Humor And Optimism In Andy Weir's The Martian

Living on Mars is nearly impossible, especially with limited food, water, and lack of communication. For Astronaut Mark Watney, this newfound isolation was his life for the span of a year. All of Earth thought he was dead. In fact, his funeral had already taken place. Somehow though in a miraculous fashion, Watney was able to survive his seemingly tragic fall, and stay alive in the heart of a dust storm. With the rest of his crew leaving and sending out reports that he had died, not only was Watney alone, but nobody even suspected he had a chance of being alive. Fortunate for Watney, he was an expert in botany and chemistry. These fields of science were able to benefit him greatly in growing more food, and figuring out how to keep himself hydrated.

Physically, Watney had the genius and skillset to keep himself living. It is the psychological part though, that could break him down. Watney was faced with the psychological menace. There was no hope for him, and it seemed like he is going to die on Planet Mars very soon. All logistics of survival were dramatically against him, and he had nobody to communicate his struggles with. Humans are social creatures, and Watney was stuck all alone in constant darkness. This tragic situation can not only spark loneliness, but also insanity. This situation was not only a test of physical survival, but also a testament to Watney’s ability to keep himself mentally strong, and prevent his mind and conscience from entering the desolate abyss he found to be his home.
In the novel The Martian by Andy Weir, Mark Watney is able to use humor and optimism in order to keep himself sane and thinking clearly. By keeping a sense of humor in times of disaster, Watney allows himself to remain focused on survival and not dwell on the tragedy he is surrounded by. His ability to cope with these issues with laughter and remain relatively optimistic is what keeps himself stable, and ultimately saves his life.
The sense of being stranded and alone is one of the most detrimental feelings to mankind. Loneliness sparks depression, insanity, and many other mental illnesses which greatly infringe upon the health of the victim. For Mark Watney, loneliness gets only more prominent and noticeable when help is 225 million km away, and contact with any other human beings is seemingly impossible. At the moment Watney realizes his situation, his thoughts reflect the true shock and depression he is battling. He can’t believe he survived, but he also understands he is going to die. He knows he has no chance to reach any humans back on earth, and figures out he only has enough food and water to last him a few months. Watney is always focusing on how he wishes he could talk to people. He has no methods of entertaining himself and is stuck listening to old disco music and watching TV shows that he hates from the 1970’s. In one of his moments of reflection, Watney states “Man, I miss those guys. Jesus Christ, I’d give anything for a five-minute conversation with anyone. Anyone, anywhere. About anything” (Weir 99). This shows how truly lonely he is on Mars. This takes place only a few days after his disaster, and he already is in need of communication. This shows how desperate he really is, and demonstrates the social aspect of life he already greatly misses. He doesn’t care who he talks to, or about what, he just needs human interaction in order to prevent himself from going insane. Watney unfortunately doesn’t know that NASA is now fully aware of his survival. Through satellite imagery, they have been able to see him moving and trying to fix parts around his broken “home”. The issue is that they are not able to reach out to him, because the parts needed for communication were all broken in his fall. When evaluating his status, a NASA worker says “He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all have gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” (63). This portrays the true problem facing Watney. He is an expert in Botany and a genius scientist. They don’t doubt his ability to find ways to make food and water, and keep himself physically healthy. It is the mental aspect that is most concerning. NASA putting more of an emphasis on figuring out how to keep him mentally sane rather than physically healthy shows the great concern that coincides with a man being stuck alone in the middle of nowhere. Nobody can predict how mankind can respond to being completely alone in constant darkness with no communication. This isn’t just a battle of physical survival, but a test of true mental strength.
Optimism and a profound sense of humor are two crucial aspects in this situation. Without hope, chances of survival dwindle to even smaller than they are at currently. Depression would ruin his motor, and cause him to give his efforts up. Immediately after his tragic situation occurs, Watney bounces back and gets to work. Trying not to focus on his apparent imminent death, he examines all of his supplies and quickly uses his botany skills in order to create a potato farm to help augment his food quantity. Also, through his chemical expertise, Watney deciphers a way to transform his urine into drinkable water, thus preventing his dehydration. While his expertise in most fields of science seem to be keeping him healthy at this moment, it is really his mindset keeping him sane. Without his optimism, he wouldn’t have even started these experiments. Rather than giving up and dwelling on the fact that he will likely die, he uses his ability to figure out ways to lengthen his expected time of survival, and looks past the fact that all of his efforts could be for nothing. In Watney’s pre-flight physical and mental test, the NASA crew noted that he was “A good-natured man. Usually cheerful, with a great sense of humor. He’s quick with a joke. That could save his life” (89). Noting that it is his personality and mindset that can save his life rather than his scientific knowledge reflects the point that the mental portion of this test is much more difficult. Being able to remain optimistic and find the humor in these situations will not only keep him sane, but prevent him from falling into depression, and giving up all hope of survival.
By keeping a sense of humor, Watney is able to keep his mind at ease, and prevent himself from falling into depression and severe anxiety. Even though he now has reached contact with earth, the communication is painfully slow and tedious. Each message takes approximately twenty minutes to send, and most of the messages are frankly depressing; trying to tell Watney that he has to do millions of tasks and if not he will likely die. Therefore, Watney heavily relies on humor in order to keep himself entertained, and prevent himself from going insane. This is first noted when Watney starts using his feces in order to make his soil fertile to grow potatoes. Using his knowledge in botany and chemistry, he realizes his feces have the right amount of toxins and proteins in order to spark the potatoes growth in the harsh Martian environment. After he comes to this conclusion, Watney remarks “My asshole is doing as much to keep me alive as my brain” (14). Watney finds the humor in the farming he is doing. He realizes every supply of his is crucial, even his own feces. He doesn’t allow the disgust of this process to weigh down on him, and even says “I admit, it’s fatally dangerous” (?) multiple times in a humorous tone, giving off a careless, relaxed vibe to the reader. This doesn’t stop once he contacts NASA either. In NASA’s second message to Watney they make it clear that he must watch his language, because every message he sends will be seen by scientists throughout the world. Watney responds to this with a page reading “Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)” (129). No matter the situation being thrown at Watney, he finds ways to respond with humor and optimism. While his brilliance in botany and most fields of science are keeping him physically sound, his personality and ability to find humor and optimism in every situation is preventing his mental collapse. This yet again reflects what NASA had claimed about his personality that could save his life. Without the mental strength he is demonstrating, and consistent ability to find humor in tragic situations, Watney’s survival would be impossible.
Living on Mars for more than a year results in many near-death experiences. In his time on Mars, Watney has nearly killed himself by turning his area of living into a Hydrogen bomb accidentally, trying to use pure radiation as heat source, and many more examples similar to these. Rather than allowing these mistakes to depress him or stall his motivation, Watney laughs them off and doesn’t take them too seriously. In this adventure, Watney performs many experiments that can either greatly save his life, or possibly kill him. These risks he is able to perform without becoming phased is what shows his true bravery, but it his response to them that demonstrate his true optimism in times of disaster. After each adventure gone wrong, Watney writes in his journal that “I guess you could call it a ‘failure’ but I prefer the term ‘learning experience’” (72). This response shows how Watney never allows these constant failures to hurt his motivation. After each risk gone wrong, Watney reflects and discovers what he did wrong, and how he can efficiently fix the problem he caused. By doing this, he not only keeps himself busy, but always finds ways to better his living situation. This is shown in even more detail once NASA starts trying to help Watney. At every minor incident, NASA grows scared as to what the scenario could do to Watney, and Watney ignores them. “To them, equipment failure is terrifying. To me, it’s Tuesday” (152). Watney knows his situation better than anybody in the world. Normally, equipment failure on another planet would be a frightening situation that could immediately kill the astronaut. For Watney, it doesn’t phase him anymore. Equipment failure, large obstacles, and near death experiences are routine for him. He accepts that these will occur, and when they do happen, just views them as another day living on Mars. This response method to disaster always allows Watney to stay positive, and shows his lack of concern being alone on Mars. By not getting overwhelmed at disaster, and calmly fixing any obstacle he hits, Watney’s optimistic attitude towards survival are shown greatest here, and it is at this stage of the book where it becomes clear Watney will survive.
After all of the fixing, fighting, and trying to save his life, Watney is rescued. Through a miraculous mission, Watney’s old crew was able to shoot into orbit and physically grab Watney, and pull him back into their ship. This mission his old crew performed had a significantly higher chance of killing all six of them rather than keeping them all alive, but they did it anyway, and it worked out. Immediately after Watney was rescued, he went into reflection about his time on Mars and what he learned. In this time, Watney stated the most powerful quote in the novel.
“Every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it's true. If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do. (369)

