In Matthew Derby 's 2003 novel, Super Flat Times, the characters presented express a possible outcome of a society which has been so effected by technology that the most raw aspects of life, such as food, sex, and death, are trivialized and changed to be nearly unrecognizable to the reader. All food is meat made to emulate foods that no longer exist, and food and people are described as simply disappearing when they expire. Couples are emotionless towards each other, and parents are incapable of caring for their children. Procreation is stripped of emotion and made into a medical procedure one has to sign up for. These three aspects of life are made this way because of technology and limits, which are used by the government to shape the people
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What is important about the human consumption of food is that it is not eaten in necessity every time anything is eaten. Unlike animals, humans have a choice of when and what to eat. It is an agency which is easily taken for granted, but it seems like this agency is a focal point in Derby 's novel, especially in the section titled "Joy of Eating" (75). In the first part of this section, each new paragraph starts with a similar sentence. They begin with "They have taken the joy of eating from us" (75) and it changes to things like "The joy of eating is gone" (76) and "the joy of eating has been lost" (77). The initial sentence means that an anonymous "they" has taken away the "joy of eating," meaning that some collective group no longer lets people enjoy eating. Perhaps this means eating is entirely gone, but in chapters earlier and later in the novel, it is made clear that what food is left is meat which is kept in abundance in towers guarded by the government. So rather than eating as a whole being taken away, it is the essential joy of eating which has been revoked and the they mentioned is in reference to the government. Families no longer go to the grocery store to pick out food and snacks, or sit down at the table to eat, and kids no longer enjoy ice cream or candy, both of which are nonessential food items. …show more content…
As with food, the essential aspect of sex which has been taken away or lost is agency. The lack of agency is depicted well in one of the short "Fragments" included every few chapters. In this fragment, a woman and her sexual partner, Darren, are worried about people outside of their apartment who are looking for Darren. The narrator acknowledges that these people will do something to her lover and that she will never see him again when she remarks, "either way, I would never see Darren again" (Derby 138). However, although she knows that her lover is in danger and that he is clearly trying to avoid the people who are looking for him, when he asks if the people are gone, the narrator lies and says, " 'Yeah,... Coast clear '" (Derby 138). The people looking for Darren are part of the government and they want to force him into a singular race. The narrator knows this and she is also in a sexual relation with Darren, yet she lies to him and, it is assumed, gets him caught by the people he is hiding
What is important about the human consumption of food is that it is not eaten in necessity every time anything is eaten. Unlike animals, humans have a choice of when and what to eat. It is an agency which is easily taken for granted, but it seems like this agency is a focal point in Derby 's novel, especially in the section titled "Joy of Eating" (75). In the first part of this section, each new paragraph starts with a similar sentence. They begin with "They have taken the joy of eating from us" (75) and it changes to things like "The joy of eating is gone" (76) and "the joy of eating has been lost" (77). The initial sentence means that an anonymous "they" has taken away the "joy of eating," meaning that some collective group no longer lets people enjoy eating. Perhaps this means eating is entirely gone, but in chapters earlier and later in the novel, it is made clear that what food is left is meat which is kept in abundance in towers guarded by the government. So rather than eating as a whole being taken away, it is the essential joy of eating which has been revoked and the they mentioned is in reference to the government. Families no longer go to the grocery store to pick out food and snacks, or sit down at the table to eat, and kids no longer enjoy ice cream or candy, both of which are nonessential food items. …show more content…
As with food, the essential aspect of sex which has been taken away or lost is agency. The lack of agency is depicted well in one of the short "Fragments" included every few chapters. In this fragment, a woman and her sexual partner, Darren, are worried about people outside of their apartment who are looking for Darren. The narrator acknowledges that these people will do something to her lover and that she will never see him again when she remarks, "either way, I would never see Darren again" (Derby 138). However, although she knows that her lover is in danger and that he is clearly trying to avoid the people who are looking for him, when he asks if the people are gone, the narrator lies and says, " 'Yeah,... Coast clear '" (Derby 138). The people looking for Darren are part of the government and they want to force him into a singular race. The narrator knows this and she is also in a sexual relation with Darren, yet she lies to him and, it is assumed, gets him caught by the people he is hiding