Previous
Karellen
Jan is Maia’s brother and Rupert’s brother-in-law. Jan, a true scientist, represents the humanistic spirit of science and discovery. While much of humanity has lost its interest in adventure or new frontiers, Jan is determined to bring humanity to the stars. He dreams of exploring the vastness of space and he yearns to expand human knowledge and capabilities. Because of this, he is frustrated by the Overlords’ prohibition on human space exploration and their refusal to share any knowledge about themselves or where they came from. After learning the location of the Overlord homeworld from Rupert’s Ouija board, this frustration leads Jan to hatch a scheme with Professor Sullivan to stow away in an Overlord ship and go to the Overlords’ planet, hiding himself in the body cavity of a stuffed whale. Jan’s caper is successful, but he is somewhat underwhelmed by what he sees. Though he fulfills his lifelong dream of seeing an alien planet, it is all so foreign and utterly unintelligible that he realizes that the Overlords’ prohibition was for good reason: human beings simply are not ready to participate in galactic society. His curiosity satisfied, Jan returns to Earth to find that the last adult human beings have died, and that the remaining children are awaiting the Overmind’s imminent arrival. Jan becomes the last man on Earth. Rather than fighting against this knowledge or being overwhelmed with grief, Jan resigns himself to the inevitable, seeing it as fate, the next step in human development. Jan dies with the planet Earth. In this way, though he initially embodies the humanistic spirit classic to science fiction, he ultimately subverts it by accepting fate and the limitations of humanity.
Jan Rodricks Quotes in Childhood’s End
The Childhood’s End quotes below are all either spoken by Jan Rodricks or refer to Jan Rodricks. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was a much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords had abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
“It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
The universe was vast, but that fact terrified him less than its mystery. George was not a person who thought deeply on such matters, yet it sometimes seemed to him that men were like children amusing themselves in some secluded playground, protected from the fierce realities of the outer world.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23
Quotes
“And do you not resent being used as a tool by the Overmind?”
“The arrangement has some advantages: besides, no one of intelligence resists the inevitable.”
That proposition, Jan reflected wryly, had never been fully accepted by mankind.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Childhood’s End LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jan Rodricks Quotes in Childhood’s End
The Childhood’s End quotes below are all either spoken by Jan Rodricks or refer to Jan Rodricks. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was a much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords had abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14
Quotes
“It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.”
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
The universe was vast, but that fact terrified him less than its mystery. George was not a person who thought deeply on such matters, yet it sometimes seemed to him that men were like children amusing themselves in some secluded playground, protected from the fierce realities of the outer world.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23
Quotes
“And do you not resent being used as a tool by the Overmind?”
“The arrangement has some advantages: besides, no one of intelligence resists the inevitable.”
That proposition, Jan reflected wryly, had never been fully accepted by mankind.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
