Multiplexing: Split Consciousness and Identity in “Stuntmind” and “Think Like a Dinosaur”
The concept of identity politics gained traction through the 1980s and continued into the 1990s with a wave of social activism, especially in the United States. The issue with identity playing a role in the political sphere is that people were confined into the group others identified them as. They did not have a say in this segregation as to how they wish to identify themselves. Science fiction authors throughout multiple countries grapple with the concept of identity, exploring it through the idea of split consciousness or a divided person. The most obvious example of this is “The Divided Carla” by Josef Nesvadba, written in the Czech Republic in 1985. At a cursory level, Carla seems to exemplify a being with human and ‘other’ consciousness, gaining this duality through a supposed contact with an other-worldly being. However, two other stories grapple with the idea of differing identities or consciousness in a different vain. In “The Divided Carla,” Nesvadba plays more with the struggle between reason and faith rather than focusing on the split identity aspect. In “Stuntmind” by Braulio Tavares (Brazil, 1989) and “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly (U.S., 1995), the authors center the story around this identity struggle, incorporating an aspect of ambiguity.
To place “Stuntmind” in Brazil in the 1980s, it was a time of economic downturn for the country, which can be seen in the treatment of the stuntminds after the Contact. They are given huge mansions and enormous amounts of wealth; however, they are just forgotten about by the general population. This can be either viewed as them placing more value on wealth or a mocking of the value that the society put on monetary wealth rather than social interaction. Additionally, large multi-national corporations further isolate the stuntminds from the general population, advertising them as “parasites of mankind” (Tavares, 219) in newspapers.
To examine the identity aspect of this story, it is useful to first look to the narration. In the beginning of the story, the identity of the first person narrator is unclear. The only understanding the reader has is that the narrator is separate from Roger Van Dali, because the narrator refers to Van Dali using third person. Not until a reader is nearing the end of the story does the identity struggle and existence of multiple ‘beings’ within one person become apparent. The narrator says:
In moments like this I remember the Contact, I remember that moment in which I, Roger Van Dali, felt all the vast loneliness of the Outsider (yes, I still think of them as individuals, as units of consciousness, or psi-quanta). I remember that instant in which I became me-and-him. (Tavares, 221)
In this part of the passage, the reader learns that the narrator is actually Roger Van Dali, even though he seemed detached at the beginning of the story. It feels as though the ability to go and view the sunset over the canyon restored his sense of self and his human emotions. However, the next portion of the passage gives indication that the outsider somehow entered his mind and has come back down the Earth as a piece of Van Dali’s mind. The narrator says:
And I awoke in Van Dali’s body after the Contact, like one who emerges from a throbbing abyss. I came to Earth and was given this face of mine. They taught me my name, told me my life, gave me a mountain of money, and then forgot me: and now here we are… I and I. (Tavares, 221).
The question is whether this other consciousness that combines to form this new Van Dali after the Contact is actually part of the outsider that Van Dali made contact with or another ‘being’? The next part of the passage almost sheds light on this; however, almost leaves the reader with more questions regarding the identity of the narrator. Furthermore, the narrator says: “I can say: I am embedded in Van Dali’s mind. Also I can say: a part of the Outsider is inside me and now lives in this world where it indulges itself in every excess, in every curiosity” (Tavares, 221). Taken together, the narrator seems to be a being that lives in Van Dali’s mind and body, maintaining some of his thoughts, feelings, and identity. The Outsider seems to have also left a piece of himself in Van Dali; however, at different points in time in the story, a different aspect of Van Dali’s new identity after the Contact takes over the narration. This being speaking in the first person seems to be an unreliable narrator as different aspects of its identity fight to take hold of the story. It is as if the reader is in the narrator’s mind and experiencing the struggle with multiple aspects of identity.
In “Stuntmind,” it was through the Contact that this split in consciousness or identity occurs, which likewise occurs in “Think Like a Dinosaur” to the migrator, Kamala. Through the migration process, part of Kamala’s consciousness was sent to Gend but seemingly her guilty conscience was left behind. Her secret regarding Ms. Ase and not telling anyone when she died weighed on her mind, and it was this piece of her mind that was left behind in her redundant body at the Tuulen Station. It was as if this process left the unharmonious part of her identity behind when sending her through time and space. When Kamala returned from Gend three years later, that version of her was very different than the version left behind, as if she had left those haunted memories behind. It is unclear though whether she would remember the situation with Ms. Ase or did that part of herself die with her redundant body? This may be the reason that Kamala said that the migration “changes everything” (Kelly, 716). She was freed from this guilt that had been weighing on her conscious since she was a little girl.
This situation with Kamala is not the only situation in which a character shows a separation of their consciousness. When Michael needed to kill Kamala’s redundant body, his consciousness seemed to separate from his body and actions. He seemingly became quite distant almost detached from his body until after he shut her outside of the station. As he returned to his body, he laughed to himself. It was as if he lost his sense of compassion that he seemed to have before. It was as if his compassion for redundant bodies disappeared after his experience with Kamala’s guilty conscience. He does say that meeting Kamala had changed his life (Kelly, 699). Losing a sense of compassion for the redundant bodies that were left over after migration would have made it easier to carry out his job of balancing the equation after migration. Potentially, even allowing him to stay on at his job at Tuulen Station without being as bothered by the work he was doing. It may have also given him perspective on how the dinos were able to remain detached from their work.
Examining identity and separation of consciousness within these two stories can give a better sense of the characters and provide a different interpretation of the stories themselves since both are characterized by ambiguity. This ambiguity is common across the science fiction genre; however, these stories show that it can play a role in highlighting identity struggles and split consciousness.
Works Cited
Kelly, James Patrick. “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995). The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, et al. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. 698-716.
Tavares, Braulio. “Stuntmind” (1989). Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain. Ed. Andrea L. Bell & Yolanda Molina-Gavilan. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003. 215-222.