Once you have read "The Post-Mortem People" by Peter Tate, you can add your comments here. Remember that you can earn credit for reading the story one of three ways: comment on this blog, discuss the story in class, or write a response to the story in class. We will be discussing the story in class on Friday, February 2. You should read the story on your own by that date. Think about the extrapolation ideas that Tate presents in the story.
9 comments:
I thought "The Post-Mortem People" was a slightly disturbing extrapolation of our medical practices, or at least the medical practices of the 1970s or 80s, whenever this was written. Tate takes what I had once considered a reasonable practice of uses intact organs from the recently deceased and exaggerated it to disgusting dimensions. There are characters in this future society that no longer respect the dead, or even the living it seems. They hunt people they want to harness from until they die and they can take whatever usable organs are left. The main character is especially revolting in his treatment of the widow and even his slightly arrogant way in which he dismisses critics of his work.
The ending is creepy, but almost funny in its irony.The "harvester" becomes the "harvestee." I think it's interesting how yet again the future society is lazy as well as "plugged-in." Nobody really walks any more; the sidewalks move so they don't have to. They also are continually hooked up to some sort of headphone device that relaxes them. Unlike some of the other stories we've read, there is no oppressive government in "The Post-Mortem People," though the spectre of organ harvesting lurks in the shadows.
Like I said, I found this story to be disturbing, which I think is what Peter Tate was going for. He says look what the world will be like if we let sterilized science rob us of our morals.
Read --
This ia an excellent response to the story. You address both its simple extrapolations and its more complex ideas about morality and the uses of technology. I agree with you that this story was meant to be disturbing.
Joe --
This is an insightful comment that adresses the impact of the story well. The lack of compassion in the future is one of the primary ideas that SF stories warn us about.
I thought the story was kind of disturbing humans are given little to no respect after death their organs are stolen from them and cannot do anything about it. I thought it was pretty insightful that the author could predict about transplants, when they had little technology about this back then. Although the story was pretty gross, regarding humans as useless after death i thought it was a very good story.
Ben S --
This is a good general response to the story. You could expand on your last comment -- what made the story good, despite its disturbing nature? You might also be a little more specific about the extrapolations in the story. Thanks for taking time to respond.
I thought this story was pretty odd. The fact that the main character's only job is to wait around for people to die makes his life seem pretty feeble. There's more to life than a job, even if you are good at it. I think the author is making a point that too many people in life are too caught up in their occupations and never take any time to live life for all it's good for. This is a sign to readers to "grab life by the horns" and live life to the fullest. At some times it is necessary to forget the job, however much money it gets you, and be active and have fun. I think the author is trying to convey that work can limit so many people from so many things. I like the fact that the author sends this message because this is a problem in America and probably the rest of the world. The story was pretty strange and i didn't really like the plot, but the theme of it overall is good.
Ben K --
You make a good point about Anton's job being too important to him, but I have a hard time seeing that as the main point of the story. Where in the story does the author really address the idea of "living life to the fullest"?
the post mortam people gives great immagrey and insight into the groing reality that nothing is sacrid in our world today and that if we keap gooing the way we are then our world could turn out the way it is in the post mortam world or worse taking the orgins from live victams. with the way stem cell reasearch is going and cloning it leaves us all wondering whats coming next?
this story is basically a prediction of what could happen in our world if things dont change and things keep going as they are. im pretty sure it is a story to make people not want to look into our future and what may lie ahead cause nobody knows.
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