C. S. Lewis’s Out of The Silent Planet masterfully explores the concept of what another inhabited planet could be like. The novel takes place on two separate planets, Earth and Malacandra (known to us as Mars). Earth is a planet filled with hate and selfishness, where humans cannot keep themselves from fighting each other. In contrast, Malacandra is a planet where three races live in peace and harmony without the corruption of hate and selfishness. The humans Weston and Devine come to Malaacandra because of their greed. They abduct Ransom, another human, and take him with them because they believe one of the alien races wants a human sacrifice. As the narrative unfolds, the environments of Malacandra and Earth significantly impact the characters' …show more content…
Malacandra is a beautiful planet where species coexist in harmony, in awe-inspiring environments. It is a beautiful and vibrant planet reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss book with fluffy trees and warm pink water, a world of purity and beauty unpolluted by the sin of humanity and humanity's bent nature. Malacandra is a bountiful planet where everyone's needs are met and gold flows through the water. It is a peaceful planet without war, where the three species live and work together in harmony. There are three intelligent species of Malaxcandra: the Hrossa, Pfifltriggi, and Sorn. The Hrossa are philosophical and have a great understanding of ships and waterfaring. They are the first species Ransom meets and they teach him the language of the planet throughout the story. Hrossa acts as a guide for Ransom and helps him to understand that just because something is alien doesn't mean it should be feared. Hrossa is a specialist in performing, dancing and poetry. The Hrossa believe that poetry should not be written down because it ruins the memory of it, not allowing the memory to grow. They have a …show more content…
Earth is a beautiful planet if not for human greed and destruction. Earth has been exploited for its resources and riches. Exploitation results in environmental degradation, including deforestation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Our planet is bountiful yet, many people still lack basic needs because of others' greed. Earth is filled with conflict, and characterized by wars, and strife, further disrupting its potential for peace and harmony. Wars, both past and present, have inflicted suffering and destruction, highlighting humanity's inability to coexist peacefully. The People of Earth portrayed in Out of the Silent Planet are bent men who came to Malacandra because of their greed, which causes Devine and Weston to abduct one of their own kin for what they would believe is a human sacrifice. Weston showcases the pride of humanity with his want to make humans live eternally, which although a noble intention is taken to absurd and horrible lengths. Weston fears the death of humanity and will do anything to preserve humanity, even destroying the peaceful races inhabiting Malacandra for no other reason than they aren't humans. His want for preservation is twisted as he says that it doesn't matter what humanity becomes as long as they can live forever and carry on their legacy. Devine is a prideful man who wants to plunder Malacandra’s gold called “Sun’s Blood” even
Watch Out (A comparison of “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…” and “Silent Spring”) The earth is slowly deteriorating and what do we do about it? In these two stories Silent Spring and “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…,” two perspectives on the possible outcome of our planet are illustrated. In the former, it describes a town and how it used to be a spectacular display of nature that became a wasteland because of human doings. On the other hand, “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…” is a fiction piece showing
In Out of the Silent Planet, Professor Weston is a prominent evil character. He wishes to take the human race to live on Malacandra, the planet that we learn is Mars. Weston originally went to Malacandra thinking there were no life forms living on the planet. He learns of life there and is summoned by the Oyarsa which is the “god” of that planet. Thinking they want to kill him, Weston returns to earth and abducts Ransom to take back to Malacandra as a sacrifice. First, we notice that Weston has
Post-colonialist Perceptions of Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet The Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti viewed the goal of sculpting as the manipulation of a marble block until the figure within is set free. Just as a carving artist seeks to release its piece from rock, a literary artist desires his art form to be carved from an obscure idea into clear apprehension. The most beautiful of these art pieces are placed in a museum of their own right, the literary canon. A great part of literature’s
What is Sci-fi The genre of Sci-fi is an imaginative genre that delves into futuristic settings. The tropes of the genre regard to space travel, exploration of unknown worlds and time travel. Earth is usually the target of invasions and visitations from intergalactic beings, also the exploration of dystopia and utopian societies on earth centuries after the one we live in now. The Two Movies The chosen movies are Alien by Ridley Scott and A Trip to the Moon by Georges Melies. Alien in 1979 is an
