Cognitive Estrangement:A Study On Alien Encounters In Arthur Clarke's Science Fiction

Alien encounter is one of the most important sub-genre in Arthur Clarke's science fiction.Different from others in science fiction writing,Clarke concerned more about destiny of mankind in the universe.His stories often talks about what would happen if highly developed yet prejudiced human beings met with more advanced extraterrestrial aliens.On the perspective of Darko Suvin's "cognitive estrangement" of science fiction,it can be found that the writing of alien encounter in Clarke's science fiction is actually the estrangement of today's living condition of our humankind.To some extent,aliens are created to help us to understand what it means to be a human.So this thesis attempts to explore the writing of alien encounters in Clarke's science fiction by analyzing some of the representative works of Clarke,and these works are Childhood's End,the Citys and the Stars,2001:A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama.The goal of this thesis is to summarize the characteristics of Clarks's writing of alien encounters and the value and significance generated in this writing.Due to the particularity of the research object,the thesis will clarify the concepts of"alien encounter" and "cognitive estrangement" in the First Chapter.Based on those concepts,the thesis will make a holistic approach to Clarke 's imaginary alternative world in his alien encounter science fictions and point out that the novum in his alien encounter science fictions is the writing of aliens and their relationships with humankind which is also the core of this thesis.Chapter Two will focus on analyzing of aliens images.Alien is the creation of a need to know ourselves better.In the process of shaping what is "non-human",it actually defines what is "human".So the novum,or the alien,is the estrangement of our real life.This estrangement is achieved by diverse artistic means such as making a controversy image of alien or suggesting there is one and cancelling the spoken languages or making alien remaining silent.Chapter Three will discuss another side of novum,and that is the relationship between alien and mankind.When alien become an observer and humans were observed,it would make us to think about ourselves in a different perspective.In the meantime,alien is also shown to be a model,an ideal other,so the transcendence of human indicates that we may have chance to be better.After analyzing synchronicity of novum,the thesis will move on a diachronic study of novum and conclude what we learn from Clarke's alien encounter science fiction.Conclusions will draw from two sides.First of all,the writing of alien encounters is trying to criticize egocentrism,misuse of technology and irrational feeling of religious.Meanwhile,it also looks forward to future by expressing the hope of eliminating alienation,establishing the scientific spirit and calling for true faith.