Choose any one story, create an argument about how the story explores a modern concern or development related to contemporary science and technology -- through the literary genre of the short story. 1

156 97785

ENGL 110 2:12

March 1, 2023

Never as Go od as New: Rebec ca Lang and Pro blem of Super -longe vity

The q uestion implied in the t itle of Rebecca Lang ’s short story “What No One Ever Tel ls You About

Becoming Immortal ” is answered , in a way, i n the story ’s final line: “Eventually , you d ie.”1 This ending, of

course, presents the reader with a par ado x: how can one die if o ne is immort al? Immorta lity is, by

definition the inab ility to die. It is this paradox that the story explores and through wh ich it develops its

comment on the potential pitfalls of using our ra pidly advancing te chnol ogy to vastly prolong our

lifespan s. Thro ugh the case of Diann, Lang prese nts a stark w arning about the dange rs of ex tending

human life through advanced technolog ies, the most devastating of which is that we cannot really extend

human life at all.

Some of the problems that Diann faces as she s eeks to evade nat ural death are pragmatic

difficulties that most people could probably anticipate , and , to some extent, tha t some people face today

even with ordinary medical treatment . For one thing, the treatments are expe nsive and create an

enormous financial burden on D iann, and presumably many others. To get s tarted, Diann and her

husband have to “dip into their savings ” (21). Later , it becomes clear that the “dip ” has become a n all out

draining of their savings because later we learn t hat the treatmen ts have left Diann “deep in debt ” (30).

The ongoing financial hardship makes se nse in Lang ’s future world becau se the super -longe vity

that Diann pursues is not a matter of a single proc edure. Her cancer is cured through “cutting edge ” (5)

nanotechnology a nd that measure seems to provide ongoing rege neration of her internal o rgans, but even

that technology r equires fre quent updates , which in turn requ ire more , apparently expe nsive, injections

(8) . Eve n worse, th e nano -tech does not reg enerate her bones, so s he eventually requires a new skeleton .

She is assured that the new bones will be like the ones she had w hen she was twenty, but this

observation occasions a cru cial insight on Diann ’s part: “I’m not tw enty [ …] these bones don ’t fit me

anymore ” (14). Here, Diann be gin s to realize that her pr ocess has gone b eyond medical treatment: her

physical is being replaced . She is not exact ly becoming someone else ; she is the s ame person living in

someone else ’s body. She can never be, she notes “good as new ” because she cannot be new at all (6 -7)

As Diann advances in chrono logical years , she finds herself unable to age with grace and dignity

since her youthful life i s expect ed to continue in a girlish form that even her own granddau ghter envies

(22) . But psychologicall y, she remains herself and is unable to cope with the changes around her . She

increasingly cannot meet the demands of employment , for example, because “her wo rk skill s are nearly

obsolete ” (30). Mor e troubling, and like many others, she finds herself among the “old immortals ” who

“can ’t keep up with new techn ology, new people, new ways of life ” (29). Diann and those like her , Lang

implies, have minds designed fo r a single lif etime , and can not cope with more than one lifetime ’s worth of

experience.

1 Rebecca Lang, “What No One Ever Tells You About Becoming Immortal ,” Daily Science Fiction , Se ptember 4, 2014. https://dailysciencefiction.com/science -fiction/biotech/rebecca -lang/what -no-one -ever -tells -you -about -becoming - immortal , para 39. Subs equent references to this story will be g iven by paragraph number in parentheses.

Commented [TP1]: Chicago -style note. For a literary work that you are goin g to be citing repea tedly , you can indicate that you are going to use parenthetical citations for the rest of the essay. For most works, sub sequent citatio ns shou ld be in a short -form note.

Commented [TP2]: End your introductory paragraph with a clear thesis . Do not i nclude a summary of what is to come.

Commented [TP3]: Avoid contractions in formal prose, except in quotations.

Commented [TP4]: Ground your discussion i n the details in the text. Some things can be paraphrased, but you should quote frequently. Notice that you of ten need only a few words of quotation to ma ke the point. In this way, Lang warn s, advanced longevity tech nology has the potential to rob its use rs of their

fundamental humanity . Diann seems to sense this early on in her medical journey, likening hers elf to

“Frankenst ein ’s monster stitched together from different parts ” (16). Like the mo nster in the story, Diann

increasingly comes to real ize that she has no place in the world of n atural humanity. Her loss of

humanity is fore shadowed by her husband ’s lo ss of hi s memory and thus h is entire pers onal history and

person ality. Diann is forced through the ordeal of being married to a man she effect ively doe s not know .

It is one thing to have to care for an a ging partner, but Diann ’s humiliation i n having to see her husband,

now, effectively a teena ger, “flirt with classmates ” (26-27). Diann gets a divorce (28) , but, in a sense, she

becomes a wid ow, because the man her husband was no longer exists.

This same fate awaits Diann herself who eventually cannot deal with wit h the w eight of her own

exper iences , and she feels compelled to u ndergo yet another surgery, this time to erase her m emory . In so

doing she, like her h usband before her, loses connection to her past and thus her self. This loss is

sym bolized in a crucial moment late in story when , aft er the surgery, she confronts what she has

previously ackno wledged as the “trea sures ” of her long life (31) . These are no t things of m onetary va lue,

but rather items that em body the most imp ortant da ys of her existence, i ncluding her wedding dress and

her diaries (31) . After the surgery, sh e regards those treasures as “junk ” and gets rid of them (36) . With

them go the life that she once had . That Diann , that human being, is gone. This is wh y the story ends

with the paradox that the immortals eventually die . The res olution of the paradox is that they die not in

body , but in spir it. The person you were cannot endure forever . We are meant to di e as part of the natural

progression of lif e—whatever lies your doct or may tell you in the future.

Commented [TP5]: Paragraphs should be gin with a claim that supp orts the thesis . Then, pr esent ev idence. Don’t start with quotations and later comment on them.

Commented [TP6]: Notice that this essay doe s not have five paragraphs because the structure of t he argument does not call for five.