2001: A Space Odyssey

“When the first faint glow of dawn crept into the cave Moon-Watcher saw that his father had died in the night. He did not know that the Old One was his father, for such a relationship was utterly beyond his understanding, but as he looked at the emaciated body he felt a dim disquiet that was the ancestor of sadness.”

This passage uses light as a metaphor for change and development. The dawning day echoes the hints of the evolution of intelligent life, including the idea that Moon-Watcher is experiencing a feeling that is “the ancestor of sadness.” This description creates distance and proximity in readers’ relationship to Moon-Watcher; he is not human and can’t comprehend the idea of family relationships, but he is humanity’s “ancestor.”

“Over the valley, a full moon was rising, and a chill wind was blowing down from the distant mountains. It would be very cold tonight—but cold, like hunger, was not a matter for any real concern; it was merely part of the background of life.”

The Moon is a key image that ties together this novel; it stands for many things, not least for striving beyond immediate circumstances and seeking knowledge. The prospect of manned Moon missions was looming when this novel was written, giving the Moon connotations of exploration and human accomplishment. Here it signals a cold night and a harsh environment that limits the “man-apes.” This juxtaposition creates tension between past and future, implying the prospect of development.

“It was a rectangular slab, three times his height but narrow enough to span with his arms, and it was made of some completely transparent material; indeed, it was not easy to see except when the rising sun glinted on its edges. As Moon-Watcher had never encountered ice, or even crystal-clear water, there was no natural object to which he could compare this apparition.”

The first description of the first slab already connects it to the play of light and to geometrical structures—images that will develop throughout the novel, cumulatively creating an association between light/enlightenment and geometries beyond the confines of humanity’s own dimension. Readers experience this object through Moon-Watcher’s eyes, rendering it all the more incomprehensible and awe-inspiring.

“First it lost its transparency, and became suffused with a pale, milky luminescence. Tantalising, ill-defined phantoms moved across the surface and in its depth. They coalesced into bars of light and shadow, then formed intermeshing spoked patterns that began to slowly rotate.”

This description of the first monolith becoming active combines organic and mathematical vocabulary—“milky luminescence” and “intermeshing spoked patterns.” The juxtaposition creates an impression of something strange and almost oxymoronic. This description is not static but full of active language; this object acts on its environment, and the people who see it are “tantalized.”

“They could never guess that their minds were being probed, their bodies mapped, their reactions studied, their potentials evaluated.”

The monolith studies the “man-apes” as they gather around it. This introduces the idea of noncorporeal (or at least nonorganic) intelligence, an idea that will recur throughout the book. The use of passive voice hints at the unknowability of this intelligence; Clarke does not specify what entity is completing the action, and the “man-apes” “could never guess” that the actions are taking place at all.

“He was looking at a peaceful family group differing from the scenes he knew. The male, female and two infants that had mysteriously appeared before him were gorged and replete, with sleek and glossy pelts—and this was a condition of life that Moon-Watcher had never imagined. Unconsciously, he felt his own protruding ribs.”

Moon-Watcher’s horizons are broadened by the slab, which shows him scenes that he had “never imagined.” This scene has a rich, sensory dimension via vocabulary such as “gorged,” “sleek,” and “glossy.” The alliteration and assonance in this list deepen this effect by calling attention to the sound and shaping of the words.

“It was a heavy, pointed stone about six inches long, and though it did not fit his hand perfectly, it would do. As he swung his hand around, puzzled by its suddenly increased weight, he felt a pleasing sense of power and authority. He started to move towards the nearest pig.”

This is the moment when Moon-Watcher is inspired to find a tool on the ground—the first act of violence that the monolith inspires and one that establishes Violence and Technology Fueling Development. His actions are spontaneous and surprising even to himself. The short, stark sentence with which this passage ends is ominous and decisive, emphasizing that this is a turning point in humanity’s history.

“The tools they had been programmed to use were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-apes its masters.”

“Tools” in 2001: A Space Odyssey are almost exclusively weapons. They are a source of power and agency. The use of the term “programmed” is revealing, as it evokes computers and artificial intelligence. This suggests a parallel with Hal’s intelligence, which is first “programmed” but then evolves on its own terms.

“The man-apes had been given their first chance. There would be no second one; the future was, very literally, in their own hands.”

This image places tools at the center of human development. The pun with which this extract concludes—that the future is “in the hands” of the “man-apes”—gives the use of tools (specifically weapons) connotations of agency and control.

“For a few seconds Moon-Watcher stood uncertainly above his new victim, trying to grasp the strange and wonderful fact that the dead leopard could kill again. Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”

This passage contains the final sentences of Part 1 and foreshadows future violence: A “man-ape” commits the first murder and contemplates a future in which he is “master.” The line “But he would think of something” is significant not only for the mystery it introduces, but also because it recurs as the final line of the novel, weaving Moon-Watcher’s evolutionary step together with that of the Star Child.

“No matter how many times you left Earth, Dr. Heywood Floyd told himself, the excitement never really palled.”

Clarke introduces the modern world and Floyd through this line, establishing a context in which space travel is routine. The action begins in medias res, with Floyd already on his way to catch his space flight. This immediacy creates a sense of movement that will characterize this part of the novel, which considers travel in parallel with technological progress.

“‘Dr. Floyd? I’m Jim Forster of Associated News. Could you give us a few words about this flight of yours?’

‘I’m very sorry—I can’t say anything.’

‘But you did meet with the President earlier this evening?’ asked a familiar voice.

‘Oh—hello, Mike. I’m afraid you’ve been dragged out of bed for nothing. Definitely no comment.’”

This is the first dialogue in the novel, and it is markedly uncommunicative. This is significant, as the novel concerns communication and miscommunication between different kinds of intelligence. In this passage, no one says what they mean as they talk around the secret at the heart of the novel: the existence and nature of the monoliths.

