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Before responding to the prompt below make sure you read "---All You Zombies---" (course reader), and read the Lecture Notes. Don't forget to cite your information if it is coming from another source. Even if you are paraphrasing (putting information into your own words), you still need to acknowledge where you found that information originally.
Prompt:
What does the Ouroboros represent in this story and why does our narrator wear it? (explain your answer and be specific). In addition, how would you describe the author's tone (attitude) towards women? Pay attention to Heinlein's diction (word choice). Explain and be specific. Lastly, why do you think the story is called "---All You Zombies---"?
Soap
The snake who eats it's own tail represents the circle of time and events that a paradox creates. In this story specifically it represents the main character. The main character comes back in time to kidnap his baby self, give it to the orphanage, impregnate himself, and recruit himself for timesquad, which was a great time travel cartoon series. It seemed like Jane looked down on women in general, talking about them being big boobed bimbos and all, and then he seems to be saddened by how hard it is to be a woman and even more so a man. It's called all you zombies because it's one of Janes final lines, and speaking of the paradox people to my understanding, all the versions of himself.
Arielle
The Ouroboros represents the world snake that eats its own tail. The narrator refers to it when he says that he wears a wedding ring to keep the women away. The narrator is transgender and is male while telling the story. He prefers men to woman so wears a wedding ring so he doesn’t have to be bothered with women at all. The author’s attitude towards women is hasty almost because he can’t be a woman any more.
He says the vocabulary shifts in time when you travel. So his diction shifts a little as he travels. The story is called all you zombies because the story is told through a man who was once a woman and was raised in an orphanage and brought up around children who would get adopted just because of their looks. The people he encountered that weren’t like him he referred to as zombies.
Joe
The Ouroboros represents a great paradox as the snake that eats its tail and itself. The narrator says he wears it to show women that he is married, keeping them away. The author’s tone towards women seems negative as all the ones mentioned and the organizations as well, W.E.N.C.H.E.S, W.H.O.R.E.S, etc. are all for prostitutes. His diction shifts around a wee bit as he says that vocabulary shifts during time travel, like a person’s luggage during flight. I assume the story is called “All You Zombies” because it is said at the end to refer to the rest of world, who don’t have access to time travel. They are all unknowing to the people who control the world’s events. That in his point of view they are as mindless as zombies in eyes of those who travel through time. Perhaps it refers to his own gender change. He has perspective on both sides of things, and everyone else only has half of his viewpoint. Either way, I feel it relates to his perspective and how he knows something that everyone doesn’t, or can’t.
Yat
The Ouroboros represented the World Snake that eats its own tail, forever without end, a symbol of The Great Paradox. The term resembles what had happened in the story. A girl was abandoned in Orphanage and when she grew up, she met a city slicker, but later she found that she had his baby. She found that she had both sexual organ, and she did a surgery and became man while her baby was stolen. He (She) was very upset and became a city slicker. He went into a bar and eventually traveled to the past. He fell in love with a girl and got her pregnant. The bartender traveled to past and stole the baby, and bought her to Ophanage. The man traveled to the future and became a bartender, and was assigned to recruit a city slicker into the team.
The story has been repeating and repeating itself from the start to beginning, and goes on forever, that’s what the term Ouroboros means. From the author’s tone, I think he is stereotype to women on their typical attributes. In the story, when she was transformed into man, she said that how could she live as a man when she didn’t know how to drive, didn’t know how to trade, and did manual labor. She also said that, “a normal man, making good money, no real troubles, and life of a female is not an easy one.”
After he fully realized who he was actually, and that his paradox would go on and on, as he said, “I know where I came form- but where did all you zombies come form?” I think he referred “All you zombies” to the unpleasant self of himself (in his paradox throughout his lifetime).
Cristina
The main character wears an Ouroboros ring as a wedding band. He says he wears the wedding band in an attempt to deflect female advances. The Ouroboros is a symbol of how the main character in "---All You Zombies---"can recreate himself, ultimately his real commitment. The main character seems to be devouring himself every time he recreates a new recruit because of the toll it takes on him. He does not appear to be living a happy existence, hence the drinking in order to drown the thinking away.
The author seems to maintain a condescending tone about women through the story. One example is the W.E.N.C.H.E.S. agency: prostitutes employed by government to help relieve tension for spacemen. The use of the term wench is chauvinistic and through out the story the men hold positions of power and the women are portrayed as the weaker sex. Another example is how the main character chooses to continue to live as a man though it appears he holds the ability to alter time and could exists as a woman if he wanted to.
I think the title, "---All You Zombies---", is referring to the multiple versions of the main character. In a way, the multiple versions are just reanimated corpses because their knowledge of self is not synched up with the main character but are being controlled by him.
Andi
The Ouroboros represents the snake that eats its self, biting its own tail, it has no begining and no end. It is paradox in itself because there is really no way you can eat yourself. This serves as a symbol for the story, the character himself has no beginging and no end, he is his own mother and father, yet if he was never born how could he go back in time gave birth to himself? The Narrator wears the ring to ward off women. Since he is transgender and prefers men, he would rather not have to deal with women “hitting on him”. Wearing this ring they assume he is married and this saves him time and trouble.
The author’s attitude towards women seems almost negative. He constantly refers to them as inferior creatures that can not live life without causing trouble. When she is transformed into a man, she questions her ability to live as one, because she did not know how to trade, drive, or do manual labor. The common beliefs of the time that women could do nothing and that men were in essence better, “a normal man, making good money, no real trouble…” he/she states. I find it interesting that the author having such a negative connotation of women makes the main character prefer being a woman. He also states that vocabulary shifts as you travel “Just as luggage shifts as you travel”. So in every travel we can see his diction changes slightly.
