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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

While on the surface, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy looks like a basic humor novel, its

British satirical roots stretch much deeper than someone would assume. While Douglas Adams wrote

these novels in modern times with present day themes, many connections can be drawn between The

Hitchhiker’s Guide and classical British works. Adams’ style of writing draws on many classical elements

of storytelling, despite the way his delivery is very different from standard British literature. The

Hitchhiker’s Guide varies from silly to serious and from fictional to philosophical, and because of that

you can make numerous connections between his work and that of earlier British literature. His novel

has elements from Angelo-Saxon storytelling, comedies and dramas from the works of Shakespeare, as

well as criticisms on philosophical and ethical topics like those of Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes.

Despite being a modern satirist writing for the purpose of humor entertainment, Adams’ writing

incorporates themes and ideas that connect this modern work with a lot of historical literature as well.

The easiest connection to draw about The Hitchhiker’s Guide is the similarity between its plot

and epic tales from the Angelo-Saxon era. Adams’ protagonist Arthur Dent begins a long, seemingly

endless journey after discovering the destruction of Earth is about to happen. Through a friend who is an

alien (initially unknown to Dent) they secure their escape on the destroying spaceship. This begins a

perilous journey involving many different settings, obstacles involving numerous protagonists and

characters that enter and exit the plot. This basic formula is almost identical to epics like Beowulf. King

Beowulf begins a massive journey that involves battles with Grendel and Grendel’s mother, as well as his
final battle against the dragon. Similarly, Arthur is first faced to negotiate his survival with the Vogons,

some of the least pleasant beings in the galaxt on one of the demolition ship after being discovered and

tortured with Vogon poetry. The situation becomes particularly grave when the two get ejected into

deep space, where they are luckily picked up by a ship powered by improbability. The two join the

members of the ship on their journey to Magrathea, where they are faced with further obstacles upon

discovering the inhabitants wish to take Dent’s brain as it is the only remaining organic product from

Earth, a planet which turned out to be the property of the inhabitants. After escaping from the center of

Magrathea, Dent and company encounter another obstacle in the form of the Galactic Police who are

attempting to apprehend one of the party members. This obstacle is averted when the overwhelmingly

depressed ship’s robot convinces the life support computers for the Galactic Police about the

pointlessness of life, and to commit suicide. Despite the drastic different circumstances of the two plots,

the main action is still the same. The protagonist is faced with multiple obstacles involving various

antagonists, and changes setting and party members several times. They do differ a lot however; this is

where the humor from Adams’ style causes the epic to stray from the norm, involving a heroic powerful

character like Beowulf. Instead of “the man whose name was known for courage, the Geat leader,

resolute in his helmet,”(340-342) the classical depiction of an epic hero who would stand bold in the

face of danger, Arthur Dent represents a parody of the classical epic hero by acting the opposite. As

opposed to Beowulf whose reputation precedes him, Arthur Dent is completely anonymous. When

pushed out of his comfort zone he is far from resilient. “This is still just the culture shock,” he describes

the destruction of his planet. “You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings.

Then I'll start panicking!" Despite the clear similarities between a classic Angelo-Saxon epic like Beowulf

and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe in terms of plot and the journey undertaken by the

protagonists, it is obvious that Adams is satirizing the classical epic style with a protagonist opposite of

the classic epic hero.

 Another easily comparable aspect of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is Adams’ use of

metaphor. British literature is full of artistic and creative metaphor; Shakespeare among countless

others has turned it into an art form. While Shakespearean metaphor was meant to bring out vivid

mental imagery and personification, Adams’ satire is obvious in the way it does the opposite.

Shakespeare is known for complex and dramatic metaphor which develops a mental image that

captures the essence of emotion: “And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, to hear the sea-

maid's music,” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II Sc 1). Adams, however, attempts to build metaphors

that bring about humorous mental images, or metaphors that are contradictory so that imagery is

impossible: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.” Adams draws upon a

rich history of metaphor developed throughout British literature and then twists and changes the

normal structure of a metaphor into something unfamiliar to readers to create satire. By making

analogies that are the opposite of what readers are used to seeing he contradicts the history of deep,

serious metaphors common to British literature with light-hearted, and at times, silly comparisons.

