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Childhoods End

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Freedom League rebels against the Overlords' rule ... an Armageddon and assumption of the faithful into Heaven (as the children of the ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Childhoods End


1
Childhoods End
  • Themes, Motifs and Symbols

2
THEME A central idea or statement that unifies
and controls an entire literary work.
  • Utopia
  • No utopia can make everyone happy
  • Jan Roddricks still longs to explore outer space
  • Freedom League rebels against the Overlords rule
  • With the promise of utopia comes the threat of
    boredom and complacency
  • The New Athens Colony has to be founded in order
    to perpetuate artistic and scientific achievement

3
Themes Knowledge and Adventure
  • Humans have an innate need for adventure and
    exploration
  • At the Grand Canyon Hundreds of meters down the
    shadowed slope at whose brim Karellen stood, a
    mule-train was slowly winding its way into the
    valleys depths. It was strange, Karellen
    thought, that so many human beings still seized
    every opportunity for primitive behavior. They
    could reach the bottom of the canyon in a
    fraction of the time, and in far greater comfort,
    if they chose. Yet they preferred to be jolted
    along tracks which were probably as unsafe as
    they looked. (102)

4
Themes Knowledge and Adventure
  • Some knowledge exceeds human capacity
  • Jan realizes that the stars are not for man.
  • Karellen reminds humanity that some knowledge
    exceeds our capacity.
  • The aim of all humanity is to do something better
    than anyone else, that is, to be an individual.
  • Jan and Professor Stanley both long to achieve
    something that will be remembered by posterity.
  • Even in the face of the worlds destruction, Jan
    takes pride in being the worlds best pianist.

5
Now, its your turn
  • With a partner, identify one theme from
    Childhoods End
  • Explain the theme and connect it to the text

6
MOTIF A conspicuous recurring element, such
as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or
verbal formula
  • Humans as children the Overlords are the
    caretakers and protectors of a race that is
    coming into maturity.
  • The universe was great and vast, but that fact
    terrified him less than its mystery. George was
    not a person who thought deeply on such matters,
    yet sometimes it seemed to him that men were like
    children amusing themselves in some secluded
    playground, protected from the fierce realities
    of the outer world. (150)
  • Dr. Sen to Overlord Inspector Our problem in
    bringing up these children must, I imagine, be
    very similar to yours when confronted with the
    human race. (161)

7
Motifs Christian Imagery
  • Childhood's End may be read as an allegorical
    tale, a morality play set on a science fiction
    stage.
  • The arrival of the Antichrist, or Satan (the
    Overlords)
  • the end of humanity (as it dies out after the
    Overlords' announcement of the coming of the
    Overmind)
  • an Armageddon and assumption of the faithful into
    Heaven (as the children of the last generation
    join the Overmind, destroying the Earth in the
    process)

8
Motif Collective Consciousness
  • The Overmind is that it is a kind of collective
    conscious, a being of thought and energy composed
    of the minds of millions of other beings, all
    working as a single entity.
  • As a race, all humanseven those thousands of
    years before the children of the last
    generationhave had some latent abilities of this
    sort. Ie. When Rashaverak discovers 11 clear
    cases of partial breakthrough and 27 probables.
  • This is what provides the explanation for why the
    Overlords look so similar to a Christian image of
    the Devil humans, as a collective, had a
    premonition or memory of their ultimate end, and
    they feared that end. Therefore, they made the
    Overlords into demons, an object of fear and
    evil.

9
Motifs Children are unknowable
  • Enjoy them while you may They will not be
    yours for long. It was advice that might have
    been given in any age but now it contained a
    threat and a terror it had never held before.
    (177)

10
Now, its your turn
  • With a partner, identify one motif from
    Childhoods End
  • Explain the motif and connect it to the text

11
Symbols The Overlords
  • The Overlords can be seen as ironic symbols of
    the Devil. Like the devil, the Overlords bring
    about the end of humanity. However, whereas
    Satan would have brought about much death and
    destruction before the final end, the Overlords
    bring about peace and prosperity.
  • In the end, humanity does degrade into violence
    and death, just as predicted in Revelations and
    the shepherds of this end are the Overlords.
    Whether they are evil or not is a matter of
    perspective they do the bidding of the Overmind
    and play a part in the end of humanity and the
    destruction of Earth.

12
Symbols New Athens
  • New Athens is symbolic of the inevitable decay of
    a utopian society and the uselessness of
    peacefully attempting to combat those problems.
    For all its hopes of artistic achievement, the
    New Athens colony is ultimately impotent. It is a
    symbol of the broader utopia of Earth around it.
    Both are doomed to failure.

New
13
Symbols The Overmind
  • If the Overlords represent the devil, then the
    Overmind is the closest thing there is to god.
    The way in which the children of the last
    generation are incorporated into the Overmind is
    reminiscent of Christian descriptions of the
    Rapture, when the souls of the faithful are
    called into the Divine Presence, there to remain
    for eternity as part of the Holy Trinity.
  • But, in theory, the Overmind is a thing of
    science it should be capable of being studied,
    understood, and perhaps even destroyed. By
    placing the Overmind in a science fiction novel,
    there are certain constraints on how far a
    symbolic or allegorical comparison can be taken.

14
SymbolsOverlords as British colonists
  • The Overlordsseldom left their one remaining
    ship. Perhaps they found it physically
    uncomfortable on Earth They were never seen
    without a belt adorned with complex mechanisms
    which, it was generally believed, controlled
    their weight and enabled them to communicate with
    each other. Direct sunlight was painful to them,
    and they never stayed in it for more than a few
    seconds. When they had to go into the open for
    any length of time, they wore dark glasses which
    gave them a somewhat incongruous appearance. (71)

15
Overlords as British Colonists, ctd.
  • At his party, Rupert Boyce explains the
    Overlords interest in paranormal phenomena and
    human psychology
  • Surely youd study the superstitions of any
    primitive race you were having dealings with!

16
Now, its your turn
  • With a partner, find one symbol from Childhoods
    End
  • Explain the symbol and connect it to the text
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