“With the need for international co-operation more urgent than ever, there were still as many frontiers as in any earlier age. In a million years the human race had lost few of its aggressive instincts; along symbolic lines visible only to politicians, the thirty-eight nuclear powers watched each other with belligerent anxiety.”

This passage alludes explicitly to the Cold War context in which Clarke wrote this novel. It amplifies these tensions by imagining their extension into the future. The word “frontiers” is an evocative one in this novel of exploration, and the image of the borders of nation-states as “symbolic” and “[in]visible” makes these seemingly well-demarcated regions abstract and intangible.

“But Earth was waning, as the Station orbited towards the night side of the planet; in a few minutes it would be a huge black disc, spangled with the lights of cities. And then the sky would belong to the stars.”

This novel often dwells on views from windows. This example has a cinematic quality, creating a very visual picture of dramatic scenes. In this example, “huge” scale and new perspectives are emphasized in the image of the Earth “waning” and going dark.

“Floyd was particularly struck by a collection of signs, obviously assembled with loving care, which carried such messages as ‘PLEASE KEEP OFF THE GRASS,’ ‘NO PARKING ON EVEN DAYS,’ ‘DEFENSE DE FUMER, ‘TO THE BEACH,’ ‘CATTLE CROSSING,’ ‘SOFT SHOULDERS’ and ‘DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS.’”

In this extract, familiar artifacts from Earth are rendered strange on the Moon, where they become objects of nostalgia. They are collected with “loving care,” suggesting homesickness in the midst of exploration. Floyd notices them in particular among all the new technologies of the Moon base.

“Floyd stared, blinked, shook his head, and stared again. Even in the brilliant earthlight, it was hard to see the object clearly; his first impression was a flat rectangle, that might have been cut out of carbon paper; it seemed to have no thickness at all. Of course, this was an optical illusion; though he was looking at a solid body, it reflected so little light that he could see it only in silhouette.”

This extract describes Floyd’s first encounter with the second monolith, TMA-1. This momentous occasion in the plot is signaled by Floyd’s shocked and awed response as he struggles to describe the monolith. Like the first monolith, the second makes no sense to its viewers.

“Hal (for Heuristically programmed Algorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough. These seemed to occur at intervals of twenty years, and the thought that another one was now imminent already worried a great many people.”

This initial description of Hal contains the anthropomorphic transformation of his name through a loose acronym. It sets the scene for a tension that runs throughout the plot: The Threat and Promise of Artificial Intelligence, which is both familiar and unfamiliar. The parenthetical remark “no less” encapsulates this tension, undercutting the grandeur of the scientific terminology with a joke at its expense.

“The day-to-day running of the ship had been planned with great care, and—theoretically at least—Bowman and Poole knew what they would be doing at every moment of the twenty-four hours.’”

2001: A Space Odyssey is often concerned with routines, especially aboard the Discovery. A mission of apparent adventure and daring is anchored in mundane repetition. This has a function in science fiction, in which day-to-day life is unfamiliar and requires explicit explanation. It also creates a tension in which the human crewmembers become more robotic and predictable as the computer becomes more human and erratic.

“He would then have six off-duty hours, to use as he pleased […] Much of the time he would wander at will through the ship’s inexhaustible electronic library. He had becomes fascinated by the great explorers of the past.”

Bowman spends his leisure hours “in” the electronic library, which Clarke describes as though it had a spatial dimension. This frames the past as accessible, putting Bowman into direct contact with other prior explorers. It suggests that Bowman isn’t only an individual but also a representative of the human capacity to explore—a facet of his character that is also indicated in the name “Bowman,” which associates him with sailors.

“[W]hile he was briefing himself from the tapes in Hal’s memory units, he found something that suddenly brought the appalling scale of the planet into focus. It was an illustration that showed the Earth’s entire surface peeled off and then pegged, like the skin of an animal, on the disc of Jupiter.”

The novel attempts to communicate scale while also suggesting that comprehending it can be difficult (if not impossible). The image of an animal skin not only communicates the vastness of Jupiter but also recalls the time that has passed since humanity emerged. Time and space are conflated, and the beginning of the novel is recalled, rendering the roots of this moment visible.

“Over the radio link with Earth, information was flowing back in a constant stream. They were now so far from home that, even travelling at the speed of light, their signal were taking fifty minutes for the journey.”

The Discovery needs to be in constant communication with Earth to send data back, and this link is the one that Hal tries to cut to hide his guilt. Mission Control is keeping secrets and not telling Bowman and Poole the truth. The time lag in this passage emphasizes the idea of communication that is strained, imperfect, or broken. This is also another opportunity to insist on the scale of the journey being undertaken.

“Then, towed behind her at the end of the safety line, appeared a spacesuit. One glance was enough to tell Bowman the worst. There was no mistaking the flaccid outlines of a suit that had lost its pressure and was open to vacuum.”

This is the moment when Bowman watches Poole’s dead body being dragged out into space. The passage does not mention the body itself, referring to it via the metonymy of “suit.” This evasion of the terrible truth reflects Bowman’s state of mind. In what follows, Bowman continues to try to speak to Poole despite the clear evidence that he is dead.

“Impossibly, incredibly, it was no longer a monolith rearing high above a flat plain. What had seemed to be its roof had dropped away to infinite depths; for one dizzy moment, he seemed to be looking down into a vertical shaft—a rectangular duct which defied the laws of perspective, for its size did not decrease with distance…”

Not for the first time, the narrator employs free indirect discourse to channel Bowman’s amazement at what he is seeing. The alliterative listing emphasizes this sense of awe, as does the fact that the passage trails off into ellipses.