Open Prompt Oct 1

2004, Form B. The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place. Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

     Our time on this world is brief. In the grand scheme of things we're but a flicker. But in that time, we can live and love and question and grow and learn. And being a sperm whale several miles above an alien planet plummeting towards the ground doesn't change that. The death of the whale in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy raises questions about the significance of life and whether living it is futile or noble, deepening the novel's exploration of relative significance. The whale's demise is a way of saying that we'll never really figure things out.

     The nature of the whale's death is a direct result of something occurring throughout the entirety of his life: He is falling. From the moment he entered the world, the laws of the universe were at work bringing him closer and closer each moment to his inevitable demise. It makes the reader wonder: Do the thoughts going through the whale's head really matter? No matter what he thinks or does he'll hit the ground with a splat in a few short minutes. He's powerless to control his fate; although he possesses the free will to think and explore within the parameters of his ability, that represents only the tiniest imperceptible adjustment to his course in the grand scheme of things. Adams makes us wonder if our lives are like that of the whale. Time inevitably draws each of us to death and we can only flail about in the air before landing with a thud in death's embrace.

     While the whale does make some headway in figuring out the world and his place in it, he never really arrives at anything substantial in his brief existence. As he sees the world, giving names to ideas and experimenting with his abilities, he has an unshaken optimism about him. Just as the whale begins to make sense of the world and find his place in it, however, the whale dies. Adams thus illustrates the brevity of life and futility in finding out just how and why it works in its short course.

      Although the whale's part in the novel is brief, it is deeply significant to the underlying messages of the novel and demonstrates beautifully and briefly the ideas that Adams wishes to get across. The whale is confusion. The whale is futility. The whale is inevitable. The whale is dead.