One could attempt to simplify the epic know as Dune as the story of a boy’s ascension to manhood. This would be an insult to the immense and comprehensive universe that Frank Herbert has created for readers that spans out over close to eight hundred pages. There is an untold amount of depth and background history weaved into this novel. To attempt to condense this information into a paragraph or even two would be extremely difficult, but here are some basic details, so the following issues can be better understood in context. The story is set in a future world where space travel is common and controlled by a single ‘Spacing Guild’ and the population is spread out through many planets in the universe, who all answer to a supreme Emperor. The main character in the novel is Paul Atreides, the son of a duke. His mother Jessica is part of a secretive religious and political society called the Bene Gesserit who seek to control the outcome of the future universe through genetic selection. Most of the book takes place on the harsh desert planet of Arrakis, covered by sweeping sand dunes much like the ones we visited. There Paul is forced into manhood after the murder and overthrow of his father. He flees into the thought-to-be uninhabited deep desert to avoid being killed by his family’s sworn enemies, the Harkonnens. He is taken in by the original people of Arrakis, referred to as Fremen, and assimilates to their ways. During his journey he finds out he is the prophesized savior of their people and along his rise to power Paul discovers he possesses ‘the sight’ or the ability to see into the distant future. There are many more aspects and interweaved side stories that take place in this immense work, but these are the basic facts.

          Deeper analysis of the novel brings to light the following question: is Herbert attempting to comment on, or even predict, future issues in our on world through a sci-fi alternate? There are obvious similarities between our world and the distant future of Dune. Firstly, water scarcity is a dispute shared by the novel and life here on Earth. A huge theme throughout the book is the complex influence of politics and religion, which humans are quite familiar with in today’s world. A third parallel is the importance the environment plays on habitability of a planet, which can even relate to our current issues of global warming.

          It is common knowledge that water is necessary for life on Earth to survive, but the importance placed on water on the planet of Arrakis is tenfold. Is this intentional? Water is so essential that when someone dies, his or her body is processed to reclaim all possible water. This necessity is made clear early in the desert when a Fremen says the following: “Why did you not say at first it was a water matter?” (344). During this scene of one the men trying to protect Paul is attempting describe to a Fremen the urgency of the situation, but the Fremen does not understand until he describes it in terms of water.  In many places on Earth water or at least potable water, is also of great importance due to scarcity. Countries throughout Africa and other impoverished nations struggle to supply enough drinkable water, but in America water is relatively accessible. It certainly seems that Herbert’s focus on water was intentional and was meant to reinforce how indispensable and, possibly, taken for granted the liquid is in our day-to-day lives.

            There is a clear relation on the issue of habitability, due to the environment, on Earth and the desert planet of Arrakis, but did Herbert intend to predict planetary problems? The role the environment plays on Arrakis is a key point in the novel because the Fremen’s goal is to eventually turn the planet into a less hostile and more livable world through terraforming. This is a noble goal because it will create a world where future generations do not need to fight the desert to stay alive on a daily basis due to deadly conditions and giant sand worms. While people on Earth do not need to worry about being eaten by giant sand worms at any moment, the environment has become an increasingly heated issue. Scientists are pointing out the ramifications of CO₂ emissions. Current models suggest that there will be no serious effect on the current generation, but that global warming could be detrimental for generations to come if a solution is not reached. On the other hand some believe that global warming is a natural cycle and will correct itself. Whether Frank Herbert was predicting environmental issues or not is not clear. He was without a doubt presenting the idea of environmental problems to the reader, and doing so in a way that leads him or her to consider the impact humans can have their living world.

          The complex relationship between politics and religion in Dune is akin to the way the two interact in our world. Paul becomes the religious and spiritual chief of the Fremen people, but also their political leader. While it is commonly accepted that politics and religion are supposed to be separate in America due to the First Amendment, they are certainly entangled in Paul’s world. As Paul has a moment of clarity after escaping into the desert, “‘We’ll find a home among the Fremen,’ Paul said, ‘where your Missionaria Protectiva has brought us a bolt hole’” (319). Here Paul is referring to the prophecy the secretive Bene Gesserit have laced the universe with that predicts him as the savior of the Fremen people. This is the main reason the Fremen are even willing to consider taking him in, along with his mother. Without this religious influence Paul and Jessica would likely have been left to die in the desert, if not killed by the first Fremen they came across. In many other parts of the world, Iran for example, politics and religion are not separate and a political leader may also be a religious leader. Even though the two are said to be detached in America, many times religious preferences affect political decisions. By creating in-depth systems of politics and religion in the book, Frank Herbert is able to explore the issues of attempting to isolated religion and politics as well as their influence on each other. This creates a feeling the reader can relate to because of parallels here on Earth.

          Frank Herbert’s Dune has many key issues that have similarities with ones here on Earth, which begs the question of whether or not he was attempting to comment on future problems he foresaw in our own world. Or maybe he wanted to just create a more complete universe where the reader felt at home. This is sure to be a topic of debate and only one that Herbert himself could indefinitely answer, but unfortunately he passed way almost thirty years ago. Therefore, it is left for the reader to interpret. In the end, the reason why he chose to include so many relatable aspects in the universe of Dune and our world is not necessary. What is though, is the fact that these similarities exist is. By including aspects of life humans can relate to, such as politics, religion, and environmental problems, he creates a comprehensive and more believable realm for the masterpiece known as Dune to unfold in. Regardless of the time difference of when the book was written and the current day, Dune still has the power to make readers think critically about issues in their own lives. If he was, in fact, commenting on issues in our own lives, a topic of further research to consider would be: are issues in our lives easier to view from an outside perspective?

Works Cited

Herbert, Frank. Dune. New York: Ace, 1990. Print.

The Unknown: A Love Affair With Humanity

Romance is what drives science. Sterile precision is what allows us to trust it. We often mistake science for being cold hearted when really, it is a religious experience. Both religion and science attack the unknown. Both love the unknown. Though religion loves out of fear, science loves out of the romance and curiosity that drives the field.  Contact, by Carl Sagan, reveals the religious experience felt by those who do not fear the unknown but, instead, love it.

Eleanor Arroway is a radio astronomer at a SETI institution located in the deserts of New Mexico.  Her childhood was spent wondering about the stars and about everything, in general. “Why?” was a question that dominated her spoken verse. Typical intelligent human being: always curious and always daydreaming. She spent her days listening to the static of the cosmic microwave background, even though her ears were not nearly as attune to discovery as the computers. She was the one who invented the technology to be able to pick up such signals from the vastness of space. However, for six years, she heard nothing but the background static of the cosmos, and the occasional interference of secret government operations.

Scientists were skeptical of the mission of the observatory, and even her old mentor, a bigger supporter of SETI than she, thought it was time to focus the telescopes elsewhere. Coincidently, a few days later, the radio telescopes picked up a message of a sequence of prime numbers, coming from the star Vega. Scientists at the observatory, fueled by the thrill of the find, worked endlessly to decode it. It turned out to be a video of Hitler giving a speech at the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games. It was one of the earliest television broadcasts. It was a way of saying “We have heard you. We know you are there.” They then found more encrypted data on a different frequency.

This code appeared to be a plan for a machine: a very precise plan. With the help of scientists, worldwide, the machine plans were decoded and after three attempts, the device was finally constructed. The politicians were scared of international collaboration yet excited about the technology and its implications in weapon development. The theologists interpreted the signal either as a message from God or the Devil, and some even prophecised it to be the initiation of the Advent. Others speculated the device to be a bomb, set to blow up the Earth when activated. Despite the differences of interest, it brought the world together as one, creating a sense of pride in humanity.

