Comparing The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams uses his characters’ experiences to convey the importance of accepting difficult or shocking circumstances, as this allows one to truly cope with the issue. At the beginning of the novel, this idea is foreshadowed with the girl who realizes what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. Her realization and acknowledgement of a problem is quite different from the experiences of certain other characters, however. On earth, Adams describes Arthur as “never quite at ease with himself” (Adams 4). It is as if he cannot make peace with whatever is worrying him. When he is informed of the impending destruction of his house, he refuses to believe it. He reacts similarly when earth is demolished, providing a clear
contrast to Ford’s calm demeanor. Ford embraces Earth’s impending doom, and is able to handle the situation by thinking and planning. Conversely, Arthur is still somewhat in denial of the chaotic situation after they have left earth and is unable to process nearly anything else for days. As the group travels through space, Arthur still struggles to reconcile the loss of his home. He is so entirely consumed with this problem that he cannot focus on much else and he doesn't even bother to begin sorting out the rest of his life.
However, as time progresses he slowly adapts to the chaos that now surrounds him. It is clear that he finally stops resisting his plight when he pulls the improbability drive and saves everyone in the ship. He truly accepts the likelihood of his death for the first time, which allows him to throw caution to the winds like he never has before. He takes the risk no one else in the ship is able to because he knows that it isn't truly a risk when they have nothing to lose. After this brush with death, Adams makes it apparent that Arthur is no longer preoccupied with the loss of earth. He is now able to concentrate on the people and places around him and moving ahead with his life. Arthur’s acceptance of his circumstances late in the novel enabled me to realize an important message from the story and connect it to my own life.
After delving into this theme in the novel, I can see Arthur’s struggles with resistance mirrored in my own experiences. His stubborn attitude regarding the destruction of his house reminds me of myself as a stubborn 12 year old. When it was time for me to receive a tetanus shot for school, I refused to accept my fate and resorted to taping the nearest hard, flat objects to my arms before the appointment. I simply wouldn't believe that someone was going to stick a needle in me and I made quite a fool of myself in the process. My ridiculous antics were similar to Arthur’s decision to lie in the mud rather than accepting the imminent destruction of his house.
While many of the circumstances Arthur winds up in throughout the novel are not his fault, I can relate to his experiences with the trouble I have had embracing some of my own failures. His struggles remind me of an experience I had just this summer, though on a much less chaotic level. At All-State orchestra camp, I auditioned horribly and was placed 14th chair out of 16 violas. I was initially disappointed and held out some hope that the conductor would miraculously rethink the seating. However, I realized after a day or two that my hopes were futile and I wouldn't gain nearly as much from the experience if I spent the week being dejected. I was then able to accept that I wouldn't be moving anywhere, and this enabled me to focus on contributing to the orchestra and learning as much as I could. This is similar to Arthur’s release of his fears when he pulls the improbability drive. Like me, he is able to focus more on living his life the best he can afterward.
Throughout the novel, various characters find that they are only able to cope with and plan for shocking or difficult circumstances once they accept those circumstances. According to Adams, “human beings are great adapters” (12). While this proves to be true at the end of the novel, one human certainly struggles with adaptation initially. When Arthur learns of the plans to destroy his house, he stubbornly refuses to allow it, rather than conceding to the unavoidable problem. It becomes his “accepted role to lie squelching in the mud” as the only thing he accepts is his own resistance (12). His efforts only earn him the loss of his house, though this quickly becomes the least of his worries. While Ford goes around informing others “perfectly factually” of earth’s impending annihilation, Arthur is still unable to come to terms with his house being destroyed, let alone his planet. Even once they leave earth, he can't seem to get past his shock and denial of this turn of events. With his mind stuck on the loss of his home planet, Arthur gripes that Ford hasn't “even had [his] planet demolished today” (69). For Arthur, “this is still just the culture shock” of being somewhere he never dreamed of and he hasn't yet “settled into the situation” (69). Later, both Arthur and Ford fail to adapt to a surprising and unfortunate twist in their circumstances. When they are thrown from the Vogon ship, neither of them has time to truly accept that situation, and they simply resist until the last second. Of course, this strategy nearly results in both their deaths.
However, as they travel with Zaphod and Trillian, Arthur slowly begins to adapt to the unpredictable circumstances he now finds himself in. Soon, his mind is “beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with” (123). It becomes clear that he has grown to accept the loss of his home and his seemingly imminent death when the ship is about to be attacked by missiles. He calmly states that they “are quite definitely going to die” (130). It is as though a switch has been flipped in his head when he questions whether “that [matters] at this stage” (130). At this point, he truly lets go of all his fears of death and the small, futile hope he still had to return home. He pulls the improbability drive when he knows that he will certainly die if he doesn't, so there is nothing for him to risk.
After they miraculously make it out alive, he is forced to confront the state of his own life. Without the destruction of earth to dominate his thoughts, he finds that “the thing that [stings] most is his mind” (139). He must now figure out how to continue his life in a way that makes some sense in such an unfamiliar setting. Arthur quickly finds that he is “having tremendous difficulty with [his] lifestyle”, as everything he knew to be true about his life was left on earth (194). However, he is now able to reminisce about earth without feeling lost or bitter. He fondly recalls that “it was a beautiful place...[with] great wide rolling blue oceans” (149). He now remembers earth as the home it once was for him, but he understands that it will never be home for him again. After the experience with the improbability drive, Adams makes it clear that Arthur has accepted his loss and begun to move past it.
The novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams has helped me to understand the necessity of accepting whatever unfortunate situation I may find myself in, in order to move forward.
Like everyone, characters in this novel struggle with the various misfortunes life hands them. Arthur’s initial instinct to resist his problems can be found in many of us. I now view some of the difficult situations I have been in differently after reading about the experiences of Arthur and Ford. In the past, my especially stubborn nature has led me to simply resist whatever problem I was faced with until I was forced to acknowledge it. Reading about Arthur’s long journey to accepting the loss of his home has provided me with guidance for whatever circumstances I may have to deal with in the future. I can now see how my problems could have been a great deal more bearable had I been able to accept and cope with them. Like Arthur and many others, I have spent a great deal of time and energy on the futile determination that resisting my problems could make them disappear. This instinct to resist is part of my nature, and analyzing this novel has helped me to recognize that in my past experiences and plan for the
future.