Something particularly interesting is the way Adams used The Hitchhiker’s Guide to make

criticisms about society. While much of early British philosophical writing is still what defines ideas like

society, the individual and ethics, Douglas Adam’s sought to criticize many of these ideas with his

lighthearted satire. Adams introduces Earth from an outsider’s perspective: “This planet has — or rather

had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of

the time.” By removing the human societal element when describing society, he attempts to show how

ridiculous or arbitrary many human ideas are; much of what he pokes fun at was formulated by British

philosophers long before him, based on ideas that may not be as applicable in modern times. As if to

criticize Adam Smith’s formulation of economics in The Wealth of Nations, Adams goes on to address

the way humans prioritize wealth: “Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these

were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on
the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” He enlarges this satirical

situation when he takes the Arthur out of the context of human society yet puts him in nearly identical

situations, as if to show the consistency of such issues within any type of society. The journey very firstly

begins with Arthur discovering his house is being demolished that day in order to construct a bypass.

This is an example of Hobbe’s philosophy of social contract as described in Leviathan, where members

of society are required to make sacrifices regarding self-interest to benefit society as a whole. Adams

creates a satire out of the idea of social contract by creating a situation where one must give up a great

deal for something that does very little to actually benefit society and is generally unappreciated. He

goes on to poke fun at governmental bureaucracy when the demolition is justified because Dent made

no prior attempt to prevent the demolition despite the fact the plans for the destruction were made

extremely difficult to locate or get information about. Rather, they assume his lack of action to be

consent. The entire situation is replicated in the case of the Vogon destruction of Earth to make way for

a hyperspace bypass. The Vogons use the same justification as the contractors at Dent’s house; it is the

humans’ fault they were unaware of the plans, located light-years away; they should have protested the

demolition at the appropriate time. Adams satires the idea of a social contract showing how we accept

and justify it on an individual scale, yet it seems ridiculous when applied to society as a whole.

Many of Adams’ criticisms on philosophy and ethics have a common theme that tie into his

satire; current ethical and philosophical schools are much too serious and life must be treated much

more lighthearted. His idea that philosophy has focused far too much on serious aspects of life is a

common theme through much of his literature, embodied by The Hitchhiker’s Guide. His literature

suggests that he views life as paradox full of humorous contradictions instead: "If life is going to exist in

a universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion." The

recurring themes are that the fantastical and imaginative are just as significant as the real and tangible,

and nothing is completely immune from humor, no matter how big of an idea it is. Adams’ work
demonstrates almost a breath of fresh air from the dry, serious structure that the vast majority of British

literature, especially philosophical literature abides by. By structuring his writing in the opposite manner

Adams is able to criticize many major ethical and philosophical concepts without appearing to do so

thanks to satire, all while maintaining the lighthearted if not silly style.

Douglas Adams connected The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deeply to classical British

literature. His modern satirical humor references multiple ideas and themes from classical literature.

The journey of Arthur Dent and company across the galaxy includes numerous external conflicts against

the environment and antagonists just like Beowulf, but Arthur Dent is possibly the perfect opposite of

the hero Beowulf. Adams’ metaphors reflect a humorous light on the otherwise heavy metaphorical

tone set by the metaphors of Shakespeare. His criticisms on society, philosophy and ethics shed an

interesting modern light on the classic fundamental schools of thought from British writing. By

combining these elements he provides the reader with an entertaining and genuine perspective of

human society and many of our flawed aspects. The overarching message of his literature is one of

disarming; contrasting the heavy, serious tone of classical British literature he provides a lighthearted

unique sense of humor. By doing this he reminds the reader that nothing is immune from humor, but

does it in a positive tone.

Sources:

Beowulf

- Beowulf quotes (above)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)

- Shakespeare metaphor quotes (above)

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

- Pretty much anything in here referring to hitchhiker’s guide; anything unclear can be found on

wikipedia

Leviathan, (Hobbes)

Idea of social contract, identity, and purpose of govt and bureaucracy (more info on wiki)

The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith)

Ideas about money/happiness and the roles of govt involved (more info on wiki)