Once the machine was built, five were chosen to go, Eleanor being one of them. When the machine activated, they hurtled through space, faster than the speed of light, using black holes as transport stations. After what seemed like an hour or two of travel, they arrived at what appeared to be the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Upon docking their space ship, they saw hundreds of other docs of varying sizes, suggesting hundreds of other intelligent species. When the ship docked and the doors opened, they were surprised to find themselves on a beach. They awoke the next morning to a doorway in the sand. All but Eleanor stepped through. Despite her skepticism, she still experienced what everybody else had; they each were met by an alien, disguised as the person most dear to them, who explained to them a few things about the universe. Eleanor met with her departed father, who explained that the ones who sent the message were not the creators of the universe, merely its care takers, and that they, too, were searching for a message within the language of the universe: mathematics.

The five return to Earth, humbled and enlightened. They walk out of the Machine, expecting the world to be astonished. Contrary to what they experienced, the Machine appeared simply to activate for 20 minutes then stopped, and the five came out. It appeared a complete failure to the world. Not many believed the five’s accounts of what happened. Though someone unexpected had complete faith in Eleanor; it was Palmer Joss, a surprisingly open-minded man of faith. The story concludes with Eleanor’s understanding of Joss, having experienced the skepticism he has endured all his life, and her discovering a message within pi: a simple circle. “The universe was made on purpose, the circle said (Sagan 430)”.

Contact is so deep with underlying themes and meanings that it is impossible to analyze it all without writing a novel. The theme that was most striking was the relationship between religion and science. Not only does Sagan break down the misnomers about scientists, but he also makes us take another look at religion. Like any good scientist, we cannot prove something nor disprove it without evidence. Scientists and theologists need to understand each other, because we are all searching for the same thing, and as Sagan suggests, we may be facing the same struggles. After trying to explain the message to the book’s main theologists, Ealeanor is left frustrated, saying, “…but he’s corrupting millions.” Her confider responds, …”he thinks the same about you (167).”

Scientists are often misunderstood to be cold and sterile. White lab coats, calculators for minds and an absolute disbelief in anything that has not been tested and peer reviewed. They have no emotions, only calculations for thoughts. This is the portrayal of a scientist. Even in the book, Eleanor hardly visits her sickly mother. Her Russian colleague is renowned for never having been in love. Eleanor favors the sound of static to that of a human voice. No wonder scientists are seen as heartless. However, this is not the case. Far from it, actually. At one point in the book, Eleanor claims to be agnostic. She says, “I am a Christain in the sense that I find Jesus Christ to be an admirable historical figure…But I think Jesus was only a man (Sagan167 – 168).” Scientists do not disagree with most Christian values, they are simply skeptical of certain “historical” aspects of religion. Sagan suggests that a scientist’s drive actually comes from the desire to find something within herself. When the scientists meet with their most loved ones on the alien world, this is them facing the most vulnerable parts of themselves. Science is a journey of self fulfillment, answering the questions our mind conjures, without excepting “it just is” as our answer to every “why?” Though since most people do not see it this way, they shy away from science.

The most common alternative place to seek answers is religion. Here, the question of “Why?” is answered with “it just is” in a most clever disguise: relatable stories, great powers of beings we cannot comprehen, etc. Religion basically says that there is nothing wrong with not being able to understand an idea. That is a beautiful thought, logical even; how can we possibly understand the working of a being unlike us? Religion is so welcoming that no matter who it may be, they can convert and all will be forgiven. There is always somebody to talk to, even when there are no other humans for miles. There is something keeping check of all actions, motivating our morals to stay straight. All the luxuries of a sound mind for the small price of believing without question. Forget the answers, religion says, those will come when you’ve reached heaven (when the question is no longer on your mind). Ellie expresses her outrage at this idea when she says, “Anything you don’t understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intellugence. You simply turn your mind off amd say God did it. (Sagan 166).” So religion proposes that we should not bother to understand the idea. We only need to understand that it exists. Rankin, a man of religion in the novel, admits this truth when criticizing scientists: “Y’see, scientists are too skeptical. You question everything… You never heard about ‘leave well enough alone’ or ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ (Sagan 160).” This is a major problem. This method never really addresses our initial question.

We all want to comprehend the world around us. After all, curiosity for human beings is inherent. There is a great unknown that we just do not understand. We all claim to love it, this great unknown. Sagan demonstrates the awe of humanity when he writes, “For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and inspiration… Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy (16).” The theologists call it God. They fear it and therefore do not question it. They accept it and claim to love it. Though they only love it as one would a king: out of fear. Scientists also love the unknown. We call it discovery. Everything we do not know, everything we cannot comprehend, pushes us in all the right ways. The unknown pushes us to get to know it. We do not back away from the springboard but take the leap of faith, with the hallmarks of science as our safety net. We love the idea that we absolutely do not know what we will find. It is like diving into a treasure chest, time and time again. We love the unknown because it gives us surprises and only by questioning it can we truly get to know it and grow to love the opportunity it presents. The truth is, science makes us feel closer to “god” than any religion would ever allow.

We can now understand that science is not at all driven by a cold shoulder but rather a romance. In fact, our most romantic views about how the world works have yielded some of the most profound and prominent scientific discoveries. The protagonist in Contact dreams of what life would be like on Venus, from a young age. These are the reflected dreams of the author, himself. His curiosity lead him to study Venus in detail, especially its atmosphere, determining the habitability of the planet (Morrison). Imagination is allowed to roam free and then is put to the test. This is the process of some of the best scientific discovery. Therefore, we should not judge the scientists that pursue those dreams: scientists such as Eleanor and the real SETI scientists and astrobiologists, worldwide. Without these dream chasers, we may miss out on the discoveries they stumble upon, along the way.

It is important to remember that religion is not inherently the enemy of science. It was a way to understand the world before our knowledge evolved. It started as the very romantic musings that start most quests for knowledge, though it was never put to the test. It was stubbornly accepted as fact, without adapting and evolving with the knowledge we have gained as civilization evolved, itself. We all love the unknown and we are all born with the wanting to get to know it, get closer to it and discover it. Though to truly love it, the unknown must not be feared. We must get to know it. Each scientific discovery made brings us closer, deepens our love of it and truly lets us feel a most religious experience, in the sense that we are getting closer to a mighty force, the vast cosmos themselves. They are not so scary once one gets the chance to know them. We are all scientists, born with questions in our minds. We are all capable of getting closer to “god.” All we need to do is abandon the notion that if we ask we will receive, and accept the notion that we should always ask and then seek. Only by seeking the answers to our questions can we feel the love that Sagan speaks of when he ends his book with this famous quote, “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love (430).” For when we look to the cosmos for answers, we are truly looking within ourselves.

An Essay by:

Anastassia Doktorova

25 September 2013

Bibliography

Morrison, David. “Carl Sagan’s Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and Skeptic.” –

            CSI. N.p., Jan. 2007. Web. 19 Sept. 2013.

Sagan, Carl. Contact: A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Print.

War of the Worlds

     Written in 1898 by H.G. Wells, the novel War of the Worlds is one of the most critically acclaimed science fiction novels of all time. It takes place in Britain in the 1890’s, and reflects many issues of the culture. Since it was written it has been adapted into several movies, including the 2005 Block Buster hit directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise. This novel reflects many themes about science and technology, however, the most important and prevalent of these themes is the argument between science and religion, a debate that is still relevant today. In this novel, H.G. Wells certainly backs the science side of this debate.

