Mr. Smith Goes to Earth
The stranger finding himself in this strange land is one valentine Michael Smith. Worth remembering that just as much as the human raised by Martians before setting foot on his home planet for the first time finds the inhabitants of that planet strange, so are they undergoing the same sensation. He may be one of them, but he is also not one of them. And so one character feels compelled to observe to another early on:
“In the first place he is a mine of information; even the public has some dim notion of that. He might be worth more than Newton and Edison and Einstein and six more like them all rolled into one.”
The Church of All Worlds
What would someone sent from the heavens who is only partially human and partially…something else, anyway…eventually do upon landing on earth? The answer is so simple that the average American reader probably passes by it at least once a day almost every day of their lives: start a church! Is Mr. Smith intended to be a Christ figure like other visitors from space? Such as Klaatu or E.T.? Some express concern about metaphorical optics throughout metaphorical language:
"…you know how the tension can grow without anybody moving or saying a word. This was much more like that than it was like a shouting revival, or even the most sedate church service. But it wasn't mild; it packed terrific wallop."
Are We Not Men?
Smith may be a Christ figure. He may be a messiah. He may even be a fraud. One suspects that deriving from two human beings, it would be obvious what he is on at least one level, but even that comes under scrutiny. Determining his exact status can only lead the discourse into the realm of metaphor because of the ambiguity. But then again, so are other members of the species equally more than one thing at once:
"Smith is not a man....more a Martian than a man. He's a man by ancestry, a Martian by environment…if you want to drive him crazy and waste that 'treasure trove of scientific information,' call in your fat-headed professors and let them badger him. Don't give him a chance to get well and strong and used to this madhouse planet. Just go ahead and squeeze him like an orange.”
And Just How Cute Is That?
One throwaway metaphorical image is memorable because it is just seems so weird. Maybe it was a commentary on the times or a coded message or just a phrase that the author overheard randomly by a stranger in his land. The object of the image is a curly-haired teenager:
“Jill thought that he was as cute as a ginger ale ad.”
He’s Not Wrong
Another almost-throwaway metaphorical image is actually more integral to the narrative than the ginger ale ad. At least it certainly seems to be so. Smith is attempting to learn about human culture through reading Shakespeare’s works and finds himself confused by the ending of Romeo and Juliet when he learns that Romeo’s end—which at first pleased him—is actually tragic because of its untimeliness. He queries about why Romeo proceeds with this premature shortening of his life by his own hand and receives an explanation that is short, to the point and, for the most part, utterly irrefutable. In describing the hero of the tragedy, his companion asserts:
"He was a blithering young idiot."
