Time Enough At Last
Feb. 24th, 2023 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easyWhat is the point of this Twilight Zone episode? What is its message? An odd, smug, but thought-provoking Wired op-ed from 2020's lockdown mentioned the story in passing and reminded me that I'm still puzzled by it.
Twilight Zones often depict someone's moral failings and their comeuppance via supernatural / SFnal means. But Henry Bemis simply hasn't done anything to warrant his awful punishment. The story's villain is not his exasperated boss, but his awful wife, who isn't awful at all in Lynn Venable's original story, and they are both merely instantly killed.
Perhaps that smug Wired piece has put its finger on Bemis's crime: he takes pleasure in the apocalypse. The chance to read, unmolested by obligations, is not a comfort but a source of delight. It is what Brian Aldiss called a "cozy catastrophe", a fantasy where others suffer but you yourself are comfy. Be warned, Walter Mitty, you obnoxious millstone. And be warned, me, who has enjoyed "desert island" fantasies since childhood and enjoys them still. I was hypomanic when the first lockdown hit; all that energy was invaluable. And I have social anxiety and suddenly had a permission slip from the world to avoid the human race.
Twilight Zones often depict someone's moral failings and their comeuppance via supernatural / SFnal means. But Henry Bemis simply hasn't done anything to warrant his awful punishment. The story's villain is not his exasperated boss, but his awful wife, who isn't awful at all in Lynn Venable's original story, and they are both merely instantly killed.
Perhaps that smug Wired piece has put its finger on Bemis's crime: he takes pleasure in the apocalypse. The chance to read, unmolested by obligations, is not a comfort but a source of delight. It is what Brian Aldiss called a "cozy catastrophe", a fantasy where others suffer but you yourself are comfy. Be warned, Walter Mitty, you obnoxious millstone. And be warned, me, who has enjoyed "desert island" fantasies since childhood and enjoys them still. I was hypomanic when the first lockdown hit; all that energy was invaluable. And I have social anxiety and suddenly had a permission slip from the world to avoid the human race.
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Date: 2023-02-25 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
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