In the novel, H.G. Wells describes a world under siege from Martians. The book begins by describing Mars as an older planet, which has begun the process of cooling down. This drop in temperature freezes the oceans and makes the planet completely uninhabitable. As a result, the Martians are forced to find a new planet to live on. With Earth being the closest inhabitable planet, the choice is easy. The Martians load themselves into huge canisters and lift off for Earth. On Earth, the British astronomer Ogilvy has been studying the planet Mars. When he sees something resembling a shooting star come off the planet he is naturally very curious, and so he sets off to find the “meteorite”. Bringing a large crowd with him, he finds the crater created by the canister. While jostling for position at the edge of the crater, a shopkeeper loses his balance and falls in, bumping up against the canister, which opens, revealing the Martians. The Martians appear much like octopi, with heads and many tentacles, but no bodies. Then, without warning, a huge mechanical tripod rises out of the crater, firing a “Heat Ray” which instantly vaporizes forty on lookers. The unnamed narrator of the story, who has been watching all of this unfold, flees the scene, running home to his wife, where he manages to convince himself that the Martians are not a real threat. Later that night, an artilleryman appears outside the narrator’s house. He tells of how his entire artillery unit had been killed by the Martians. The narrator and the artilleryman decide to flee the town together, although they separate soon after fleeing. The narrator then meets the curate, a distraught clergyman who’s church has recently been destroyed. He is so emotionally disturbed that he can hardly control himself, and often has outbursts, in which he claims to be a guilty sinner.

At this point the book shifts from the story of the narrator to the narrator’s brother, who is living in London. When the Martians make their way to London, a large portion of the population decides to flee, including the narrator’s brother. This results in a panicked mass exodus of the city, with people moving as a crowd away from the city. One man is carrying a large bag of coins, which breaks open, spilling his money all over the ground. As the man bends down to pick up his coins, he is nearly trampled, and the narrator’s brother is forced to pull him out of the crowd to save his life.

Meanwhile, the narrator find himself, along with the curate, in an abandoned house on the edge of one of the craters created by the canisters. The narrator and the curate try desperately to avoid being discovered, however, the hysterical curate is unable to control his emotions, and begins to yell and scream. The narrator knocks him unconscious with the butt end of a meat clever, but it is too late. A robotic arm snakes into the house and drags the curate’s body out. The narrator manages to hide himself in the basement, where he remains for five days. When he does emerge, he decides to travel to London. When he finally reaches the city, he finds a pile of dead Martians, who had succumb to Earthly bacteria, which humans had been immune to for thousands of years. The narrator returns home and life begins to go back to normal.

One of the most important example of the debate between religion and science is the juxtaposition that H.G. Wells presents between St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and Crystal Palace, the site of the first World Fair. The narrator passes both these sites on his way to London, and finds them in very different states. When he passes by St. Paul’s Cathedral, he finds it completely razed, with only a pile of rubble remaining. The Crystal Palace, however, appears completely untouched and as immaculate as ever. The comparison between these two sites serves as a symbol for the state of religion, as opposed to that of science. The cathedral, for obvious reasons, represents religion in shambles, whereas the Crystal Palace, home of the first World Fair, which was essentially a exhibition of the greatest technological advances from every country on the earth at the time, represents science as perfect and untouchable.

The second example of the debate between religion and science that H.G. Wells illustrates in the novel is the comparison between the curate and the artilleryman. The curate, as a clergyman, represents the religious side of the debate, and the artilleryman, with his military mind for sound logic and reasoning, represents the scientific side. As we se throughout the book, the curate is good for little more than losing control of his emotions and crying out in guilt that he has sinned, a habit that eventually brings about his untimely end. Through the curate, H.G. Wells represents religion as a useless philosophy with no practical purpose.

The artilleryman, however, shows a very logical mind. When he and the narrator set out to flee the town in which the original canister landed, he insists they bring provisions and have an immediate plan. Without this thinking, the narrator would not have made it out of the town. The artilleryman represents the scientific mind as practical and malleable, allowing the artilleryman to survive the Martian attack.

However, later in the story, H.G. Wells throws a monkey wrench into this perfect comparison between the curate and the artilleryman. On the narrator’s trip to London, he bumps into the artilleryman, having separated from him after leaving town. The narrator finds the artilleryman to be much different from when he first met him. He drinks excessively, spends his days playing card games and making extremely grand and elaborate plans for the future, although never making any effort to execute them. This twist in the artilleryman’s character shows a different side of the scientific mind. H.G. Wells uses the artilleryman to show that, while religion is inherently flawed, and science serves as a better method to answer our questions about the world, perhaps science is not as perfect as we think.

These two comparisons between science and religion show us the perspective of H.G. Wells on this great debate. He clearly stands behind the scientific method, and shows no support for religion, asserting that religion is baseless and emotional, using guilt to control its followers, while science can thrive in any environment simply because it is based on facts and logical thinking. However, he does imply, through the metamorphosis of the artilleryman, that science is not perfect, and cannot leads to all the answers we seek. While the debate between religion and science will likely never be resolved, H.G. Wells does provide us with an interesting point of view on the subject.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel, The Sirens of Titan, he stresses the importance of perceiving purpose in one’s life while criticizing humanity for expecting a singular definitive answer to the meaning of life. Amidst this idea, lies Vonnegut’s comment on humanity’s conformity and lack of freewill, despite the inherent tendency to believe in and treasure the idea of their freewill. Almost every character in the novel is somehow searching for meaning in life, or the universe. While the novel answers the meaning of human life in the universe of the story, it focuses on the idea that there is no inherent or intrinsic purpose to life, merely an individual search to satisfy oneself. While the plot depicts an outside force’s tight influence over all of human history, the normality of perceiving one’s own freewill is also emphasized.

The Sirens of Titan tells the story of a very wealthy and very lucky young man, named Constant, who is manipulated into enlisting in the Martian Army by a man named Rumfoord. Rumfoord is an aristocrat who accidentally flew his private spaceship, with his dog, through a location in space known as a chrono-synclastic infundibulum. Ever since that happened, the two of them have been able to see the future/past, read minds, and materialize/dematerialize in different spots around the universe on a regular schedule.  Both Constant and Beatrice, Rumfoord’s wife, are cleverly manipulated into conceiving a child (Chrono) and traveling to Mars where their minds are erased and they are separated. After the Martians invade Earth, they are slaughtered as a result of unpreparedness for modern human weaponry. This was part of Rumfoord’s plan; he uses the guilt of the humans as a weakness making them vulnerable to manipulation. This is when he reveals his new religion, teaching that God is indifferent to human existence and plays no part in luck. Constant, stuck on Mercury with his partner Boaz, finds a way to escape by spaceship about three years later. When he leaves for Earth, he arrives in the yard of one of Rumfoord’s new churches and is made a fool of with Beatrice and Chrono, whose identities are revealed. The three of them are exiled to Titan (a moon of Saturn) by means of one-way spaceship. When they arrive it is revealed to them that Rumfoord himself was also being manipulated by the inhabitants of a planet called Tralfamadore. The only other inhabitant of Titan is Salo, a Tralfamadorian robot. Salo crash landed on Titan trying to get as far as he could with a message to deliver to a distant population. Tralfamadorians have the ability to cast the control through the universe at three times the speed of light. This is the skill they used to get a replacement piece for Salo’s ship over to him on Titan. It becomes clear that the entire history of human life on Earth has been manipulated and controlled by Tralfamadorians. The culmination of such influence appears to simply be the small metal lucky charm that Chrono has possessed since finding it when he grew up on Mars. Rumfoord disappears for good due to solar flaring, and Salo disassembles himself in sorrow, as the two had become very close friends.

