Ted Chiang's 'Story Of Your Life'

The word apocalypse has a variety of definitions, some which refer to the Bible in the Book of Revelation, and others that are purely made up. Google would define the definition as “the complete destruction of the world.” The biblical reference is what many tend to go back and refer to. Although, there can be various types of apocalypses, many tend to disagree on where apocalypses are based on personal and/or social aspects. In the stories/articles, “Story of your life” and “Apocalypse”, there is good mixture of both types, but by observing the similarities and differences, both sides can make up an apocalypse. So what is categorized as personal and social, and how can we tell them apart? Well, it’s all going to depend on the type of reader.

She meets these Heptads and they ultimately change her life, some would say or the better and others for the worse. These robots let her know about the future and her future daughter which eventually dies. She faces this hardship of making the decision that will still affect her life, either direction she chooses to go. Ted Chiang has an interesting way of writing this story, with constantly going to the past, present and then the future, all out of order. This made the story really interesting and it made it flow even better. While working with the Heptads, she learns their language which leads her to revealing her future of her daughter. She goes on to go through the memories that she can have with her daughter from her being a child all the way to being an adult. This conflicting decision on whether or not to have her daughter leads to her having an apocalypse, her own personal one. It is a difficult choice to make, even going through the difficulty of learning the language of the Heptads was a challenge. The story can be seen through a social and personal apocalypse, but more on the apocalypse side for Louise. It can be social because if the robots had never shown up, there would of never been a story, there wouldn’t be a reason for Louise to be making a decision. By learning the language of the Heptad, Louise gains a new sense of perception on time and on the future. When Louise does learn the language, she learns that these aliens know of the future, leading to her finding out that her future daughter will die at the age of 25. Louise is faced with this difficult question, does she have this baby knowing she will only have 25 years of her, or not have her at all to save her from the pain of losing her daughter? All while learning about the memories of her daughter, it leaves her in a funk, leading to her having the personal apocalypse. The thought of her even having