2001 A Space Odyssey

Millions of sunrises ago, before the invention of the telephone, before the fall of the Roman Empire, long before the first civilization emerged, humans were able to survive because they had the instinct to hunt, like all other animals that could eat meat. Later on, humans would develop tools such as the lever and the wheel that would make their lives easier. The new technology would then be taught to their offspring. This has been the widely accepted view on the ascent of Man. Thousand of centuries later, it can be said that the two-legged creature is the highest form of life in the universe. After all, according to the theory of evolution, humans, a descendent of apes, now have space stations and solar powered cars. What other form of life could have achieved such things? In his book, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, expresses a different view. He believes that Man is not the epitome of life in the universe – that a higher being helped Man evolve and will continue to help him in times of need.

Man started out as a starving species that lacked memory and hunting skills. The arrival of a crystal monolith changed everything. Moon-Watcher was the first to have contact with the slab.

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It’s sitting on a wide platform of the same black material, with undisturbed rock beneath it. Star Child would return to Earth during a time of nuclear war to help Man evolve again so he would not kill himself. What its purpose was remained a mystery to the scientists on the moon. There was, after all, nothing in the least alarming about it.

Not only Man himself, but most of the animals now alive on Earth, did not even exist when this black enigma was so carefully buried here, in the most brilliant and most spectacular of all the craters of the Moon. He had almost forgotten the terrors of the night, because nothing had happened after that initial noise, so he did not even associate this strange thing with danger or with fear. “At first,” he explained, “I rather hope it might mark the site of some underground structure, but our latest excavations have eliminated that. ” (Clarke 69)

This discovery lead to the unsettling possibility of other, higher, forms of life in the universe. Imagine the terror felt by a race that, for centuries, had been convinced that it was the only form of intelligent life in the universe, when suddenly something as monumental as the monolith appeared from nowhere. face to face with the New Rock when he led the tribe down to the river in the first light of morning.

It was a rectangular slab, three times his height but narrow enough to span with his arms, and it was made of some completely transparent material; indeed, it was not easy to see except when the rising sun glinted on its edges. Armed with this information, the US launched the shuttle Discovery with the ultimate destination of Japetus. This likeliness contrived by the higher beings was to help Bowman feel comfortable before the big change; the big change where Bowman would become a Star Child, a baby of all mind. Even though the existence of Man depended on a higher form of life, Clarke still admits that humans did very well for themselves once they gained a memory and the ability to hunt.

Approximate Word count = 1097
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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