There has been a great growth in the importance and presence of entertainment in our daily lives and of course, with such a large demand, there is also had a great offering of content ranging from books to movies, comics and many more. Science fiction (or science fiction) is one of the fastest growing genres in this century, gathering many fans and ardent researchers of the genre, exploring many different topics, since the wars , space exploration, simple survival and even the detective genre. With one of its main features being high-tech computers, advanced science and many fantastic scientific explanations with no basis in real life, it is able to capture the interest of many different people as a fantasy space, a place in which real life does not occur. The question and the events of this world are all that matters at the moment. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay A very common theme explored in science fiction, ironically enough, has nothing to do with science but with sociology, so much so that an article was published on using science fiction as an introduction to sociology and critical thinking. The article focuses on how, being able to think about real "fictional" problems, the student may be able to develop a more skeptical questioning stance than that of real life, because they see the problem from a point of view different from that of his personal prejudices towards his own society and status quo. It's quite easy to notice that most science fiction plots are driven by some sort of social questioning, whether in the famous Star Wars franchise (1977) or in this case, in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Douglas. Adams. He was one of the most influential science fiction writers of recent decades, inspiring many people even after his death with his series of books, which contained various satirical remarks and questions about our society, morals and values. What makes his work truly interesting and perhaps why it has touched so many people is his ability to speak not only to the struggles of society, but also to our struggles for existence, anxiety and fears that lurk deep within our consciousness, resonating even with many people. Today. In one of the first lines of the book we find the assertion that the human population was unhappy and was trying to solve their problem by passing around "[...] little pieces of green paper, which is strange because in The whole thing was it wasn't the little green pieces of paper that were unhappy. In the book, Adams trivializes and satirizes big issues using absurdity and humor. At the beginning of the book, the Earth explodes and Arthur Dent, the main character, is the only human able to escape the total destruction of the planet alive by hitching a ride on a spaceship with one of his alien friends. During this escape sequence, before the Earth explodes, the Vogons (alien race) explain that it's not their fault and that people shouldn't complain, because the planet was being destroyed. 'to be demolished to make way for an intergalactic highway and the papers for construction were available. for a long time, demanding that the planet move away to another place before it explodes. The way in which a significant event such as the explosion of the planet is explained by a processbureaucratic construction of a highway creates two distinct feelings in the reader, one of them being the humor projected in such an absurd scenario reduced to paperwork and the other being a feeling of humor. feeling of dread that the same thing could just as easily be happening on a smaller scale on our planet right now and that corporations will do whatever they are paid to do and have the "legal" paperwork to do it. Following these events, Arthur Dent embarks on a myriad of different adventures across numerous planets and galaxies, each more absurd than the last. But as we readers experience Arthur's point of view most of the time, we are also made to feel his extreme anxiety and fear throughout the series. While most other characters focus primarily on politics or the inner workings of what awaits him, Arthur usually only thinks about how to do nothing to change the state of things, because of the shock initial loss of his home planet. he avoids every possible situation, usually returning to his main scapegoat who thinks he's having a nice cup of tea. His anxiety comes from the opening of possibilities that have come to his life and the fear of what doing or not doing any of them might affect his life even more. (On one occasion, after learning that Earth was actually a giant biocomputer that was used to calculate the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything else, Arthur explains that he always had the feeling that he was part of something bigger, that there was always a piece missing from life, thinking he finally understood what that feeling was, only to The maker of the planet must correct the fact that he s This is a perfectly correct paranoia and that every form of thinking life in the universe has the same feeling, as to why the Earth was built in the first place, leading us on a roller coaster of emotions from of the feeling as an answer. I learned very quickly that this feeling is not exclusive to us and that everyone is equally vulnerable and unable to do anything to change it. Humanity's attitude towards alien species is that we are somehow inferior to them and could easily cope. dominated or invaded easily if they wanted, completely mastering us. This happens in a scene where Zaphod (the ship's captain) comes up with the idea of ​​replacing Arthur's brain with an electronic one. “'Yeah,' said Zaphod with a sudden evil smile, 'you'd just have to program it to say What? And I don't understand and where is the tea? – who would know the difference?'" Arthur, by this point, had already been humiliated several times during the journey, but he is barely shaken by the assertion that humans are considered as simple as building machines In another part of the book, Arthur is genuinely offended that the description of Earth in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy only reads "Pretty harmless", feeling small and diminished than his entire planet, its culture and its millions. years of evolution have been reduced to just two simple words actually showing how much we derive the notion of value or importance from the approval of others, Arthur is quite shaken by this statement, feeling. again small and insignificant on the scale of the universe As Adams once wrote, the idea for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy came from a trip he took alone to. Paris, carrying only a copy of the hitchhiker's guide to Paris. It suffered greatly from outdated information andnoticed that this was only one person's perspective of experience of the place, and that no one could really experience and know everything, thus being a fairly superficial representation of what the place was like. to offer. very clear in the mostly harmless description of Earth. Not only does the book play with our anxieties and fears, but it also asks questions about our moral values, how we were raised to think about things, and the status quo of the lives we lead. perceive around us. Arthur and his friend are in a space restaurant, when they are asked if they would like to meet the dish of the day, followed quite quickly by the entrance of a large talking bovine species, happily offering portions of his body as well as meal suggestions. Arthur is taken aback by the whole situation, uncomfortable eating a living being who could speak to him as an equal and who wanted to be eaten, so he orders a green salad, to which the large bovine is not happy. 'agreement. After explaining that many plant species raised concerns about eating them, his species was developed so that it could clearly express its desire to be eaten and no one would feel bad, before leaving to commit suicide, the bovine makes a snide remark about being very humane towards Arthur. Here Arthur finds himself caught in a complex situation, his values ​​basically dictate that we should not eat those we consider equal, but faced with the fact that he prefers to eat living beings that he cannot understand and that he doesn't want to be eaten, then eating the one who could clearly tell, Arthur panics and decides it's best not to think about it, only asking for a water. At that moment Arthur decides not to disrupt his perception of the status quo of how food is supposed to work, even after being confronted with the whole situation he prefers not to think about it, protecting himself from anxiety that came with this new knowledge and the impact it would have on his life. The character of Zaphod also makes the reader question free will and what it means to make a decision. As the story progresses, he learns that his memories were erased by someone and later learns that someone is himself. Not knowing why he did this to himself, he is in a constant state of doubt, in which every time he makes a decision, he does not know if he really wants it or if it is an idea implanted in him. him by himself before the event. mental operation, causing him to question his own will and how much of it was under his control and what was not. Using absurdism once again, Adams is able to infer the idea that some of our actions are not under our complete control, but under the control of another part of ourselves, such as impulsive actions or thoughts that cannot be explained, they seem almost foreign. , but they come from within ourselves, a metaphor for our subconscious and the conscious mind's constant struggle to understand what the deepest layers of our consciousness are trying to tell us. Another example of this can be found in another of Adam's works titled Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) where, after being hypnotized by Dirk Gently, Richard questions his free will the night he is impulsively set up by his girlfriend's window, only later. to learn that he was possessed by a ghost, who was using him to send a message. This lack of understanding and therefore fear of the subconscious is present in all of his works, it resonated with people at the book launch and it still resonates.