefly met and she is described to be a chimera no less! I was also intrigued by the fact that physical intimacy was no longer prevalent in the future described by Pohl. The term love in Day Million has been shortened to just mean an instant of falling in love, not sharing a life or intimacy with someone as in present day society. I found the concept of time traveling in The Second Inquisition to be very interesting and the referencing of H. G. Wells The Time Machine, to be equally amazing. The use of Eloi’s and Morlock’s added a bit of laugh and irony because a short story about a mysterious time traveling women mentioning another story of time traveling to hint at events and provide insight just seem so ironic.
In Pohl’s story “Day Million” we are told about Dora and Don, both very interesting and unique characters with very different characteristics. Don possesses machine parts and helps navigate ships through space. Dora is a type of dancer who has fish type features also, she isn’t actually a girl. In this now future earth not many can understand the reason or really actually know why she isn’t a female but a male under all of her female like features, all they know is that just by looking at her she is female and that’s enough for them. During Don’s and Dora’s encounter they fall in love and soon get married, after being married to each other they exchange their personal codes and part ways forever. With these codes they now have each other forever and whenever they want. Their physical presence is not needed for there is no use of it.
In “The Second Inquisition” by Joanna Russ we are introduced to the story by a girl who is very observant about their visitor. The visitor whom the girl seemed to find very strange was later discover to be a time traveler.
What i found interesting about both stories is that they both talk about the way we view people and how we react to their appearances. In “Day Million” they straight forward tell us about Dora not actually being a girl. But because the way she looks makes her look a lot like a girl many are attracted to her in every type of way. In this future they don’t really quite know how to react to whats not visible. They react to the way things are presented to them. In Russ story the girl wonders why the visitor looks and sounds different. The girl knew the visitor was human just like her but viewed her different because of her features and character.
“Day Million”, by Frederick Pohl explains the love relationship from distant future who gets touch from different species showing different concept of love between two love ones of Dora and Don. The characters between Dora and Don show fascinating characteristics about their background of how Dora is female mermaid who is a dancer and Don is a huge muscular robot who has been traveling in spaceship across the galaxy. Dora and Don knock each other when they first met there was love feeling of marriage which during the process of exchanging their code in the encoding room until they went separate ways to live in their hearts forever.
“The Second Inquisition” , by Joanna Russ describe about a girl who she keeps asking herself about the stranger who seems to not belong in the present timeline. The girl is very observant who judges the stranger that are not possible to comprehend the fact of many differences in his outlook feature. Until, she found out the stranger is a time traveler from the future timeline.
The most interesting scene got me curious was in the “Day Million” when he was explaining about Dora’s purpose of life and symbolism of rather how human relationships are different from Dora and Don’s love. The reason why because at the end of the story Pohl explains about Don not having flesh needed for pleasure and any organs feel nothing having no purpose to their love.
The first story I read was “the second inquisition by Joanna Russ since it was the longest story . It takes placed in the past in the year 1925. It talks about a girl who meets the “the visitor” who is from the future and a time traveler. The girl judges the “traveler” on the appearance and acts. But during the end of the paragraphs she wanted her to stay but the traveler tells the girl she wishes to take her but its impossible and theta vanishes.
The second story “Day Million” by Fredrick Pohl was my favorite and I’m sure everybody as well. Its basically takes in the distance future where a younger girl names Dore who was generically a boy in the womb was converted to a girl before she/he was born, because technology is so advance that they can tell what the human being will act and desires it will have. The other character is named Don who is basically all machine (made out of copper). Both beings meet and fall in love and like get married a few days later, but then leave each other. But there love for each other is by what the story describes as “machine/mathematics/mental” so basically they can make love with there minds. That’s how far technology has advanced in the past 1000 years.
Both stories where very interesting… the second inquisition was kinda boring for me, cause time travel is something everybody is trying to figured out in the scientific world, and you can already teleport and atom or cell in a way. But I think the moral of that story is, not to judge? I believe I’m not sure, I’m confused. But! Day million is very interesting because the writer is trying to tell us that love can be approached in many different ways, it doesn’t matter what “is”(which in this case “is” is Don because he is basically machine”) and “what could be” (which Dora could have been male or female) anything could experience love. (future) what man could accomplish
“Day Million,” by Frederick Pohl is a story told in objective third person in terms of narration. It is set in the very distant future, and it’s plot is an unusual love story that turns out to be not so unusual after all, at least not for that world. Don and Dora are both different and changed and or evolved beings in the future who meet and immediately are in love and exchange their codes of sorts which are like software that encompass all possible interactions with the owner.