The characters Constant, Boaz, and Beatrice each demonstrate their own transformation during the novel and find a purpose to their own lives. Toward the end of his life, after the passing of Beatrice, Constant finds peace with the control exerted over his life by deciding that “a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved” (320). This realization is the resolution to Constant’s character arc, leaving him a transformed man with complex morality and self-understanding that could not have been capable of at the beginning. After Boaz and Constant fight over Constant’s destruction of the remote that allowed Boaz to control him, Boaz reaches the climax of his own character arc. It is a momentous moment for Boaz who has demonstrated twisted pleasure in controlling others for quite some time. “Not to be lonely, not to be scared—Boaz had decided that those were the important things in life” (185). From this time on, Boaz exemplifies humbled morals and becomes a friend of Constant’s. When Constant finds out how to escape Mercury, Boaz remains behind because he has found valuable meaning in his life simply by taking care of the animals that live in the caves and feed off of vibrations. While discussing her book with Constant, Beatrice comes to the self-satisfying conclusion that “the worst thing that could happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody” (317). This shows the idea that allows Beatrice to come to terms with the fact that none of her life has been in her control. This is echoed later when Beatrice thanks Constant for using her, shortly before her death. Each of these three characters found a purpose to their life, and as a result found satisfaction and peace.

The novel sends a clear message criticizing human civilization for concerning itself with discovering a simple and perfect solution to the meaning of all life. Vonnegut uses the legend of how the first Tralfamadorian was created as an allegory of his predictions for humanity. Salo relays the legend, explaining how the original Tralfamadorian creatures ended up becoming overrun by the machines they created. He says that the “poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others” (279). This obsession with finding a purpose is common within society and exemplified by many in the book. Despite the fact that the Tralfamadorian machines have coexisted in a stable and seemingly permanent government for hundreds of millions of years, the descent of the original inhabitants to being slaughtered by their creations is surely an intended warning message. These same concerns are later referred to in the description of one of the sculptures Salo carved to pass his time on Titan while watching Earth through his spaceship monitor. The statue is described as appearing “above the beastly concerns of mankind.” (294). Vonnegut also insults human mentality through the narrator’s description of Salo’s interest in humans, stating that “Earthlings behaved at all times as though there were a big eye in the sky,” and that “the big eye was the only audience that Earthlings really cared about” (281). This notion of constantly trying to appease some higher being is a common human trait. The expectation to find simple answers to complex questions, as well as the instinct to appeal to a greater being, are denounced by Vonnegut as he deems them counterproductive and pathetic.

Vonnegut also uses the novel to suggest that humanity lacks freewill, and therefore luck and responsibility. In the story, Rumfoord explains to Constant, Beatrice, and Chrono that “everything that every Earthling has ever done has been warped,” it was planned and influenced for a specific purpose by another planet running on a much longer timescale than Earthlings (302). As a result, these characters struggle with the fact that they haven’t had true freewill their entire life. Not only that, but they also struggle with the fact that the entire Earth has been completely manipulated for the past 200 thousand years with the relatively trivial purpose of helping an alien machine deliver a message somewhere past our solar system, a message they later find out to be ‘Greetings’. The intention of this plot line is not literal, of course, but a comment on humanity. Vonnegut uses alien mind control as a metaphor for the systematic influence of human society, essentially having one’s path in life predetermined by the culture in which they are raised. The final words of the book (excluding the epilogue) come after Salo disassembles himself in sorrow. Chrono decides to leave his lucky charm (Salo’s replacement piece) in the pieces of Salo, because “the magical forces of the universe would put everything back together again. They always did” (307). This implies an inherent natural state or resolution that is destined to occur. While predestination is a recurring motif throughout the novel, the desperate human necessity to defend and value one’s freewill is also clearly depicted. Rumfoord demonstrates this point when he explains, “I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons” (290). It is natural for humans to believe in their own unlimited choice, but the impact that social and cultural pressures play on humans inhibits our freewill.

Kurt Vonnegut answers the question of the meaning of life with The Sirens of Titan, proclaiming that it is merely a perception of purpose that is achieved on a personal and individual level. Not only this, but he reprimands society for their expectations. Additionally, he parallels conformity in humanity to predestination. A further question would be why Vonnegut chose to communicate the points that he did given the context of his life.

Bibliography:

Vonnegut, Kurt. The Sirens of Titan. New York: Delacorte Press, 1959. Print.

Jack Benham

Physics 120: Life in the Universe

Professor Mariana Lazarova

September 25, 2013

A Modern Family

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, holds true to the Jesuit idea that people find God and love through work. In this novel, a vibrant collection of six people finds family and home in the collaboration of their labors both similar and different. Not one person of the group was raised in the stereotypical orthodox tradition, meaning the usual family composed of a mother and a father and less than about ten children. Yet they form their own modern family. A family with the same dynamics of love, rivalry and confusion any other family experiences. This amalgamation of different men and women create a portrait for the modern family and prove that any stagnant view the vital social structure, we call family, is simply wrong. They prove that the components of family are irrelevant as long as the loving relationships, dynamics and forces that foster the inexplicable love, rivalries, and loyalty shared between kin are preserved.

Rivalry is not a prevalent dynamic among the six members of this most unusual family because of their generally destitute childhoods and lack of family. Their lives before they converge on the La Perla Slum of San Juan, Puerto Rico, are proof enough for them that they should not take this love for granted.

Father Emilio Sanchez, Anne and George Edwards, Sofia Mendes, Father DW Yarbrough and Jimmy Quinn have nothing in common besides the fact that they grew up in or are now currently living in unorthodox lives with regards to family. Emilio grew up in La Perla, which, as  mentioned above, is a slum of San Juan. His family was deeply rooted in the heroin smuggling business. He spends his childhood on the streets, fighting, drinking, and playing baseball. Street fighting leads him to boxing, which leads him to the United States, where he meets Father DW Yarbrough. With the guidance of the Father Superior of the district of New Orleans, Emilio joins decides to become a Jesuit priest. Emilio is brilliant, especially as a linguist. He picks up language quickly and masters it within weeks or months of first hearing it. This linguistic acuity makes him a valuable missionary resource and the Jesuits send him all over the world to work with different cultures.

The man who inspired Emilio to choose a path of piety, DW, is quite an anomaly. He jokingly believes he is not “the work of a serious deity” because “the Good Lord [made him] a Catholic, a liberal, ugly and gay and a fair poet and then had him born in Waco, Texas.”

Sofia Mendes is born in Istanbul, Turkey, to Jewish parents whose ancestors were exiled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. She carries their fortitude and stubbornness with her to survive. Also she is incredibly emotionally unavailable, she is “all business”. This seriousness stems from her horrific childhood. Both her parents died in a war when she was young, so she whored her young body out to older men. In her late teenage years one of her clients, a man named Jaubert, offers to buy her into indentured servitude. Disgusting by today’s ethics, in the fictional world of The Sparrow this is an opportunity for Sofia to leave her life of prostitution, become educated at the highest level and live a somewhat normal life..

Sofia proves incredibly sharp and driven. Consequently, like Emilio, she is also a keen linguist but possesses the flexibility to learn and master any work quickly. Her broker, Jaubert, assigns her to a job in Cleveland. This job entails studying Father Emilio Sandoz’s method for learning languages.

In Cleveland, Emilio teaches a latin class at a local university. One of his favorite students is an older middle aged women named Anne Edwards who decided to return to school to better understand all the latin terminology that baffled her during her career as a nurse. Emilio begins having dinner with Anne and George, her husband, who is a retired technician. The couple never had kids. Anne’s outgoing hospitality and incredible ability to sympathize with everyone and George’s natural paternal gentleness and sternness make it seem odd they never tried.

