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Chapter 6
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
Despite his experience with space travel, Dr. Heywood Floyd still feels excitement and apprehension about leaving earth. He notes the massive, disorienting size of the Orion III spacecraft awaiting him and reflects with pride that the entire mission is just to take him to the moon. Reporters harass him on the way to the hangar, inquiring about an epidemic on the moon and the nature of his meeting with the U.S. President. Floyd reflects on the political “situation” on Earth: food shortages because of overpopulation, and the looming threat of nuclear war between warring nations. Boarding the ship, Floyd wonders if Earth will still be there when he returns.
Despite the incredible achievements it has made possible—most notably, space travel—technology has pushed modern humanity back to the brink of extinction. The same duality that plagued Moon-Watcher’s use of tools, in other words—power, but at the cost of violence—has persisted into the modern era, but with far greater consequences. Given technology’s initially salvific role in rescuing the man-apes from starvation, this predicament has a certain irony to it.
Themes
The ship’s sole passenger, Floyd amusedly listens to the stewardess’s routine announcements. He feels a rush of euphoria at the intense full-body experience of take-off, but then somberly remembers his three children still on Earth. The lower stage separates, and Floyd recalls a Leonardo Da Vinci quote about “The Great Bird.” Floyd slowly adjusts to the loss of gravity and change in orientation, trying not to get sick. The stewardess walks over—her feet sticking to the floor with Velcro—and asks about the rumored epidemic; her boyfriend is a geologist on the moon, and she hasn’t heard from him in a week. Floyd kindly reassures her there is no “cause for alarm.”
This vignette underscores the normalcy of space travel in the modern day. Contrasting the dramatic nature of space flight with the mundane announcements of the stewardess, the narrator shows how mundane something so extraordinary has become. This highlights the rapid pace of technological development; things that were novel only a handful of years ago have already become banal.
Themes
