The problem of the other in Stanislaw Lem´s novels

Rad ne sadrži sažetak.This thesis analyses Stanisław Lem’s pessimistic first contact novels, Fiasco, Solaris, and His Master’s Voice. The focus of the thesis is on the way in which the encounter with the Other, that is alien civilizations, exposes human limitations and human susceptibility to anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is heavily discussed in all three novels and it is seen as the root cause of the protagonists’ inability to communicate with alien civilisations. In Fiasco, an expedition is sent to a distant planet in order to make first contact with a civilisation that might or might not exist. When the crew finally reaches the planet, all of their attempts to establish communication with the inhabitants of the planet Quinta are futile. In the end, their first contact mission ends with the destruction of Quinta. His Master’s Voice, written in the form of a memoir, is a story of a scientist named Peter Hogarth, who brings his account of a project code-named “His Master’s Voice”. The project’s goal is to decode a message from outer space but after a few initial achievements, the project comes to a dead end. From the start, Hogarth is convinced that they will not be able to decode the message and the question of the existence of the Other is never actually answered. Solaris, on the other hand, has its Other in the form of a planet that is almost completely covered by an ocean that seems to be sentient. However, as in the previous novels, communication is never established. The first chapter of the thesis gives a brief introduction to science fiction and why the chosen three novels belong to that literary genre or mode. The second chapter focuses on science fiction from the perspective of postcolonial theory and how the Other seems to be at the centre of both science fiction and colonial literature. The next three chapters consist of analyses of the three novels and focus mainly on the problem of anthropomorphism. The aim was to show how the protagonists gained greater insight into human nature in spite of their inability to communicate with alien civilizations