Analyzing "They": A Philosophical Approach Luke Smith College

Our day to day experiences are what shape our understanding of the world we know. Every moment of existence shapes the person we will become. However, what if the world as you know it is merely an illusion? How would this affect your behavior, and would you be even able to know the illusion of the world? In the short story “They”, by Robert Heinlein, the author creates a thought experiment that examines these very questions. Through his story, Heinlein manages to convey the idea that there can never be any certainty with one’s own reality, and the only thing that one may be certain of is his own mind.

In “They,” the protagonist of the story is a patient in what at first appears to be a mental hospital. The protagonist is there, because he believes that the world in which he lives has been crafted for himself, and everything he experiences is only a facade. His “doctor”, originally known as Hayward, tries to convince him that the world is in fact real by providing what can be called the typical answers to the patient’s existential questions about the world. The patient claims that he realizes he is being conspired against due to the apparent futility of life, to which the doctor responds, “Life does look like that, and maybe it...