Finally, there is Jimmy Quinn. Born in Boston to Irish parents who emigrated from Dublin due to civil unrest, Jimmy is enormously tall and lanky. His parents divorced when he was a teenager but they made sure he completed his education and he graduated college with a degree in astronomy. Jimmy decides to enter the ultra competitive field of astronomy, a market in which artificial intelligence drastically decreased the need for human resources. Yet, he maintains a job at the Arecibo Radio Telescope in the mountains of Puerto Rico. On this small island of the southern tip of Florida that provides the setting for the formation of this amazing modern family.

Each member is drawn to Puerto Rico through their work or desire to work. Emilio has been assigned to work at a mission in La Perla, and he convinces Anne and George to move down there to spice up their retirement. Anne takes over a medical clinic in La Perla, while George works as a volunteer technician at Arecibo. Sofia Mendes takes another assignment:  studying the benefits of investing in more artificial intelligence at Arecibo. DW ends up in San Juan to head the exploratory mission to Rakhat after Jimmy discovers their alien radio signals.

Anne, being the eldest women of the group, assumes the mother figure. It comes naturally to her because of her aptness at making people feel comfortable around her and in her home. People trust her, therefore they open up to her about their deepest conflicts and insecurities. For example DW is tells her that he is gay. He has never entrusted anyone in his entire life with such information but finds comfort in disclosing it to Anne. Anne creates an accepting dynamic that holds the group together. DW takes on a fatherly role. His stern and sage demeanor provides security for the entire group complimenting Anne’s friendliness. Together they lead the group emotionally and spiritually through the expedition. A gay priest and a mother without kids acting as parents is not traditional. The components of a certain position can change as long as they provide the same dynamic of guidance and understanding that all good parents do.

George and Jimmy play the roles of the technically minded children who are slightly aloof with regards to emotional matters. Russell uses them as compliments to Anne and DW who are more emotionally adept. George thrives during the planning of the expedition and when he is operating the asteroid. In emotional times he fades and Russell shifts attention from him to the sympathetic and spiritual Anne or Emilio or DW.   The only friction in the family arises from Jimmy’s enchantment with Sofia and her disinterest with him in return. Jimmy is hopelessly in love with Sofia. Having a crush on a fellow family member is taboo in our culture and in nature, Jimmy’s obsession with sofia is natural because they are not related. Despite the lack of relation any physical intimacy between these family members, beyond the intimacy between Anne and George, would be unnatural and detrimental to the preservation of their companionship. To the emotionally attune, Sofia fosters a hidden love for Emilio. In return, Emilio possesses similar intimacies for Sofia. His priesthood its consequence of celibacy prohibit any physically intimate relationship with others. Inter family relationship dynamics are rare and taboo in our culture but are natural and expected in this modern family because of their hereditary distinctness. Anne’s grace and understanding help Jimmy understand that his predicament does not imply imminent emotional doom. In preserving Jimmy’s emotional sanity, she preserves professionalism that is crucial for the expedition’s and the family’s success.

Sofia, is incredibly emotionally unavailable  maintaining a certain mysteriousness and disconnectedness from the rest of the group. As she spends more time with them, she becomes enthralled in their love and loyalty and slowly allows herself to fully commit to her new family. Sofia even develops hidden feelings for Emilio that ironically she must quash to preserve his vow of abstinence and the family. This is another example of a cultural taboo that manifests itself in this family but because of their unique situation it is natural. Sofia, along with Jimmy and George, fills the role of a brilliant child who is guided emotionally by Anne and intellectually by Emilio.

Emilio transcends any stereotypical familial role; instead he incorporates all roles into his interactions with the others. He is a spiritual man, a hard worker, a friend to all, but respected and revered by each of them because of his mystical nature. Even though he is not the assigned leader of the expedition, Emilio is the spiritual and linguistic leader of the family. His incredible abilities with language make him the main connection between the family and the Runa. Emilio assumes an all encompassing role in the family. He is stern and compassionate. He is technical and creative. He is a sage and a child. He is submissive and assertive. He possesses an ethereal compassion for all beings and a sublime devotion to God, which makes his peers suggest he is a saint.

A gay priest, another who grew up in the worst slums of Puerto Rico, a couple without children, an indentured servant and a child of divorced parents would have never been accepted in society fifty years ago, maybe not even now. This portrait of a modern family provides hope that in the future all types of families will be accepted and prosper as long as they provide a loving and loyal sanctuary for the members to thrive in.

Jack Benham

Physics 120: Life in the Universe

Professor Mariana Lazarova 

September 25, 2013

A Modern Family

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, holds true to the Jesuit idea that people find God and love through work. In this novel, a vibrant collection of six people finds family and home in the collaboration of their labors both similar and different. Not one person of the group was raised in the stereotypical orthodox tradition, meaning the usual family composed of a mother and a father and less than about ten children. Yet they form their own modern family. A family with the same dynamics of love, rivalry and confusion any other family experiences. This amalgamation of different men and women create a portrait for the modern family and prove that any stagnant view the vital social structure, we call family, is simply wrong. They prove that the components of family are irrelevant as long as the loving relationships, dynamics and forces that foster the inexplicable love, rivalries, and loyalty shared between kin are preserved.

Familial rivalry courses through our history. In Feudal Europe the children of both royal and serf families engaged in intense battles physical and political to prosper. Sons of royal families often battled each other a chance to succeed their father’s crown. These battles spilled out from the court in the form of duels and assassinations that sometimes involved killing the father for a chance to become king. Children of serf families battled for survival, hoping to just grow up and maybe even become viable and proactive members of their communities. Obviously the intensity of inter family rivalries has dissipated dramatically, but it certainly continues as a muted dynamic in modern families.

Rivalry is not a prevalent dynamic among the six members of this most unusual family as each member of this family appreciate any sort of prolonged companionship and loyalty that they provide to each other. Their lives before they converge on the La Perla Slum of San Juan, Puerto Rico are proof enough for them that they should not take this love for granted.

Father Emilio Sanchez, Anne and George Edwards, Sofia Mendes, Father DW Yarbrough and Jimmy Quinn have nothing in common besides the fact that they grew up or are now currently living unorthodox lives with regards to family. Emilio grew up in La Perla, which as a mentioned above is a slum of San Juan. His family was deeply rooted in the heroin smuggling business. He spends his childhood on the streets, fighting, drinking, and playing baseball. Street fighting leads him to boxing, which leads him to the United States, where he meets Father DW Yarbrough. With the guidance of the Father Superior of the district of New Orleans, Emilio joins decides to become a Jesuit priest. Emilio is brilliant, especially as a linguist. He picks up language quickly and masters it within weeks or months of first hearing it. This linguistic acuity makes him a valuable missionary resource and the Jesuits send him all over the world to work with different cultures. 

The man who inspired Emilio to choose a path of piety, DW, is quite an anomaly. He jokingly believes he is not “the work of a serious deity” because “the Good Lord [made him] a Catholic, a liberal, ugly and gay and a fair poet and then had him born in Waco, Texas.” 

Sofia Mendes is born in Istanbul, Turkey to Jewish parents whose ancestors were exiled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. She carries their fortitude and stubbornness with her to survive. Also she is incredibly emotionally unavailable, she is “all business”. This seriousness stems from her horrific childhood. Both her parents died in a war when she was young, so she whored her young body out to older men. In her late teenage years one of her clients, a man named Jaubert, offers buy her into indentured servitude. Disgusting by today’s ethics, in the fictional world of The Sparrow this is an opportunity for Sofia to leave her life of prostitution, become educated at the highest level and live a somewhat normal life. Jaubert is a broker, he goes to the worlds worst slums and finds talented young people to educate. In return, people invest in them like a person would invest in a company. If the investments make money Jaubert and the investors make money. Its a simple idea that although repulsive, offers young people living in unthinkable poverty to have a chance to contribute to the world. 

