Biopolitics, Control, and Resistance in Vonnegut’s “2BR02B” and Jeong’s “The Flowering”

Abstract

Science fiction has increasingly moved beyond technological imagination to engage deeply with social structures, institutions, and cultural anxieties. Drawing on ideas from Gerlach and Hamilton on science fiction and Luckhurst’s concept of cultural history, this paper examines “2BR02B” and “The Flowering”. Both stories show how power can control human life, but in very different ways. Vonnegut’s “2BR02B” presents a society in which people must die so that others can live, showing how extreme systems can become when everything is controlled by logic. On the other hand, Jeong’s “The Flowering” depicts a world in which people are constantly watched and controlled through data, yet resistance remains possible in unexpected ways. This paper argues that both stories engage with biopolitics, in which human life is managed and controlled by systems. At the same time, they also show different responses to such control, one leading to tragedy and the other opening a small door for hope. In a way, these stories do not feel completely fictional, which makes them more powerful and uncomfortable to read.