The Terminal Man Sparknotes

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Recommended: Theme of insanity in literature

Sara Santistevan
Ms. Leuthold
Biology
Period 3
30 May 2014
The Terminal Man
The Terminal Man is a science fiction book written by Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton is an author who wrote many science fiction books, but he was also a doctor who graduated and received his MD from Harvard Medical School. He died on November 4, 2008, “after a courageous and private battle against cancer” (In Memoriam). The Terminal Man focuses on Harry Benson, a man who suffers from a severe personality disorder which causes him to believe that machines will take over the world. He also suffers from ADL syndrome, also referred to as acute disinhibitory lesion syndrome (a fictional mental disorder similar to temporal lobe epilepsy), which causes him to have dangerous seizures. During these seizures, he acts violently and brutally harms people, but he doesn’t remember doing so. It turns out that Benson is a prime candidate for a procedure known as stage three, in which electrodes are placed in Benson’s brain to soothe him before a seizure takes place. The operations is successful until Benson learns how to overpower the electrodes and control them on his own. He escapes the hospital and goes on a murderous rampage.
Although The Terminal Man is science fiction, the science behind the fictional concepts is still presented accurately. ADL syndrome is a fictional mental disease, but the effects and symptoms are very similar to what a person with temporal lobe epilepsy would experience. For example, if Harry Benson starts to smell something bad or feel funny (Crichton, 39), this could be a sign that he will have a seizure. He also has no memory of what happens during these seizures, and sometimes doesn’t even remember having said seizures. People with tem...

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...s well as to show the dangers of mind control. Crichton didn’t show bias, as he stated both the dangers of mind control and how people need mind control, otherwise we’d be “hopelessly lost without it” (Crichton, 227). He also shows both positive and negative views on technology and computers through his characters. Through Harry Benson, who believes machines will take over the world, shows how harmful certain scenarios could be if we tamper with technology too much; on the other hand, through characters like Gerhard and Richards, who love working with computers, show how beneficial computers are to humans. Gerhard makes a statement that computers never made mistakes, and that “they were never wrong...it always turned out, in the end, to be a human error” (Crichton, 97-98). I really like that Michael Crichton wasn’t biased, and how he showed both sides of the story.

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