In much of Clarke’s other writing, as well as the majority of science fiction written in his era, there is a humanistic optimism, a conviction that through science, technology, and determination, humanity can reach the stars. With the possibility of space travel approaching more rapidly than any dare dream (Clarke himself admitted to being blown away by how quickly the first humans landed on the moon) the possibilities seemed endless. Mankind would soon be pioneering new planets, and human progress would march onwards, unstoppable. Childhood’s End subverts that idea and poses an alternative outcome of the future. Through the character of the bold young scientist, Jan Rodricks, Clarke sets up the typical humanistic optimism and certainty that man is destined to live amongst the stars, and then flips it on its head. In its place, he leaves readers with a contemplative question: What if the inevitable future is not progress, but ruin? What if progress ends, and humanity discovers that “the stars are not for man”?
Jan functions as a symbol of the humanistic faith that science and technology will lead mankind to the future, to the stars. While most of humanity is content to simply live in the utopia that the Overlords have initiated—happy, if not a little bored—Jan maintains the spirit that seems to have been sapped from the masses, and is a prime example of a true scientist. He bravely defies the prohibition that the Overlords have put on human excursions into space, including their admonition that, “The stars are not for man.” Jan succeeds in his quest to venture into space, stowing away on an Overlord vessel and visiting their home world. He is the first and only human to see another planet and is tutored by an Overlord about their world and culture. As a human scientist, he has achieved the high ideals of “discovering” another world and meeting a new culture.
However, it does not take long for Jan to realize that the Overlords were right: the stars are not for man. He subverts the expectation of a scientist discovering a new world by essentially surrendering his ambitions, admitting that human progress perhaps has met its limit. Despite his optimism and ambition for knowledge and discovery, Rodricks is left with the conviction that the universe is too vast and overwhelmingly complex for humanity to participate in. There is no home for human beings amidst the solar systems and they would be better off remaining on their own insignificant planet and following fate where it may lead. He soon finds out that this means annihilation. Rather than fighting the coming destruction of Earth and the majority of its people, Jan recognizes it as an inevitability in the workings of the universe, the next step in the development of the human race through the transcendence of its children into the universal consciousness. Rather than leading the charge of human civilization into the stars, he makes peace with its end and becomes the final witness of its death.
Through the subversive character of Jan Rodricks, Clarke invites the reader to consider the possibility that the future will not meet current expectations, that progress will not march onward forever but perhaps be halted, and that the development of humanity will not follow a path that they would have wished for.
Clarke himself was optimistic about the future possibilities of science and space travel, saying, “I am an optimist. Anyone interested in the future has to be otherwise he would simply shoot himself.” And it should be noted that he clarifies in his preface to Childhood’s End that he certainly did believe humanity had a future to discover in space. Even so, in a story that needs a humanistic hero, a character to carry forth scientific progress and discovery, he deliberately sets up Jan Rodrick to fill the role and then turns him aside. The novel, this time around, suggests that perhaps it will not all work out so well in the end for humanity.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Fate of Humanity ThemeTracker
The Fate of Humanity Quotes in Childhood’s End
He felt no regrets as the work of a lifetime was swept away. He had labored to take man to the stars, and now the stars—the aloof, indifferent stars—had come to him.
“I can understand your fear that the traditions and cultures of little countries will be overwhelmed when the world state arrives. But you are wrong: it is useless to cling to the past. Even before the Overlords came to Earth, the sovereign state was dying. They have merely hastened its end.”
Man was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. It was a much fairer, but a much smaller, planet than it had been a century before. When the Overlords had abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure.
The human race continued to bask in the long, cloudless summer afternoon of peace and prosperity. Would there ever be a winter again? It was unthinkable. The age of reason, prematurely welcomed by the leaders of the French Revolution two and a half centuries before, had now really arrived. This time, there was no mistake.
Yet among all the distractions and diversions of a planet which now seemed well on the way to becoming one vast playground, there were some who still found time to repeat an ancient and never-answered question:
“Where do we go from here?”
“It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.”
The universe was vast, but that fact terrified him less than its mystery. George was not a person who thought deeply on such matters, yet it sometimes seemed to him that men were like children amusing themselves in some secluded playground, protected from the fierce realities of the outer world.
Twenty years ago, the Overlords had announced that they had discontinued all use of their surveillance devices, so that humanity no longer need consider itself spied upon. However, the fact that such devices still existed meant that nothing could be hidden form the Overlords if they really wanted to see it.
This was a thought that had never occurred to [George]. He had subconsciously assumed that the Overlords possessed all knowledge and all power—that they understood, and were probably responsible for, the things that had been happening to Jeff.
In the space of a few days, humanity had lost its future, for the heart of any race is destroyed, and its will to survive is utterly broken, when its children are taken from it.
“All of our sojourn here has been based on a vast deception, a concealment of truths which you were not ready to face.”
It was thus with [New] Athens. The island had been born in fire; in fire it chose to die. Those who wished to leave did so, but most remained, to meet the end among the broken fragments of their dreams.
“And do you not resent being used as a tool by the Overmind?”
“The arrangement has some advantages: besides, no one of intelligence resists the inevitable.”
That proposition, Jan reflected wryly, had never been fully accepted by mankind.
For all their achievements, thought Karellen, for all their mastery of the physical universe, his people were no better than a tribe that has passed its whole existence upon some flat and dusty plain. Far off were the mountains, where power and beauty dwelt […] And they could only watch and wonder; they could never scale those heights.
