The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Madness in Space)
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, space is a pretty messed up place. Visiting planets like Magrathea, the richest planet of all time; nearly being killed by the Vogons, and finding the answer to the universe are all some of the crazy adventures the group goes on. Adams really thinks outside of the box for this book, it is filled with chaos and lunacy, but also some romance. It is evident in this novel that the theme is love, which can be shown through the ridiculous adventures Arthur and Trillian journey on.
Although it may not be obvious, there is a love connection between Trillian and Arthur. This begins rather early on in the book, when Arthur tells Ford about a party he went
to. Arthur continues to tell him how peculiar this party was until he sets eyes on this girl, which happens to be Trillian. The party was a dress up party and she goes up to him and asks, “Who are you?” pertaining to whom he was imitating. After they start talking, they end up going to eat together. They talk about many things and then Trillian says, “Let’s go somewhere.” Arthur is hesitant when she says Madagascar and suggests they go somewhere a bit closer. Suddenly, Zaphod shows up and introduces himself. He has shows an interest in Trillian and uses, “I’m from a different planet, you want to see my spaceship?” as his pick-up line. The pick-up line, of course, works and she goes off with Zaphod. Much later, Ford and Arthur are kidnapped by the Vogons and are let out in space to die. Soon they are rescued by no other than, Zaphod and Trillian. Trillian and Arthur recognize each other but say nothing about the past, although Arthur still has feelings for Trillian. Trillian and Zaphod are together now so Arthur must hide his feelings. Ford, Arthur, Melvin, Zaphod, and Trillian all go on many adventures together and some of these experiences show how ignorant and self consumed Zaphod, and he hardly shows Trillian any attention. Zaphod really only needs Trillain because she actually knows how to run his spaceship, and without her he would not be able to get anywhere, although he might actually have feeling for her, it isn’t shown. Towards the end of the novel, Trillian starts to realize this and slowly starts to ignore Zaphod’s orders and shows him no attention, just as he did to her. All along, Arthur has made it obvious that he has feelings for Trillian and occasionally tries to vilipend Zaphod by telling Trillian how she doesn’t belong with him and how ignorant he is. At the end of the book, Trillian and Arthur fall in love and Zaphod sees no use in her as the operator of his spaceship. Throughout the book the idea of love is very subtle, but at the same time it is apparent between the main character, Arthur, and a girl who plays a small role in the novel, Trillian.
The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.
In the article The Cosmic Perspective by Neil deGrasse Tyson he examines a range of topics from human life coming from Mars to how our perspective of the universe relates to religion. In the year 2000, a new space show opened at the Hayden Planetarium called Passport to the Universe, which compared the size of people Milky Way and beyond. While a show like this might make someone feel minuscule and insignificant, Tyson says that seeing the size of the universe actually makes him feel more alive not less and gives him a sense of grandeur. I agree with his idea that looking at us as a people in comparison can actually give you a sense of grandeur. However, when I compare myself to the vastness of space, it puts events on Earth in perspective while showing how influential we can be as a people even if we are small.
The love triangle of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guenever is a constant theme throughout every account of the Arthurian legend. Geoffrey Ashe's The Arthurian Handbook states that "We may say that these knights are expected to serve their King..."(81). The revelation of the affair finally comes when Sir Agravaine shouts, "'Traitor Knight! Sir Lancelot, now art thou taken'"(White 569). Lancelot was summoned to Queen Guenever's bedroom, and Sir Agravaine is finally exposing the affair and gaining revenge on Lancelot for unhorsing him many times in the past. The two people that Arthur trusts most are Guenever and Lancelot. Arthur is well aware of the affair between the two, but chooses to pretend that nothing is going on. Due to this naivety, Arthur earns the disrespect (and even hatred) of Agravaine and Mordred, who eventual...
The use of suspense in “The Hitchhiker,” keeps the audience in a state of panic, wondering what the outcome will be. The protagonist looks back upon the torturous six days, remembering his protective mother, and the commonplace traveler. Fear mixed with suspicion, he identifies the hitchhiker on the most inappropriate hitchhiking roads, set on terminating the foreboding individual. Leaving the audience at the climax, Adams believes the hitchhiker must be mortal, and therefore able to hinder, yet the fact of Adams’ unknown identity and his total isolation, prevent his ability to take
Prometheus takes the human side in the negotiation because he sympathizes with their ongoing struggle for survival and also intends to make the world a better place. Prometheus realized that it was his duty to aid the humans when he “found them living in caves, and in holes of the Earth, shivering with cold because there was no fire…” (Baldwin et al. 1). Prometheus empathizes with the humans’ struggle for survival as they do not have fire or any of the techniques needed to survive. This follows the theme of someone of a higher status wanting to give the same opportunities that he/she had to someone of a lower
Leach, Caroline, and Stuart Murray. "Disability and Gender in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Disability Studies Quarterly 28.4 (2008): n. pag. Disability Studies Quarterly. Web. 13 May 2017. http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/149/149
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton is strongly driven by the theme: Preparation is a good thing if man’s ignorance does not ruin it. Crichton displays this through the characterization, foreshadowing, and mood.
