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. …show more content…
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
Although modern science has allowed us to develop many complex medicines, laughter is still the strongest one available in the real world and in the book. Laughter proves to be a strong medicine in more ways than one and is completely free, allowing anyone to use it at anytime. It allows us to connect socially with people, it can be used as a way of overthrowing power, and it is good for your health. As Randle McMurphy showed in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, laughter can lighten the mood in the darkest situations.
The authors, Sally Ride & Tam O'Shaughnessy, wrote an expository text , The Mystery of Mars. In the text we learned about the atmosphere’s thin air, the martian soil, and the landing of the spacecrafts.
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, McMurphy often uses the power of laughter to overcome what is going on in the world around him. Laughter lightens the feeling in the book, and at times gives it a warmer feeling. It also helps develop, and shape the characters throughout the entire story.
Mark Watney faces many challenges when a freak storm hits unexpectedly and forces his crew members of Ares 3 to evacuate Mars without him. He must fend for himself by growing potatoes in Martian soil, rationing his food to last as long as possible, and of course, doing what everyone thought impossible, surviving on the Red Planet. By doing these things, Mark Watney displays traits such as intelligence, bravery, and resourcefulness that many small business owners and entrepreneurs can only dream of or work hard to develop. Watney is a very intelligent individual in ‘The Martian’ by Ridley Scott, proving time and time again that being well-rounded is a substantive thing in today’s ever-changing world. Watney exhibits his intelligence and talents profusely by mixing soil from Earth, his own feces, and Martian soil to grow enough potatoes to last until the next Ares mission to Mars.
One example is when his main character, Mark Watney, realizes ‘kilowatt-hours per sol’ is a pain to say: “I’m gonna invent a new scientific unit name. One kilowatt-hour per sol is… it can be anything… um… I suck at this… I’ll call it a “pirate-ninja’” (Watney 230). He conserves pirate-ninjas by doing various things. Another time Weir uses humor is when Mark tells the reader he is stuck on Mars: “The Hab [a house-like place where he lives on Mars] was intact (yay!) and the MAV [Mars Ascension Vehicle] was gone (boo!)” (Weir 6). The MAV is gone, so Mark cannot get back if Hermes [Hermes is the spacecraft that the rest of his crew is in] turns around. Humor is a big element that makes reading The Martian more
Humans naturally feel isolated, closed off from the world at times of their life. During such times, isolation cause humans to transform, experiencing personality or attitude changes, usually for the worst. This however is a novelty, compared to the what the botanist Mark Watney, part of the Ares 3 Mars Missions, underwent when he was abandoned on Mars, 50 million kilometers away from the nest human, after experiencing a dangerous sand storm in The Martian by Andy Weir. When the Hab, an area where astronauts can roam freely without the aide of a suit and Mark Watney’s only sanctuary, exploded, Watney lost his ability to communicate with NASA, the only entity that could talk to him and he lost all hope of survival, causing him to have to adapt
Humor is the first thing you begin to notice take place throughout his story, which makes the reader feel unquestionably embarrassed for him. From the first sentence, he says when he is
This is it. He’s coming to kill me. He’s coming to beat me. You feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins, sweat in your palms, time slows down, yet you feel like it’s not enough, in a time as stressful as this, what would you be willing to sacrifice to get yourself to safety? The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is a 1950’s sci-fi short story collection that chronicles the colonization of mars. The story makes many accurate illustrations on how various factors of the American lifestyle will bring havoc and destruction to society. Fear leads to pressured responses and erratic actions, and Bradbury predicts how these fearful responses will degrade society; this is supported by our world today.
Andy Weir's book, The Martian, is laced with conflict, both external and internal. From the beginning of the book, Weir shocks the reader with the dramatic opening of "I'm pretty screwed." This is the reader's first glimpse that there is conflict between natures bloodthirsty determination to kill the book's main character Mark Watney, an astronaut, botanist and an engineer, and Mark's desire to survive against all odds. In his daily logs Mark narrates his deathly encounters and near-death experiences with nature. Mark's logs record every event in which nature strives to get the best of him and yet he is able to keep his sense of humor throughout. In one of his logs Mark humorously states " I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very
Everyone has a hope, a dream, or a plan. The characters in The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury, are no exception. The hopes, dreams, and plans these different characters have unite each of the short stories in this classic American novel. Everyone and everything no matter what age, gender, race, or species have a goal in life that they strive to achieve. There are examples of this reoccurring theme throughout the short stories in the book: a dream of happiness for a Martian in “Ylla,” a plan to terrorize in “Usher II,” and a hope of a fresh start in “The Million-Year Picnic.”
Even thirty days later, “he had never glanced back” (p. 76) to think about any negative impact. A little while later, after a substantial amount of rain, he awoke to thousands of trees and an abundant amount of oxygen. Doctors on the planet suggested, before he planted the trees as a solution, that he return to Earth but he was adamant that he stay there. He went directly to the Director of Mars, not the Martians that have lived there for many years, to see if he could plant trees on Mars. There are not any trees on Mars and there probably is a reason for that
In the earlier reading, Rich Purnell, a man who works for NASA figured out how to save Watney by using Earth’s gravity to sling shot the Hermes and Ares 3 crew back to Mars and pick up Mark by doing a flyby. In sol 211, Watney starts to take out unnecessary things in the rover for his trip to Schiaparelli, which is where he plans to meet the Ares 3 crew. In the book Watney states, “I've been in mortal danger for months; I'm kind of used to it now. But I'm nervous again. Dying would suck, but my crew mates dying would be way worse. And I won't find out how the launch went till I get to Schiaparelli. Good luck, guys.” (242, Weir). Scared, excited, worried, Watney reveals that he’s anxious something unfortunate might happen to his crew mates. But, also excited to be rescued and see his crew
Mars is the closest planet to Earth but at the same time they are completely different. Mars is a dust bowl of red dirt and is very barren from what we understand there is nothing living on Mars. The soil on Mars lacks a lot of things for something to grow like the nutrients and lack of oxygen and water. But Watney makes uses his botanist skills to overcome great odds and actually grow plants on Mars. Watney Used a mixture of ingenuity and crap to make this possible he took soil from Mars and brought it into the HAB where he was able to make the soil have nutrients which is key for growing plants. Next he placed potatoes that NASA had given the crew for a thanksgiving dinner into the soil to produce more. He then set up an irrigation system
Some people use humor to hide from their real emotions. Using humor to help get through the difficult times is a lot different than using humor to hide from them.