Sofia proves incredibly sharp and driven. Consequently, like Emilio, she is also a keen linguist but possesses the flexibility to learn and master any work quickly. Her broker, Jaubert, assigns her to a job in Cleveland. This job entails studying Father Emilio Sandoz’s method for learning languages. 

While being the subject of study of Sofia, in Cleveland, Emilio teaches a latin class at a local university. One of his favorite students is an older middle aged women named Anne Edwards who decided to return to school to better understand all the latin terminology that baffled her during her career as a nurse. Emilio begins having dinner with Anne and George, her husband who is a retired technician of some sort. The couple never had kids. Anne’s outgoing hospitality and incredible ability to sympathize with everyone and George’s natural paternal gentleness and sternness make it seem odd they never tried. 

Finally, there is Jimmy Quinn. Born in Boston to Irish parents who emigrated from Dublin due to civil unrest, is enormously tall and lanky. His parents divorced when he was a teenager but they made sure he completed his education and he graduated college with a degree in astronomy. Jimmy decides to enter the ultra competitive field of astronomy, a market in which artificial intelligence drastically decreased the need for human resources. Yet, he maintains a job at the Arecibo Radio Telescope in the mountains of Puerto Rico. It is here on this small island of the southern tip of Florida that provides the setting for the formation of this amazing modern family.

Each member is drawn to Puerto Rico through there work or desire to work. Emilio has been assigned to work at a mission in La Perla, and he convinces Anne and George to move down there to spice up their retirement. Anne takes over a medical clinic in La Perla, while George works as a volunteer technician at Arecibo. Sofia Mendes takes another assignment studying the benefits of investing in more artificial intelligence at Arecibo. DW ends up in San Juan to head the exploratory mission to Rakhat after Jimmy discovers their alien radio signals. 

Anne, being the eldest women of the group, assumes the mother figure. It comes naturally to her because of her aptness at making people feel comfortable around her and in her home. People trust her and therefore open up to her about their deepest conflicts and insecurities. For example DW is tells her that he is gay. He has never entrusted anyone in his entire life with such information but finds comfort in disclosing it to Anne.  DW takes on a sort of fatherly role. His stern and sage demeanor provide security for the entire group and provide a balance to Anne’s friendliness. Together they lead the group emotionally, spiritually, through their expedition. A gay priest and a mother without kids acting as parents is not traditional at all but the components of a certain position can change as long as they provide the same dynamic of guidance and understanding that all good parents do. 

George and Jimmy play the roles of the technically minded children who are slightly aloof with regards to emotional matters. Also, Jimmy is incredibly jealous of Emilio because Sofia clearly has feelings for him and none for Jimmy. But Anne’s grace and understanding help Jimmy understand that his predicament does not imply imminent emotional doom for him. Emilio transcends any stereotypical familial role, instead he incorporates all roles into his interactions with the others. He is a spiritual man, a hard worker, a friend to all, but respected and revered by each of them because of his slightly mystical nature. Sofia, being incredibly emotionally unavailable, maintains a certain mysteriousness and disconnectedness from the rest of the group but as she spends more time with them she becomes enthralled in their love and loyalty and slowly allows herself to fully commit to her new family. 

A gay priest, another who grew up in the worst slums of Puerto Rico, a couple without children, an indentured servant and a child of divorced parents would have never been accepted in society fifty years ago, maybe not even now. But this portrait of a modern family provides provides hope that in the future all types of families will be accepted and prosper as long as they provide a loving and loyal sanctuary for the members to thrive in.

In his 1965 science-fiction novel Dune, Frank Herbert addresses many social and political issues of the time.  Most importantly, the intersection of religion and politics.  Religion plays a very large part in the novel, influencing almost all aspects of life in the universe, from the political system to the social culture of the Fremen on Arrakis.  It is exploited by the powerful in order to gain control over civilizations.  Additionally, religion begins to corrupt Paul Atreides, the protagonist of Dune, and change his motives as the prophet of the Fremen.  Collectively, they form the entire basis of the Fremen culture on Arrakis, which is completely grounded in religious influence.

Dune takes place thousands of years from now on one of many human colonized worlds, the desert planet Arrakis, a planet which is abundant in a universally sought after spice called melange.  These worlds are ruled by the Great Houses, which includes the House of Atreides, of which the protagonist Paul Atreides is apart of, and their rivals the House of Harkonnen.  The story revolves around Paul and his mother, a Bene Gesserit woman (women trained with special powers) named Lady Jessica.  They are humans from the planet Caladan who move to Arrakis to meet up with Paul’s father Duke Leto, the ruler of Arrakis.  In doing so, the Fremen, natives of Arrakis, believe that Jessica and Paul are fulfillers of a prophecy that claims a Bene Gesserit woman will arrive on Arrakis with a son, who will lead them to terraform the Arrakis’ desert environment into a lush, green world.

After arriving on Arrakis, Duke Leto is betrayed by Dr. Yueh, a House of Atreides member.  Yueh replaces one of the Duke’s teeth with a poison capsule and delivers him to Baron Harkonnen, the Duke’s enemy.  Meanwhile, most of the Atreides are wiped out by Sardaukar, Harkonnen controlled soldiers, but Paul and Jessica escape.  Hawat and Halleck, two other members of Atreides, also escape.  Duke Leto kills himself with the poison tooth, but Baron Harkonnen survives the attempt and escapes. Hawat is captured by the Harkonnens and agrees to work for them.  Paul and Jessica are captured by the Fremen at the order to Kynes, a Fremen leader.  Paul becomes idolized as a prophet by the Fremen, and is named Maud’Dib.  Paul discovers his abilities to see into the future and back in time.  These abilities exceed those of his mother, despite her being a Bene Gesserit.  Years later,  Paul has become a spiritual leader of the Fremen, and his mother the new Reverend Mother.  The Fremen discover that Rabban, the Baron’s nephew assigned to Arrakis, has stopped receiving assistance from the Baron, so they plan to invade and take control of the Arakeen capital.  In order to stop the Fremen, Emperor Shaddam IV personally comes to Arrakis with an army of Sardaukar and Harkonnen.  However, this army is quickly defeated by the Fremen.  Baron Harkonnen is killed by Alia, Paul’s younger sister who was born on Arrakis, but Paul’s youngest son Leto dies during the battle.  Hawat is injured in the battle and dies in Paul’s arms.  Paul decides that the best way to remove Emperor Shaddam IV from power is to marry his daughter, Princess Irulan.  In protest, Feyd-Rautha, the baron’s nephew, challenges Paul to a duel.  Paul kills him, which makes the Emperor agree to Paul’s demands, thus making Paul the new Emperor of the universe.

Religion is used as a tool for the leaders to keep control of the general population and heighten their apparent divine status.  The Spacing Guild, an interstellar monopoly on space travel, abuses religion as a means to keep their control over the universe’s transportation systems.  As Herbert explains in the second appendix:

The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena— even religious phenomena— could be reduced to mechanical explanations. (Herbert, 812)

It is evident that, to the rich and powerful, religion is a scapegoat.  It’s a deceiving method with which to obtain power.  The Bene Gesserit, a renowned order for women, privately uses religious tactics to achieve their status.