Throughout the sixties , America- involved in the Cold War at this time- suffered from extreme fear of communism. This caused numerous severe changes in society ranging from corrupt political oppression, to the twisted treatment of the minority. Published in 1962, Ken Kesey ’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , manages to capture these changes in the variety of ways. Kesey’s novel incorporates some of the main issues that affected the United States during the early and mid 60s. The government had no limits and was cruel to those who did not fit into society, including the mentally ill. The wrongful treatment of the people caused an eruption of rebellion and protest- thus the Beatnik era was born. The novel, written during this movement, sheds light on Kesey’s personal opinion on this chaotic period in US history . The treatment of mentally ill patients, the oppressive government, and uprising in the 1960s inspired Kesey while writing his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
This episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation begins with a performance from Data and his quartet. Data tells Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher they may want to wait for the next performance, since his peers in the group believes he lacks “soul” in his playing. Picard sends a valuable message to Data and the viewers; never advertise your shortcomings. Picard insists on hearing Data play, and of course, as the concert starts, the Enterpirse is hailed by the Sheliak. They, by treaty, with the Federation have ownership of Tau Cygna V, however, there are human inhabitants colonized there. They demand the removal of this “infestation” immediately, and Picard is reluctantly happy to oblige. Upon arrival, it is discovered that the radiation levels in the planet’s atmosphere are so
The core of Tris and Four’s romance is an extension of what the faction system explores. Tris and Four choose each other over and over again. Of course they yell and say thing they don’t mean just like any normal relationship, many relationships break under the weight of loss or hardship, but Tris and Four thrive in stressful and intense circumstances. Their love for each other is deep; their respect for each other, profound. For Tris, the difficulty is with physical intimacy. It manifests in her “fear landscape” her “exposure therapy” encounters with her own deepest fears because her exposure to it was so limited, growing up in Abnegation. Four has trouble trusting people since he was beaten by his father when he was younger and having his mother disappear But he finds in Tris someone who can bear the truth of the abuse he has survived without resorting to pity or recoiling from his pain. She insists that he is a whole, complex person, not the summation of his “damage,” and ultimately, he believes her, too. “That was the goal, the most important goal of mine—to ensure that one character’s strength
The men in the ward always try to find ways to cope with different problems in their life.Some choose a healthy and more creative way of dealing with their problems. However, some of those men do not have the ability to cope in a constructive manner. In those cases, they destroy the foundation that could uplift them. It can be the cause of someone becoming suicidal, an alcoholic, or a drug abuser. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, McMurphy uses control and manipulation to fill the void of his loneliness and feeling of betrayal.
In Dante’s Inferno, Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the protagonists’ relationships with their companions becomes an essential subplot within each text. Their relationships are crucial in order to complete their journey and in some cases complete each other. In addition, there are many characteristics in each text that are unrealistic representations of life. For instance, the environment of hell the Inferno, Don Quixote’s fictional world, and the instant marriages in Pride and Prejudice are all things that are not typically seen in real life. These unrealistic characteristics affect how each relationship develops, however, these factors do not take away from the significance of each relationship. In each text, the lucrative ambitions of the characters are initially the motive of many relationships rather than the desire for true companionship. A major part of the relationships development is how the characters’ companionships transition from ones that are based on individual ambitions to ones that are built on the desire for intimate relationships.
Most people who have watched a soap opera can recognize that the love triangle is a crucial element to the plot. In fact, the original radio broadcasted soap operas seemed to consist almost entirely of love triangles. The love triangle, for plot purposes, seems to be a popular technique employed to change the dynamic, add dimension, and generally ‘spice up’ an otherwise stagnant monogamous relationship. It would make for a pretty dull and quite unpopular show if such popular daytime soap characters as Luke and Laura or Bo and Hope had enjoyed a smooth courtship, uncomplicated marriage and then grew old and gray together without a single conflict. The viewers watched them go through many conflicts, some of which involved the classic love triangle. Such conflicts as the love triangle keep the story moving. Common elements of triangles in today’s soaps consist of lust, greed, jealousy, any of which are interchangeable with the conflicts resulting from situations involving lovers coming back from the dead or paternity uncertainties. Yet love triangles, whether in the soap opera or in the novel, are not all uniformly constructed. James Joyce’s The Dead and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, both modernist novels, each contain love triangles as an integral element of the story.
In The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke 44-49), an astrophysicist and Jesuit priest’s faith is challenged when he and his crew discover the remaining artifacts of a destroyed civilization. He learns that the advanced civilization lived on an earth-like planet in another solar system, and they spent their final years building a vault (filled with their achievements and artifacts) on their outermost planet, which was distant enough to survive the supernova. After the discovery of the dead race’s artifacts, the Jesuit priest finds himself questioning God. The story ends with an ironic twist, as the main character realizes that the beacon that shined above Bethlehem when Jesus was born was the same supernova that ended the distant race.
Imagine a world where a person cannot differentiate between what's real and what's not. Although it's hard to believe it's a real brain problem which effects a good portion of today's people, “Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects the way a person acts thinks and sees the world” (“Schizophrenia” 1). Most commonly in schizophrenics they feel and experience things that aren't really there and alter the way they hear and see things. In a fiction book, “ The Hitchhiker” written by Anthony Horowitz the main character Jacob does many things that lead the reader to have inquiries about what his problem is. Jacob obviously has schizophrenia because he has insane delusions and vivid hallucinations.