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George Orwell's The Aliens-Personal Narrative Fiction

Decent Essays

From the initial chaos, fear, and urge to destroy the other had passed, Leinster’s narrative shifts gears, presenting a new way of seeing the alien, through the form of communication. “There was one of the aliens to whom communication became as normal a function as Tommy’s own code-handlings. The two of them developed a quite insane friendship, conversing by coder, decoder and short waive trains”(Leinster 268). From the very beginning of the narrative, Leinster stresses that perception and truth were two separate concepts. At the beginning of the short story, both man and alien saw no other choice than to destroy the other, and yet they don’t. They watch each other, observing their actions, and eventually understand that the monstrous presence …show more content…

Going from the menacing beings on the black ship to Buck—his gill-breathing friend, the aliens are no longer the mysterious and threatening Other but agreeable beings with senses of humor(Leinster 274). Unwilling to destroy each other, neither people can figure out a peaceful solution, even with all of their knowledge and technology. It is not until readers take a closer look at the method of vision that each people uses that the solution becomes clear. Where humans are adapted to high levels of light, the aliens are extremely sensitive, having adapted to a much lowers level of light. Understanding this, it is this difference that contributes the improbability that the man and alien would fight over the same solar systems. “We’ll get along all right…since they see by infrared, the planets they’d want to make use of wouldn’t suit us. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get along…they’re just like us,” (Leinster 279). Based on each peoples intolerance to the drastically different levels of light each, neither people would fight over the same solar systems, causing any fear of domination to collapse into hopeful collaboration. By weaving in several layers of the sense of vision, from the elements of light and dark, clarity and obscurity, and even the answer to the predicament, Leinster’s short story present the value of

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