Name: ________________________________________ Date: ___________

English To Serve Man

Requirements: Answer the following questions using what you have read as the basis for
response.

To Serve Man

1. In “To Serve Man,” how does the author—speaking through the narrator, Peter, a
translator who works for the United Nations—describe the Kanamit?

2. What were the first two Earth-based languages the Kanamit had learned?

3. What technology have humans decided to use to verify the accuracy of what the Kanamit
are saying?

4. What do the Kanamit state are their reasons for coming to Earth?

5. What technological innovation that the Kanamit have brought to Earth is the first that is
put into widespread production?

6. What is the second piece of technology that the Kanamit share with the world; what does
it do?

7. What is the third piece of technology that the Kanamit introduce to Earth, and what do
they insist on the way it should be distributed? What will the effects of this technology
be?
8. Why does the narrator, Peter, quit his job as a translator for the United Nations?

9. Why does Peter believe that the United Nations will soon cease to exist?

10. Why has Grigori gone to work as a translator for the Kanamit Embassy?

11. What does Grigori suspect about the Kanamit?

12. How does Peter, the narrator, feel (at first) about working with Grigori on translating a
book that Grigori had stolen from the Kanamit?

13. How do Peter’s feelings about what they’re doing change over time?

14. What physiological changes in humanity itself are the Kanamit working on making, using
their knowledge of human biochemistry?

15. What human diseases do the Kanamit appear to have potentially cured?

16. What does it turn out is the true significance of the title of the stolen Kanamit book How
to Serve Man?

17. In retrospect, why does it now appear that the Kanamit were working on making human
beings taller, stronger, and healthier?