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THE REVOLUTION AND METAMORPHOSE OF THE HUMAN IN THE SCIENCE FICTION, THE LAWNMOWER MAN

T. B. Edman, H. Gozen

Abstract

The fantastic is the evolution and the reincarnation of the characters and heroes in Mythology and fairy tales, which are the evolution of real legends, and myths as well. The fantastic reveals the hesitation ‘Is it real or not?’ in receiver’s mind. The fantastic transgresses the border between the imagery and the reality, the true and false. The true and false, the imagery and the real are all intermingled. The receiver does not come up with the answer in the fantastic; on the contrary, it pushes the reader into ambiguity and hesitation, to interrogate what is real and what is not. The reader of the fantastic, who is forced into ambiguity and hesitation in the fictional world of the fantastic, is now up to reach an answer. The fantastic induces the reader to break the barriers of the world, go beyond the limits imposed to his world, which are his learned experiences, doctrines and knowledge. Fantastic exposes the reader to the supernatural, the topsy-turvy state of his known. However, the reader of the fantastic does not classify the supernatural as impossible; on the contrary, he is betwixt and between, in hesitation. The question ‘is it real’ takes him into the adventure of supernatural, beyond the imposed realities in his own world, which is an opportunity for him to achieve his own reality, and reconstruct it (Todorov 1975)[11]. In On Fairy Tale, Tolkien proposes the same notion, the reader’s tendency, his ability to reach the answer as ‘will,’ which signifies the receiver’s free will; the reader’s free will is the element of the fantastic (8). The fantastic takes its subject matter from mythology. The hero’s adventures and journey are symbiosis of mythology, which is “the interpretation of the beauties and terrors of the world” (Tolkien 8)[12]. Todorov is also one of the critics who attempts to correspond whether the subject matter in the fantastic must be “true or false, real, or imagery” (4-10). He proposes that the new genre, the fantastic is a transformed system of literature. The subjects and products of the fantastic are the reincarnations of the reworking of what is old. The fantastic does not represent truth; however, it reveals the ambiguity and the reincarnation of truth (10). Namely, the fictional world in the fantastic is the metamorphose of the real world, as its subject matter is recreation, and reincarnation of mythology. Science fiction which is a sub-genre of fantastic literature transcends boundaries of humans’ limits to go beyond known, search for other possible realities and enhance human perception, capacity and the world they live in. Science fiction proposes humankind the opportunity to explore the possibility of impossibilities enforced through their primary world as Tolkien clarifies. In this study, the science fiction The Lawnmower Man by Stephen King, which is displayed in the form of film adaptations under the same title, The Lawnmower Man, released in 1992, and its sequel film, The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace released in 1996, will be studied to analyze the anthropology and story of science fiction, and the reconstructed mythical reflections, the metaphors and symbols through the films. The issue of CyberGod will be scrutinized through the transhumanist and posthumanist perspective to display how science fictions can display limitless possibilities to humans to perceive and actualize.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/SWS.ISCAH.2019.2/S09.051

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