The story is called “All You Zombies” because the main character sees everyone else in the world that has not experienced what he has as zombies. They are all only partially brained individuals who have a one track mind, as zombies do. Thy can not for the life of them think of the greater picture or understand what time is. This may also refer to his gender, everyone sees the world through either male or female eyes, yet he/she can see through both. Making the rest of humanity completely different then him/her and isolating him/her from their world of single minded Zombies.
Christopher
The Ouroboros is a visual metaphor for a cyclical time stream. A snake consuming its own tale will continue doing so forever. There’s something else about the consumption or destruction of ones self that can ultimately lead to growth or enlightenment. The snake eats itself, simultaneously destroying and sustaining. The main character, in his bartender form, wears the Ouroboros as a faux wedding band in order to dissuade female suitors since he prefers men. Heinlein seems to disrespect women in a way, relegating them to jobs specifically dealing with means comfort and pleasure. The story was written in the 50’s so there was an amount of chauvinism going on. However I think Heinlein enhanced this characteristic in order to create drama. The Wenches and Angels are all acronyms for prostitution apparently the only job untrained women could be fit for. When Jane becomes a man after the delivery he talks about how hard it will be for him to get a job now because he was a women for 17 years with no applicable skills. I think this was all written to give the character a broader understanding of the human condition. He’s walked in everyone’s shoes and now he’s just walking in circles. Living an infinitely predictable life full of zombies, the selves that don’t yet realize their place in the plan. He, like Daniel in “The Man Who Folded Himself’, the narrator, is the only real person. His mind, the one that maintains the one unbroken stream of consciousness of all this time traveling is the only “human” while his counterparts walk around like zombies waiting for their “time” to come.
Wonwoong
The Ouroboros represents a symbol of the Great Paradox and it means that the World Snake eats its own tail. That is to say, the shape of the emblem of ouroboros means cyclic time. Also, the reason why the narrator wears it is to keep women off because women may misunderstand he already married by showing his fake wedding ring. The author’s tone is negative because he uses the word of WHORES and WENCHES that mean women are handicapped by the physical aftereffects of childbirth. I think that the reason of why the title is All You Zombies is that people know just one side between men and women, and the author criticizes others severely.
Julia
The Ouroboros in this story represents infinity, and circuitous existence. It is ironic and yet highly appropriate that the narrator wears it, as he is his own mother and father. Time travel is the only reason he exists, and yet he has no origin because of it. His life is a bizarre circle, and thus represented in his ring. He has no beginning, and no end. Just like his ring. The authors tone towards women is somewhat demeaning and derogatory, but pitying and empathetic as well. Suitable jobs for women are as professional prostitutes for men in space or cheap domestic laborers. The author repeatedly makes reference to moral code with descriptions like “unmarried mother” and “ruined woman”. It is ironic that he hasn’t much respect for women, considering his character was one and still feels the loss of her/his indentity and child (and infant self). The story may be called “---All You Zombies---” because at the end, the narrator makes reference to other people, the outside world, or even the audience. It is as though he can see the ghostly spectators that we are, but is locked within his own endless, circular lifetime and dimension. He is lonely and misses the connection to life outside of his own paradoxical existence. He is seems to belong nowhere, as he is uncomfortably situated between genders and times.
Mike
The Ouroboros represents the paradox of the narrators life within the story. As we have read in the lecture notes, it represents a time cycle. As it relates to the story, the narrator wears the Ouroboros as deceptive 'wedding ring' in order detract woman from his presence and as to serve as an indicator to establish the main characters cyclic life story. He, once being a girl as an adolescent, does not take much interest in the female gender, hence the ring to scare them off. The Ouroboros is used to show how the narrators life is in constant cycle because he is constantly creating his own destiny as a means to prolong it while at the meantime the narrators other selves seem to be mindlessly carrying on their predictable lives in a closed timeline.
The author's tone towards woman is a negative one. He puts woman at the hands of lust and carnal desire at the expense of dignity. He emphasizes this negative view by showing how miserable the once woman is within the shoes of a man. He shows how depressed the once woman is within the context of the male life by submitting him to heavy drinking. Not to mention, all of the abbreviations and possible underworld-type organizations composed of 'old prostitutes' and the like. Although, as the story progresses and becomes richer the diction becomes less harsh because of the shifting perspective and all that relates. Now that Heinlein, sees his particular case he begins to think less rigidly in regards to gender and roles.
I think the story is called "All you Zombies" because it is referring to all of predestined selves the narrator creates within his projection of time. They are Zombies because to the narrator they are only living for fulfill self determined destinies.
Kelvin k
In the celestial symbolism of the circle, Ouroboros represents as the emblem of mortality. In traditional way, ouroboros called as the eternal and indivisible and cyclic time. I think people usually recommand the snake as meaning of mortality because it is one most dangerous creature. It contains the poison on eyetooth, which it slowly gives death toward any bited animal with pain. The author literally says that this ouroboros is the Greek language, which it means "devouring its tail." While looking at a image, It seems one person's universe and self-loving. The baby represent the new life and skull represents the death of that child and the snake represents the time that circling around this baby which this image perfectly examine the life cycle by using metaphor.
The Robert Heinlein seems hestating to say woman in a nice way. Since his theroy based life cycling, the women takes most great part for creating new life (baby) than man. Still he believes all the distraction and destruction of men cause by women behavior, which narrator seems to have negative point on women character.
Narrator called "All you Zombies" because his theory was about the life cycle. Every creature dies and left their new life form (baby), which he/she will take our knowledge to take next step toward future. The continuing term makes constant future that humanity can live on earth to have new babies. There is multiverse universe exist toward future by next generation. So this zombie means our life cycle because even with death, new life borns from our dying bodies.
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