Is Anne McCaffrey’s work absent from the classroom?

Her fans still love her, but I’m just wondering,… is Anne McCaffrey’s work absent from the classroom? In 1984, Sharon Liddell wrote:

“Anne McCaffrey’s works, both science fiction and fantasy, are popular and exciting. Teachers will also find their literary quality is excellent.”

She explained: “Anne McCaffrey is one of those overnight successes we hear so much of. Suddenly, in the eighties, the public has discovered McCaffrey, primarily through a series of fantasy books. McCaffrey’s fantasies of the planet Pern have a hard science fiction background. The inhabitants of the planet are the descendents of an abandoned earth colony, but their off-planet origins and their advanced technology have been forgotten. Before the decline of the culture, scientists genetically engineered “dragons” from a small flying lizard native to Pern. These dragons are designed to protect the inhabitants from spores which migrate from the moon once every four hundred years. The current culture is feudal but not the medieval feudal system of Earth’s history.” Liddell)

I bring it up, because Barbara Bengels writes that she has found SF to be particularly useful for introducing key elements of literature in her literature class.

Specifically, she writes that she has “found Science Fiction to be the perfect vehicle for helping freshmen become aware that, despite what their families may have taught them, they are not the center of the universe. Because my focus in my first year Introduction to Literature courses is point of view, I have used three SF works which I’ve found to be particularly successful: ‘Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson to show how first person narration allows the author to withhold key information, ‘That Only a Mother’ by Judith Merril to show how an author can have the benefits of first person narration while actually using third person, and The Left Hand of Darkness by Urula K. Le Guin to demonstrate the use of multiple first person narrators. ‘Born of Man and Woman’ is the first work I ask them to write a paper on, having them analyze why Matheson has chosen to tell this particular story from this unique point of view.” (259, Bengels)

There is some really great fantasy and SF… among them Anne McCaffrey’s body of work… so I’m just wondering how it could be used in the classroom… and whether or not it is?

References: Sharon Liddell (1984) ‘Recommended: Anne McCaffrey’ The English Journal, Vol. 73, No. 7 (Nov., 1984), p. 89  Barbara Bengels (2005) Using Science Fiction to Teach Point of View Extrapolation; Summer, 46(2); pp259-267

Anne McCaffrey – feminist writer

Batya Weinbaum once wrote that “Anne’s novels celebrate adolescence.” (221)

“In college, Anne met her husband, married, and moved to New York City. There, in the late 1940s, she happened to discover a stack of old magazines left by a previous tenant. These included Amazing, Galaxy, Fantasy, and Fantastic SF—“pulp magazines” in the science fiction genre. She sold her first story in this venue. Drawing on her experience with pregnancy, she crafted a story of aliens using human females as reproductive surrogates, a theme common in the pulp years. She lacked self-confidence, but once she published a story that Judith Merril chose for her anthologies in 1961, Anne’s career was on its way. Merril invited her to the Eaton conference of science fiction writers in Connecticut where experts shared experiences and mentored each other. There, Anne met Virgina Kidd of the New York Futurians, who later became her editor.

The critical years in Anne’s career, 1965–1970, coincided with developments such as emergence of science fiction courses in universities and the transition of the genre from pulp magazines to more respectable and expensive paperback and hardcover books. The simultaneous emergence of the women’s movement made women notice each other and recognize each other’s struggles. The emerging feminist spirit of the times energized Anne to leave her husband, who became jealous of her success. At the age of forty-two, she left him for Ireland with two dependent children. The U.S. women’s movement gave her the spirit to persevere in Ireland where feminism had not emerged to the same extent. This feminist spirit also influenced Betty Ballantine, who had founded a publishing house in 1952 with her husband, to publish science fiction writers such as Arthur Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Ballantine admired Anne and described her as a feminist, due to her spunky female heroines. This energy, fueled by the women’s movement, was also crucial in fostering in Anne the notion that she too could create supportive networks for others in Europe once she was there, which she did, co-founding the British version of the prestigious Eaton conference that had helped her in Connecticut.

