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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Collaboration vs. Individualism
Tools and Human Evolution
Space Travel
The Perils of Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
Poole takes the space pod out to retrieve the AE-35 unit. Hal follows Poole’s commands, but deviates from his normal pattern of communication, and Bowman begins to have misgivings. Poole retrieves the AE-35 unit. Turning around, he sees Betty flying towards him at full thrust. He yells at Hal to brake, but the space pod hits him. Inside the ship, Bowman hears Poole’s yell over the radio. Bowman radios him but gets no response. Looking out the window, he sees Betty flying towards Saturn, dragging Poole behind it, his suit punctured. Poole seems to wave goodbye, and Bowman likens it to Captain Ahab’s beckoning his crew to their doom. Bowman reflects that Poole, though dead, will be the first man to reach Saturn.
Though not explicitly responsible for Poole’s death, the circumstances surrounding it heavily implicate Hal, from his demands that Poole replace the AE-35 unit and his increasingly abnormal communication style to the fact that he controls “Betty,” the pod responsible for killing Poole. Such ominous signs are reflected in Bowman’s allusion to Captain Ahab’s gesture at the end of Moby-Dick, beckoning the rest of the crew to their watery graves. Bowman, it would seem, fears that he too may soon be joining his crewmate in the grave.
Themes
