Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Childhood’s End, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Mysticism
Benevolent Dictatorship and Freedom
Utopia and Creative Apathy
Individuality, Globalization, and Progress
The Fate of Humanity
Summary
Analysis
Jan is visiting with Rupert, admiring the elephant he has just hunted. He has had it taxidermized as a specimen for the Overlords to send back to their homeworld museums. Rupert has sent many of these animals. Jan asks Rupert if he thinks that the Overlords would accept a living specimen of a human to take back with them. Rupert laughs and offers to ask Rashaverak, but Jan declines.
Although it is asked half-jokingly, Jan’s question about a human specimen lightly foreshadows his future experience on the Overlords’ planet (described later in the story)—several Overlord scientists spend days running tests on him, interrogating him, and quizzing him about various human artifacts; he becomes a human specimen for study.
Themes
Jan asks Rupert if he ever learned what Rashaverak was looking for in Rupert’s library of the paranormal, since it seemed odd that the Overlords should take interest in the “occult.” Rupert tells him that, as anthropologists, the Overlords merely wanted to study all aspects of human culture. Jan is not convinced that that is the true reason, but he hides his suspicion.
Jan’s suspicion of the Overlords’ interest in the paranormal is quite ironic: he himself has gathered his own data from a paranormal event and crossed the world to investigate it.
Themes
Rupert tells Jan about the animals that Professor Sullivan, a marine scientist and personal friend of Rupert’s, is preparing to send: a sperm whale and a giant squid in combat, the biggest creatures ever sent. Jan inquires how the delivery is made, and Rupert explains that it will be as simple as an Overlord ship landing, opening its hatch, and bringing the display aboard.
This is the introduction of Professor Sullivan, who is similar to Jan in his humanism and idealism. It is ironic that these two characters, both of whom represent a certain defiance of utopia, are brought together by Rupert, who seems to epitomize the perils of utopia in his shallowness and ignorance.
Themes
Jan goes by submarine to visit Professor Sullivan in his laboratory deep in the Pacific Ocean where he does research and explores. When they reach the undersea buildings, he sees a giant squid named Lucifer latched onto the landing bay. Jan meets Professor Sullivan in his workshop. They chat briefly about Rupert, their mutual connection, and Sullivan pontificates about how the deepest parts of the ocean are as mysterious and unexplored as outer space.
Sullivan, like Jan, is one of the few true scientists left on Earth after the utopian conditions had dulled humanity’s scientific interests. Sullivan is an explorer of the last unknown frontier on Earth: the deep sea. With humanity lacking any other new frontiers, it is curious that no other scientists had joined Sullivan to plumb the unknown depths of the ocean.
Themes
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Jan cautiously brings up the request he has come to make of Sullivan, beginning by asking him what he would do if the Overlords had barred him from the ocean, but he saw an opportunity to explore it anyway. Sullivan says he would defy the Overlords without hesitation. As Jan leans forward, preparing to make his request in full, Sullivan figures out why Jan has come to him and encourages him to make his argument.
Jan and Sullivan are kindred spirits. As scientists and achievers, both of them are not satisfied with the easy trappings of utopia and press ever further away from it; for Sullivan, that is into the ocean, and for Jan, it will soon be revealed, that is into space.
Themes
