文章詳目資料

Concentric:Literary and Cultural Studies A&HCIScopusTHCI

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篇名 “To Stand a Chance”: Quantum Uncertainty and Religious Conversion in Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
卷期 43:2
作者 Molly Schwartz
頁次 297-324
關鍵字 speculative fictionconversionquantum uncertaintycomputationmutationgenerativeMichel HouellebecqA&HCIScopusTHCI
出刊日期 201709
DOI 10.6240/concentric.lit.2017.43.2.13

中文摘要

英文摘要

Michel Houellebecq’s novel, Submission (2015), is structured around the speculative premise that in the year 2022 the Muslim Brotherhood could become the dominant political party in France, leading to a society-wide shift in values and practices. This paper explores how Houellebecq uses religious conversion in the novel as a literary metaphor for quantum uncertainty. By lacing the patchwork plot with ambiguity and satire, Houellebecq tries to reconcile the random and predetermined elements of human actions, given the physical reality of our atom-based world and existence. Against the background of his selfish male and female characters, Houellebecq plays with the possibility of transcending the pitifulness of the contemporary human condition, which both he and his characters ultimately achieve not through religion but through fiction. Interpreting Submission in the context of theories about the unpredictable, computational nature of the universe raises interesting questions about the programmability of human behavior and the use of speculative fiction as a tool for generating alternative futures.

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