The Adjunct

While discussing Stacy Richter’s fabulous short story, “The Cavemen In The Hedges”, one of my students began our discussion by saying:  “At first, when the story told us about these cavemen walking around the streets of a modern day city, I assumed it was a dream or that the narrator was just imagining things. When it became clear that there really were cavemen in this story, I was confused at first, but then I realized this must be science fiction. So I told myself that science fiction has weird things like cavemen or aliens or whatever, but that it does so as a conduit or symbol for something real.  These fantastical things are a way to discuss a social or political issue, or something else of substance.  So I kept that in mind as I continued reading the story, and suddenly it wasn’t so confusing.”

Great stuff.