Crista Angelina Quintos Literary Essay 2

August 2, 2013

Ending

The novel, Childhoods End written by Arthur C. Clarke, a great scientific fiction genre writer is a good demonstration of utopia being unrealistic and passionless. The novel tells a story about human curiosity and paradise. The story begins with the overlords ship landing on Earth and Stormgren asking to see the overlord and their ship and being curios about how the overlords looked and what their purpose was for landing their ships on our planet.

I am convinced that curiosity is something that is uncontrollable and something that cannot be controlled by any living thing and curiosity literally killed the cat. This was the first time that Stormgren had ever met the head of the Freedom League. He had ceased to wonder if the action was wise, for Karellens plans were often too subtle for merely human understanding (page 5, chapter 1) Stormgren was obliviously curios and wanted to know what the Overlords would be like and how they would act around humans. But as he entered their ship Karellen was no where to be found and instead a voice from inside the ship called out his name and talked to him about the overlords and he asked him about his Freedom League.

Curiosity is something that all of the characters in the book were pegged as because all of the characters in the book seemed so interested with how the overlords would look or how the overlords planet would actually look like. In chapter 2, Stormgren was really curious to know how Karellen would look like and how Karellen would act. As the story developed and new characters were involved, the more and more curious the characters got. And the curiosity of the characters had increased.

In chapter 7, Jean and George were introduced and they were a couple that had curiosity about why one of their friends held a party and had an overlord hiding in their library and reading books about human beings and commodities that the overlords already knew. Then Arthur C. Clarke introduced another character named Jan Roderick who is very curious and wanted to know what the over lords planet looked like (Pluto) so he gets into the overlords ship and hides inside a model of a sperm whale and takes a drug that will keep him asleep for 6 months.

But based on the book we now realize that curiousity is something all human beings are born with and something that comes naturally. Curiousity is not something to be ashamed of, its something that all human beings are innate to be born with or to be like. Its normal and its okay to be curious. So next time you think your world is getting boring, as questions, stay curios.