Written in the 1950s, a time period of
uncertainty and fear, of the over-arching shadow of atomic bombs, The Future is Now presents a new
perspective of viewing destiny and another reason to be progressive. Though
initially aimed at mainly mature college readers as the essay was first
published in Mademoiselle, a young
adult magazine, the essay gradually diffused throughout the American public
over time.
As it
was primarily written to encourage the doubtful people of their brighter future
ahead, the article itself is an intricate philosophical reflection detailing
the narrator’s puzzlement about the inescapable depression of the atomic age
and his final regain of faith in human progress. Porter knew the silent
suffering of not knowing what the next second will become as she admitted her
puzzlement over “why waster energy on a table that was to be used merely for
crawling under at some unspecified date” (Oates 194). However, she also wants
the people to know that life is far from over, that “when people want something
better, they may have it” (Oates 198).
Yet,
what made Porter’s essay successful was more than her message; it was the way
she conveyed the message. Porter as an author had already won several writing
awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, before she wrote this essay. The fame of
her being a renown writer already adds sincerity and trustworthiness to her
insight. In addition, Porter convinces her readers that she know their silent
suffering of uncertainty. She knew the horror living under the atomic age, that
“real safety seems to lie simply in being somewhere else at the time, the
farther away the better” (Oates 193). Yet, all uncertainty , both her’s and the
reader’s, was washed away when she offered a simple anecdote, a men cleaning
his table and her realization that “he is doing something he feel is worth
doing” (Oates 195). The action itself is trivial, but the power of the men to
focus on the present and trust in that the future will be rewarding to the
actions taken in the present, that the table will not be used simply as a
shelter for bombs but as a faithful company to the men, is insightful.
Trivial actions are being performed all
the time, and in these actions, Porter argues, hold the key to the future.
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