Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Essay

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While reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, there is a whirlwind of ideas that are thrown your way. Adams introduces Arthur Dent, who is an average 30 year old man in England that is about to get his house destroyed in order to build a bypass; however, the next day the Earth explodes. Dent is blown off the Earth and travels through space with numerous unique characters. Despite being a science fiction book with an alternate universe where the Earth explodes, the characters hold a goofy and light hearted attitude towards the array of negative events that take place. Adams utilizes numerous literary elements in the novel such as, tone, the theme of absurdity, and satire.
Like many other science fiction novels there is a particular tone, whether it is serious or comical. The Hitchhiker’s Guide …show more content…

Adams was an open book about his beliefs toward religion throughout his life. Specifically in the guide read by the characters, there is a fish that must be used in order for the other individuals in space to communicate. At the end of the lengthy explanation of the use and reasons for the Babel Fish, God speaks. God says that he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself to people that he exists, but the Man counters God with a logical response, which leaves God to “promptly vanishes in a puff of logic” (59). By the Babel Fish existing, it proves that God also does not exist. This is Adams’ way of taunting those who believe the in the idea of religion. While he jabs at religion, Adams also ridiculed a bureaucratic government. He creates a creature that is grotesque with human-like features. They are notable for their bureaucratic ways of ruling the intergalactic world. The way that Adams’ describes them is a satirical way of jabbing at the bureaucracy in England. There were many factors that led the guide to be written this

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