In “The Second Inquisition” , by Joanna Russ, the narrator a limited omniscient tells the story of a girl and her encounter with her great great great many greats grand daughter, who is a time traveler. The story is set in a home with rooms for rent. The time traveler is the guest in the girls home. The many encounters with different ideas, looks and culture prove to be a great and insightful experience for the young girl. It seems that the relationship between the two characters deepens through out the story and the adventure intensifies. The guest and teenager read together, go to a dance and then kill someone together. The teen then bears witness to another altercation with other time travelers and aliens, and is left feeling sad at her loss of such adventure and magic.
In “Day Million,” by Pohl I loved the style in which this story was written. I love the way everything is described and how the voice of the author is very conversational and matter of fact. I thought the language and style was excellent and had a great speed and rhythm to it. In “The Second Inquisition” I found the story to be lengthy but enjoyable. The characters were well developed and had depth to them. I found myself wanting to learn more and more about the house guest. I also found the repeated reference to H.G. Wells “Time Machine to be great satire and irony. I loved how the author folded elements into her own story. I also found it interesting that the time traveler had very different ideas of what was acceptable and appropriate and that those were a reflection on the changing times.
The love story of “Day Million” tells about the lives of two non human characters and the cross paths these two have with each other. Both characters are unusually different, where one is a tall transgender sea creature who enjoys exploiting her sex appeal while the other is a working class machine. But at the end, they’re love intertwines with one another and live a whole new life different from before. The context this story describes is how love can be different from the norm. This story could be a metaphor for homosexuality or inter racial relationships in which the love life is seen as different from an ordinary love life.
The story of “The Second Inquisition” tells a tale of monstrous women who is living with an ordinary human family as a visitor. She strikes a bond with the daughter of the family and helps her get through facing her dysfunctional parents and facing her fear of bringing out her talents and interest in reading. The context the story may be describing is that looking different does not mean you are automatically put in a lower hierarchy than everyone else, and that sometimes being different can make you more special than everyone else as the visitor describes in her monologue of how circus people view normal people.
What I loved about both these stories is the amount of detail on the interesting characters. The authors not only describe they’re physical features but also they’re movements and they’re way of thinking. You can just image the creatures’ facial reactions to certain situations.
1) Who was the narrator in “Day Million”? Was it they’re child or creator?
Also 2) Why was the story called “The Second Inquisition”?
Santos,
These are excellent questions! Did you try to look up any information related to #2?
I must say that both stories were captivating, without a doubt. But I think “Day Million” by Frederick Pohl really caught my eyes, without a doubt. Lets start with the longest story first.
1. “The Second Inquisition” by Joanna Russ is a funny kind of story. I’ve always pictured how it would be for someone from one time to travel back and to communicate with individuals of the past. This story was interesting, but it reminded me of another story. The story called “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is magical realism, but I don’t know if it could connect or correlate with science fiction (can you answer this professor?). Why? well because in the beginning of the story “the visitor” is viewed as a circus freak, due to her appearance. And within the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” was basically a visitor, but from where? no one truly knows (except the author himself, right?); yet the visitor was also viewed as a circus freak and viewed as an attraction to be used to make money. And coincidentally, at the end these visitors do not make the other characters suffer any physical pain for any sort of mistreatment (wether it was physical or mental), which I found interesting. For they are beings better than us and our true nature; that nature being that human beings are innately evil.
In “Day Million” by Frederick Pohl it is also interesting. One of the protagonists is truly male yet female (or feminine for that matter). It shows us that a person must not name themselves something different to adhere to the rules of society because of what they can be and should be considered, which I agree to. For it is how the story said, why does that even matter? its idiotic to put labels on people because of masculinity and femininity or even people putting labels on themselves; in my view such labels are dehumanizing. And it brings up the question; what does it truly mean to be a man? and/or what does it truly mean to be a woman?
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