Full title: English Summer Reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- "One Man's Trash is Another's Treasure"
One theme in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that while the Earth is
important to us, it means nothing to alien civilizations. The prologue introduces the Earth as
insignificant. It is destroyed by the Vogons to make way for a hyperspace overpass. When Arthur
mentions its destruction at a party, it is treated casually. In Adams' novel, there are hundreds of
The prologue of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy introduces the theme by stating, "Far out
in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies
a small unregarded yellow sun" (Adams 5), referring to our sun. The Earth is even less important:
"Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-
green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital
watches are a pretty neat idea" (Adams 5). The novel begins with an open statement of a main
The Vogons' destruction of the Earth without much notice so that a hyperspace overpass
could be built shows that no one really cares about it. When someone complains, they reply that the
demolition has been on file for over a decade only four light-years away at Alpha Centauri. They do
not care if the earthlings are able to travel there to see the records, acting like they are just too lazy.
Even the galactic administration does not care if millions of humans are vaporized if it lets them
build their overpass. Humans are the only life form in the galaxy that take the Earth's destruction
When Arthur mentions at the never-ending party that his planet was destroyed by Vogons,
other guests treat the matter lightly. One would expect the
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