The Bene Gesserit, a very prestigious self-proclaimed secular order, hypocritically uses religious practices in their teachings, which in turn gave Bene Gesserit members a prophet-like status among the Fremen.  Lady Jessica, for example, fulfills a prophecy that she and Paul are the saviors of the Fremen.  Hawat says to Duke Leto “Yes, my Lord. They’ve a legend here, a prophecy, that a leader will come to them, child of a Bene Gesserit, to lead them to true freedom. It follows the familiar messiah pattern” (Herbert, 163).  Herbert explains that “The Bene Gesserit, who privately denied they were a religious order, but who operated behind an almost impenetrable screen of ritual mysticism, and whose training, whose symbolism, organization, and internal teaching methods were almost wholly religious” (Herbert, 811).  Near the end of the novel, Jessica is promoted to Reverend Mother of the Fremen.  In order to do so, she must drink a poisoned liquid, a liquid which she makes safe by using her powers.  She effectively cheats to pass the test, elevating her rank in the Fremen society, and simultaneously gains more respect from the Fremen.  After the ceremony, Jessica says to herself, “Let the people drink of it and have their awareness of each other heightened for a while. The drug is safe now… now that a Reverend Mother has changed it” (Herbert, 580), acknowledging her newfound position in the Fremen society.  By becoming the Reverend Mother, Jessica also inherits the memories of the previous Reverend Mothers, which in turn provides Jessica with knowledge that will grant her even more power over the Fremen.

The influence of religion is not exclusive to the Fremen natives and also begins to corrupt Paul once he develops his sixth sense to see into the future and back in time.  He slowly becomes more and more absorbed in his newfound ability.  The more immersed he becomes, the more he begins to see his new powers as divine origin and how the Fremen prophecy must be true.  As Gurney Halleck says to the Lady Jessica, “‘Why is he doing this? Does he think to get himself killed and achieve martyrdom? This Fremen religious prattle, is that what clouds his reason?’” (Herbert, 781).  Paul becomes arrogant and selfish after obtaining his powers, going so far as the completely refuse assistance from his mother, whom he has looked up to.  He says to her “‘I want no special advantage for this one,’” followed by, “‘Step back out of my way’” (Herbert, 781).  While some of his confidence is certainly true, a good portion comes from his arrogance as a result of his figurehead status among the Fremen.  Jessica claims that “[she] found no covetousness in these faces. They were held at a distance by the religious ferment around Paul’s leadership” (Herbert, 690).  Paul’s status with the Fremen has granted Paul a great power, and he knows it.  It obvious that Paul takes advantage of this power to control the Fremen society, eventually using his influence on the Fremen to overthrow Emperor Shaddam IV from power and claim the throne for himself.

The structure of Fremen society is heavily built upon religion, which is both a major strength and a major weakness of the Fremen culture.  As Kynes’ father explains to him, in Fremen society,

‘Religion and law among our masses must be one and the same[.]  An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population’ (Herbert, 444).

To the Fremen, religion is the foundation with which their entire culture has been built on.  To commit a crime against religion is to commit a crime against the Fremen people.  The Bene Gesserit exploited this, launching the Missionaria Protectiva, a program designed to reaffirm religious beliefs in cultures so the Bene Gesserit could take advantage of them.  As Lady Jessica says to herself, “So our Missionaria Protectiva even planted religious safety valves all through this hell hole. Ah, well… it’ll help, and that’s what it was meant to do” (Herbert, 459).  The strength of the Fremen society is also its weakness.  Religion unites the people, but it also provides an outlet for exploitation, as can be seen with Missionaria Protectiva.

Religion is the strongest part of Fremen society, but also its greatest weakness.  It is exploited by power organizations such as the Space Guild and the Bene Gesserit.  Most importantly, religious beliefs of the Fremen have the power to influence non-Fremen, such as Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica.  With this knowledge, the Fremen are susceptible to outside influences, and really never make choices for themselves.  They believe themselves to be an independent civilization, yet they are controlled by outside forces they are oblivious to.  Until the Fremen break free from their bonds to religion, they will forever be puppets to a greater power, even if that power is one of their own.

Works Cited

1.  Herbert, Frank (2003-08-26). Dune. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

Christian Bladon

Mariana Lazarova

Physics: Life in the Universe, PC 120

“So it goes”

With this simple phrase, Kurt Vonnegut lays down the entire philosophical ideology of a far greater, far more advanced form of life.  With these three words the protagonist of Slaughterhouse 5 drifts through his life, living off the almost apathetic saying of an alien race.  However, this novel’s main character, a man named Billy Pilgrim, is not a typical person.  Self-proclaimed as being, “unstuck in time,” Billy jumps around moments of his life, never quite knowing where or when in his life he will be whenever he opens his eyes.  This means that any moment that Billy has lived or will live, he may find himself there at any time.  Whether this moment is his birth, life as a war prisoner in World War II, presence at the infamous bombing of Dresden or his abduction by the fourth dimensional Tralfamadorians, he flits about time while only semiconscious of it all.  Unfortunately, as wonderful a plot driver as Billy’s experiences with time and extraterrestrials may be, the absurdity of these ideas pull the narrative away from semi-plausible science fiction.  Although the presentation of such elements may push this book into the genre, the way in which time is presented from Billy’s perspective, as well as the highly unlikely portrayal of extraterrestrial life, make this narrative closer to pure fiction than anything scientific.

Looked at linearly, the life of Billy Pilgrim is related in fragments from his childhood, life as a chaplain’s assistant in World War II, and eventual old age in Illium, New York.  From the bombing of Dresden, a massacre greater than even Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to being held captive on the planet Tralfamadore with the adult film actress Montana Wildhack, Billy floats by with an acceptance of misfortune that borders on indifference.  The passive look at tragic events comes from Billy’s encounter with the fourth dimensional Tralfamadorians, who view all of time simultaneously and simply prefer to detach themselves from the unfortunate, while giving more attention to the good moments.  Billy’s ready acceptance of death is derived from this, and he derides the typical view of time in his statement, “It is just an illusion we have on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever”(25).  With his particular situation involving time travel, Billy detaches himself from the horrors of his life, while living through them at the same time, knowing he will jump out of the moment soon enough.

Although the idea of time presented from the view of the fourth dimensional Tralfamadorians may be to some degree understandable, the way in which Billy Pilgrim skips about the chapters of his life is singularly a narrative element, and in no way based upon reality.  The prospect of becoming unstuck in time, jumping around the events of one’s life is impossible any other way than remembering.  With how time is understood, moving one’s conscious perspective back and forth through their timeline would only be possible in a person’s imagination, where they can create different memories or scenarios at their pleasure.  By transferring his conscious mind across time, Billy Pilgrim is changing the configuration of the particles in his brain during all given moments of his life into that of a disembodied sentience for a few moments, only to switch back shortly after.  In the novel, Billy Pilgrim initially experiences his jumps in time during a march through the frozen forests of Germany, mid World War II.  As a coping mechanism for the intense stress and depression that he felt at that time, it is likely that he instead began hallucinating or dreaming while awake during his ordeal.  To detach himself from the horrors of living through the now infamous bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim creates this idea of shifting consciousness.  Combined with the eventual appearance of the Tralfamadorians, the ever-present philosophical phrase, “So it goes,” is created.  Even the narrator, told from the perspective of Kurt Vonnegut himself, is skeptical of Billy Pilgrim’s unnatural ability, beginning the novel with, “He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all events in between.  He says.”  Through the duration of the novel, Vonnegut acknowledges himself as the narrator twice, taking on the role of a member of Billy Pilgrim’s platoon, who then writes the narrative as an outsider looking in.  However, with the repetition of the last line in this quotation, Vonnegut conveys a sense of doubt to the reader that confirms the fictitiousness of it all.