Throughout this entire journey, Watney has been learning about human nature. Not only did he discover how his body and brain would react to being alone, but he was able to witness the efforts put in by scientists and civilians all around the world, and saw as the entire population rooted for his survival. He states “I think about the sheer number of people who pulled together to save my sorry ass, and I can barely even comprehend it” (368). This novel makes it evident that humans will go to extreme measures in order to save each other. For Watney, it was all about staying calm. NASA and Watney knew he had enough scientific knowledge in order to keep his physical self healthy enough to survive for a while. It was his mental capacity that grew concern. Being alone on the deadly Mars environment could easily make a man go insane. By remaining optimistic and keeping his profound sense of humor throughout the journey, Watney was able to keep himself from going insane, and force himself to believe that he would survive. This journey was more than a battle of survival, but a true test of mental strength. Watney’s personality is what kept him alive, and it was all the help of people around the world that taught Watney about true human nature.
In the novel The Martian by Andy Weir, Mark Watney is able to use humor and optimism in order to keep himself sane and thinking clearly.

By keeping a sense of humor in times of disaster, Watney allows himself to remain focused on survival and not dwell on the tragedy he is surrounded by. His ability to cope with these issues with laughter and remain relatively optimistic is what keeps himself stable, and ultimately saves his life. Watney constantly uses humor in order to reshape his tragic situation. Not only does this work as a defense mechanism, but it works as a method of deflecting feelings of depression and anxiety. More importantly though, humor provides Watney with the ability to look at things in different perspectives. This helps create optimism and hope for himself, which ultimately increases his ability to rework problems in ways nobody would have ever thought of. Watney is willing to take risks in trying to save his life. When he fails, he finds the humor in it. He jokes about turning his home into a Hydrogen bomb and he jokes about breaking his personal oxygenator. While it seems crazy, it is his coping mechanism to not get anxious and find a way to fix these problems. His expertise in many fields of science greatly benefit his survival, and were the reasons behind his ability to grow food and create water. It was his optimism and sense of humor though that prevented himself from going depressed and insane in the Martian environment. Adaption is the key for comfort for all human beings. Watney jokes to himself in his own log, which basically becomes his personal companion. In times of celebration and depression, Watney vents to his log, and it holds great therapeutic value to him. Watney used humor to adapt to the situation. By growing more comfortable, Watney was able to rid all the negative, depressing thoughts, and focus on how to survive. His personality is what allowed him to adapt. By allowing himself to find comfort and relief in this tragic

situation, his survival became not only possible, but a reality.