Sci-fi stories are filled with freaky foreign others—think: logical Vulcans with pointy ears, toothy drooling monsters exploding from your stomach, invading Martians blasting puny earthlings with heat rays—and they're all scary or weird or disturbing. In Solaris, though, the real scary, weird, disturbing thing is that there might not be any foreignness out there at all. The Vulcans, the aliens, the Martians—they're all just you. Which either means that the icky aliens are you, or you are them. Either way, it is confusing and unpleasant. And also, you have pointy ears.
Questions About Foreignness and the Other
- Is Rheya scary because she's an alien, or because she isn't?
- Are the aliens in Solaris human? Explain why or why not.
- Are Snow and Sartorius foreign or other from Kelvin's perspective?
- Can scientists understand the Solaris ocean? Can humans ever understand an alien?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
Solaris shows that the alien is always the self.
Solaris shows that the self is always an alien.