Comparison of Zoline's Heat Death of the Universe and Calvino's Cosmicomics There is a fundamental dilemma that, presumably, every person faces as they She begins to develop an understanding of her existence and identity that is something like: "What am I?" Who am I? Where am I? These questions are almost identical because they each address the same essential metaphysical question of identity: “How and why am I; why I exist; what am I? What is the origin of my self? Where am I going? » The answers to these difficult questions, whether intellectually satisfying or not, come in the form of cosmologies. Cosmologies create systems with which we understand the existence of the phenomenal world and our own existence within it. They offer us a map, a concept of our existence, telling us why we are here, where we are and most often, where we are going. Of course, the most widespread cosmologies are directly linked to particular religions, because religions are based on the same questions: identity, origin, purpose, structure. However, this is not the area of ​​research I wish to pursue here. Rather, I am interested in how the genre of science fiction creates or recreates cosmologies with which we might understand the universe and the individual meaning within it. How does SF create linguistic models of the cosmos, and what are the foundations of these cosmologies? If cosmological representations are created so that we can understand reality, in some sense, how is this done and what questions do these cosmologies pose to their followers? I will examine two works in particular for this investigation, Italo Calvino's short story cycle, Cosmicomics, and Pamela Zoline's short story, "The Thermal Death of the Universe." I chose to focus my... middle of paper ......osmos can be infinitely vast and impressive, it is also as familiar as you are to yourself. Sources cited Aldridge, Alexandra. The scientific worldview in dystopia. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1984. Calvino, Italo. Cosmicomics. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968. Hume, Kathryn. "Science and imagination in Calvino's cosmicomics" Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature. Winnipeg: University. of Manitoba, (34:1) 2001. Lefanu, Sarah. In the interstices of the global machine. Feminism and science fiction. London: The Women's Press, 1988. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of science fiction: on the poetics and history of a literary genre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Zoline, Pamela. “The thermal death of the universe.” 1967. The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories. Kingston, New York: McPherson & Co.., 1988.