Despite their use as an interesting plot device to move the narrative along, the portrayal of Tralfamadorians as vaguely plunger shaped creatures is utterly unrealistic.  Described as being, “two feet high, and green and shaped like plumber’s friends… [and] at the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm(25)”.  Evolutionarily, this shape and size is completely impractical, with there being no apparent advantages to this body type.  Besides this, and with the intelligence that these creatures have, it seems unlikely that a body as such would be able to support a complex neural system, or organs in general.  However, they are also described as being fourth dimensional beings, which could play some part in how they evolved.  Still, with how life and evolution appear to work, it seems unlikely that they would be the only creatures living in the fourth dimension, and so would still need to better themselves through adaptation.  The Tralfamadorians do contribute a major idea to the story of Billy Pilgrim, due to their nature as being able to see all of time.  While talking about horrible events in life, they say, “There isn’t anything we can do about them, so we simply don’t look at them.  We ignore them.  We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments (112)”.  The Tralfamadorians can see all moments, good and bad; yet choose to dwell on the better ones for happiness sake.  Billy Pilgrim adopts this philosophy of enjoying the pleasant moments, and glazes by the bad ones with the alien expression, “so it goes”.  Although these extraterrestrials are completely founded in fiction, they add a necessary element of absurdness and philosophy to Vonnegut’s novel, and how he conveys its message.

Despite these glaring contradictions to common sense and knowledge of how time and evolution work, Vonnegut’s tale portrays an interesting view upon time, and how tragic events should be viewed.  By using broken narrative of non-linear storytelling, the saga of Billy Pilgrim and all his fortune and suffering are told in a way that never seems to get too tragic or too joyous.  In a novel that is at its core about war and certain atrocities that humankind has committed, Vonnegut never preaches his message.  By using the science-fiction elements of time travel and extraterrestrial life throughout, the absurdity and satire mix to soften the point, but still convey a message.  Aside from the fantastic elements, Slaughterhouse 5 tells an amazing tale of one man’s life in an extremely original and inventive way.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-five, Or, the Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death. New York, NY: Dell, 1991. Print.

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

For countless millennium, man has searched for some reason to live. Since the dawn of humanity, philosophers have spoken, poets have written, artists have drawn, scientists have studied, yet no one has given an answer to the burning question that plagues every self-aware being: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? It seemed no one had the answer, until The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy came along and simply stated: “42”

42: the ultimate answer

Throughout the novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, humor is often incorporated to question the roles and complexities of life in the universe. Is there a point to existence? Will mortal beings ever truly find the answers they look for? “What do I mean by who am I?” Yet among the humor and punch lines, it seems that Adams argues that not all in the universe is as it seems, finding that humanity is not the most evolved species on Earth, that conflict is a universal construct, and that the search for knowledge and truth often ends in disappointment and more questions.

Title screen from the television show

Destruction of Earth

The beginning of the book is centered around a human named Arthur Dent on the day of the scheduled demolition of his house. His friend, Ford Prefect, arrives and takes Arthur away from the demolition scene to a local bar, telling him of the impending annihilation of the Earth by a group of aliens known as The Vogons. Their mission is to destroy the Earth in order to make way for the hyperspace bypass. At the last second, before Earth’s disintegration, Ford and Dent sneak onto one of the Vogon demolition ships, where Arthur learns that Ford is actually an alien who has been working on interstellar space guide, known as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The two stowaways are eventually detected and thrown off of the ship, where they are subsequently saved by the Heart of Gold, the ship with an Improbability Drive. It is here they meet Zaphod Beebebrox, Trillian, and Marvin, as they search for the lost planet of Margrathea. For the rest of the book, Arthur, Ford and the others all go on an adventure to discover Margrathea, and learn a great deal about Earth, the universe, and existence itself.

The cast from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie

The Role of Humanity

To this day, humans have believed they are the pinnacle of evolution. The majority has come to the conclusion that the human race is the most important species around, yet Adams believes differently. “On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons” (Adams 147). Even on Earth, Adams argues that man is not the most evolved species. He claims that even though we dominate the land and maintain control over other species, they have lost track of what’s important in life, and that other species are more evolved because they enjoy life in a simple manner. “These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front” (Adams 154). Adams is yet again describing humanity’s perception and how the view of the world could potentially be wrong and manipulated. Humans have such a high sense of self-importance, and believe that their perceptions are always correct, even when the realities could be quite different. “Orbiting [the Sun] at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat” (Adams 1). With all the views of technological advancements, every generation believes they are the most important, the most influential, and the best all around. Yet humans still have so far to continue to evolve and grow, and are far from the perfection they believe to have become. Humanity may have come far, but Adam argues our role on Earth is not as great as some might think.

Mice are actually pansdimensional beings

Conflict in the Universe

Across the globe, conflict has arisen across almost every society, in one form or another. However, Adams argues that conflict is not just a human endeavor, but a universal constant, saying that even advanced civilizations across the galaxies would also have conflicts amongst each other. “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation” (Adams 55). The Babel fish is something that is inserted into the ear and allows for someone to understand any language. What Adams is saying is that even when two groups can effectively communicate with each other, there would still be a rise of conflict because every being holds different ideals. “Unfortunately, in the Vl’Hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries” (Adams 187). Even in alien races that are galaxies away, Adams argues that war and violence is something that would be found in every species that holds differences from one another. No matter how hard a civilization might try, it will always have conflict, no matter how much it tries to avoid it. “Now either you all give yourselves up now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much of course because we are firmly opposed to needless violence, or we blow up this entire planet and possibly one or two others we noticed on our way out here” (Adams 198). Even outside of Earth, everyone depends on cops to solve conflicts and to instill law and order. Police play an important universal role as peace-keepers, but even they are not perfect, shown in the above quote as being hypocritical. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a great way of showing struggles between opposing viewpoints, and shows the significance that violence has in our world and the universe that surrounds it.

The babel fish

Infinite Search for Knowledge

Questions are infinite; there is no end to the amount of questions one could ask. And often times, receiving an answer only leads to another question. Adams uses this point to criticize humanity’s endless search for answers. “Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now” (Adams 124). In this point, Adams is saying that humanity’s understanding of the universe is so limited that they look to everything for the answers, even if the sources do not make sense. The nature of the universe is a complex thing, and there are still some things they have not figured out, so they often look to unreliable sources to answer the questions. “The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied… I’d far rather be happy than right any day” (Adams 184). Finding the true purpose of life is so infinitely small that, often times, people spend their lives looking for an answer they will never find in some hopeless search for truth. Adams is arguing that instead of using our time to find the answers, we should just keep ourselves occupied and become happy and at peace with ourselves and our questions in order to live fully. “[42] quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is” (Adams 173). Humanity continues to look for answers but often asks the wrong questions, searching for peace in the wrong pursuits. Adams argues that humans want to find answers, but are unsure about what specific answers they are looking for. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams is not stating that we should stop looking for the answers to life, or should abandon science and knowledge and reason, but is instead saying that humans should redefine how they look for the answers. Adams thinks that humans should come to peace with the idea that there are some things that humanity will never understand, but that it should not make them less happy or fulfilled.

There are certain things we will never understand about the universe

Peace with the Universe

Though The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is often regarded as some unrealistic space adventure, it still holds many critical views of humanity and their perceptions of the world that are still relevant today. Though Douglas Adams never directly says it, his implied views that humanity is not as evolved as it might think, that conflict can be found everywhere in the universe, and that humanity’s constant search for understanding often lead in circles represent a deeper narrative below the satirical views of societies around the globe. Once humanity has come to terms with its role in the universe, only then can it comprehend what it means to be evolved.

Image Sources

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