The Christian Sci-Fi novel, Out of the Silent Planet, was written by the British theologian, author, and professor C.S. Lewis in 1938. The book is a third-person account of the space travels and alien encounters of a lonely philologist named Elwin Ransom, who is abducted by two elementary schoolmates while he was on a walking-tour. This begins his unexpected galactic journey to Malacandra, where upon landing there, he escapes from his kidnappers and experiences the nature, creatures, and morals of
the lungs of the planet and we are now on the verge of switching it off.”-Prince Charles. The study of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars write about environmental concerns and use various ways literature subjects to put forth that movement. One of the ways authors get the point across is the quote “scare tactics” which the author negatively writes what is happening in nature. Like the famous Rachel Carson book The Silent spring. A good
it is the surrounding influential pieces in life that make life what it is. This makes it important for people to protect the environment and the ecosystems that make everyone’s home. In Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, she talks about the environment needing to be protected. Pesticides are a poison that is killing the planet as well as hurt the people who eat them. Degradation, or the degrading of anything; in this case it is the planet and the environment. Carson talks about stopping the practice of
disease transmitting insects. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, known as DDT, and other pesticides usage sored as corporate made huge profit out of them. What public did not acknowledge, however, was malignant effects caused by these chemically mortified substances. As DDT usage increased, insidious dangers destroyed both ecosystem and human health; with her book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson drew attention to the hazards of pesticides, especially DDT, and triggered a movement that would eventually succeed
when seen from the vast vacuum of outer space stands as a testament to the remarkable phenomenon called life. When viewed from a far Earth appears resolute like a resting marble. However, in reality, this marble of life is under constant change. This constant change is relatively normal and promotes an equal balance in the ecosystem over time. However, over the past hundred years, this balance has shifted. Human beings are now affecting the environment in major ways. In the past humans have lived their
Themes of Religion One of the themes that can be found in Out of the Silent Planet as well as many other of Lewis’s works is that of religion, and more specifically the ideas of Christianity. Since Lewis was a devout Christian who believed the faith is something that can be beneficial to anyone to understand, believer or not, he often used his stories as symbols for key aspects of the scripture. Though there are no direct mentions of any earthly religion, there are direct connections that can be
has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world…a thing that by all the standards of the world we grew up in is an evil thin.” Almost every American, including him, believed that the “evil thing” had brought peace in 1945, but nobody knew what it would bring in the future, although everybody knew it would inevitably shape the world to come, as in fact it did. This catastrophic event during WWII undoubtedly marked the point at which environmentalism truly started to emerge, and thereafter
There is no doubt that climate change is happening, and it is happening fast. The average surface temperature of the planet has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century. This is due by an increase in human-made emissions like carbon dioxide, which are thrown into the atmosphere. The past thirty-five years have been crucial for the planet since they were the warmest years on record. Not only has the planet witnessed a global temperature rise, but the oceans have absorbed much
techniques which means Keats read lots of books and it is what inspired him. This poem includes an image of a Spanish soldier and adventurer Cortez and his men staring at the Pacific (Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 meaning he was more a warrior than explorer. This shows Keats’ own ambitions as a poet). In this poem Keats talks about circumnavigating the world of literature and he explains in detail, what books he is reading. which is what makes this poem more interesting. The main theme of is this
destination. It was the best science fiction film I had ever seen, as it presented several different possibilities and scenarios of what could happen as well as what might happen to man in his quest to conquer space. The introduction of the computer as an artificial intelligence was an added plus. The idea of a machine making the same mistakes as any human being proved out in its own statement: that any glitches in its operating parameters had to be due to human error. Given that machines are incapable
Although everyone on this planet is a human being, some people don’t understand or accept that as well as others. In the books Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas and Running For My Life by Lopez Lomong, this was very well demonstrated in both good and bad ways. Funny in Farsi is a story about Firoozeh and her family, who immigrated from Iran to America. The story is in her point of view. When she was just seven, her entire family moved to California. Little did they know, their lack of knowledge for