In her work, Anne draws on ecofeminist thought illustrating how women and nature are, often, equally subordinate to male dominance. Her books depict how humans and animals have sympathetic, telepathic relationships. “Psionics,” or psychic powers, are accepted in the worlds Anne creates, and often are the major theme. Anne creates likable female heroines who find resolutions difficult to achieve in real life, narrating tales of achievement and romance.” (222)

Ref: Batya Weinbaum ‘Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons’ Feminist Formations, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 2009, pp.220-223 (Review)

Also check out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/23/anne-mccaffrey-pern-dies-85

Robin Roberts on Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight

The first woman writer to receive both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) is perhaps best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. Now a world her son, Todd McCaffrey, has taken over writing about, Anne McCaffrey wrote a number of wonderful novels and short stories about Pern over the years. Robin Roberts argues that Dragonflight is both one of the best, “a rich and complex text” (21), that “most completely develops the plot that will serve as a model for the other books in the series.” (21)

According to Roberts, “Dragonflight contains character, plot, and themes that are representative of McCaffrey’s work in general, […which] does for dragons what Isaac Asimov’s Robot series does for robots – it establishes dragons as sentient, competent, and caring companions and creatures with a believable scientific explanation for their existence.” (21)

“Dragonflight,” Roberts explains, “begins as many of McCaffrey’s novels do, in media res (in the middle of the story). This structure was common to epic poetry, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, so McCaffrey draws on a time-honored tradition for her plot and immediately captures her reader’s interest. McCaffrey begins in the middle in two ways: the novel describes events in the middle of the planet Pern’s history, and events in the middle of the heroine’s life.

Many science fiction novels begin with the colonization of a planet, but Dragonflight depicts the events that occur long after the initial exploration and development of Pern. …Pern has the same unique potential for sentient life that our planet does, and the same problems (human greed, politics).” (22)

“The book,” Roberts points out, “begins with these words, ‘When is a legend a legend? Why is a myth a myth?’ (xi). The rest of the novel answers these questions, and the introduction explains how Pern’s origins and history produce myth and legend.” (22)

Of course, this beginning has received a fair amount of attention and its connections with the rest of the Dragonriders series is certainly worth considering. On the surface, at a plot level, as Roberts explains, “Lessa [the protagonist] is descended from dragonriders, but she knows nothing about them. Her ignorance stems from her position as an outcast, but also because dragons have become less important to Pernese society in general. …Lessa’s ignorance makes her the ideal stand-in for the reader; like Lessa, we are attracted to the dragons, but know nothing about them. As Lessa makes her discoveries and bonds with a dragon, the reader vicariously experiences the pleasures of flying and communing with a dragon. [Further, Lessa is chosen as a candidate for a queen dragon just as the fall of the deadly Thread is imminent.] Only the rediscovery and repopulation of the world with dragons will save Pern. The reader is invited to unravel the mystery of the dragons and the solution to Pern’s plight with the help of clues from ballads that precede each chapter. These brief and tantalizing verses describe dragons and [-p.24] their role in combatting Thread. …it is the ballads that provide the way to rescue Pern from extinction. The excerpts she uses in the novel’s structure are not only entertaining, but also central to the plot.” (23-24)

Roberts continues: “Using questions and supplying Pern’s history in the introduction draw the reader into the world of Pern. The introduction works as preparation, as a hook, and then the ballads provide the answers. This structure smoothly integrates the reader into Pern.” (24)

The importance of story and art to Pern and its people goes deeper than ‘just’ plot, though, as Roberts discusses. Story and identity are greatly entwined in the creation of both character and storyworld. Characters don’t just have stories; they are stories. They are pushed and pulled by story and by art. There is a depth to Pern that is provided by story.

I suppose you could say that ‘story’ comes alive through Pern… and somehow this seems a perfect legacy … if you know what I mean

Ref: Robin Roberts (1996) Anne McCaffrey; A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press: Westport, CT

Note: links to Pern can be found at:

http://pernhome.com/pern/?page_id=84

http://www.pern.nl/

http://pern.srellim.org/readorder.htm

http://www.pern.org/

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-dragonriders-of-pern/articles