Essay Questions

What is the underlying critique of fundamental human psychology suggested by Enoch’s virtual companions?

Although not technically so, Enoch has two companions that are kind of like holographic images. David is a Union soldier and Mary is a composite of at least two and maybe a few more women he had known. They can talk and interact in discourse with Enoch, but they are not tangible; they cannot be touched. They are equipped with his memories of them, however, and so they are not merely generic virtual humans. A history has been established and there is an emotion connection capable of bypassing the lack of visceral contact. His relationship with these virtual friends strongly suggests that the idea that humans are inherently social animals needing full sensory interaction with other humans in order to avoid insanity or some sort of deviant personality development is not universally applied. What it really suggests is that memories of such interaction may be enough to fully sustain the effects of alienation and isolation. Of course, Enoch’s case is idiosyncratic in that he does not age, but the underlying assumption here certainly gives one pause to consider that being alone need not necessarily produce an unstable and overwhelming sense of loneliness for everybody

What is the symbolic significance of Claude Lewis?

This novel was written and edited for publication during what was literally the darkest moments of the Cold War. The Bay of Pigs disaster, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the intensifying of conflict in Vietnam were going on at the time. In addition, publication preceded the assassination of JFK by mere months. The dark specter of the potential nuclear collision between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. heavily informs the story. And yet, at the same time, the biggest threat to the way station comes not from abroad, but from the American government in the form of Claude Lewis who is, for all intents and purposes, a CIA agent who takes upon himself the task of rooting out whatever strange things are really going on up at Enoch’s cabin. In this respect, Claude becomes more aligned with someone Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover: he is a symbol of how genuine civil wars within borders are kept humming along even without exploding into wars.

What is the thematic importance of Enoch having survived the Battle of Gettysburg and being present during the surrender of the Confederacy at Appomattox?

The author could have chosen to make Enoch a veteran of the Revolutionary War as a way of implicating him as part of the evolution of democracy in human society. That he has not aged is an essential part of the story, after all, and the addition of almost a hundred years of experience managing the way station could have been fleshed out. Instead, the author specifically chooses to have Enoch be not just a Civil War veteran, but one from the winning side who was present at its most iconic battlefield as well as being present at the spot where it ended. Gettysburg is also iconic for representing the standard trope of the war pitting “brother against brother” and “fathers against sons.”

Making Enoch a survivor of the Civil War makes him a sort of metaphor for how divisions between families can eventually be overcome and how those ruptures can be healed. This fits in perfectly with the thematic underpinning of the myriad species of interstellar worlds working together and making war almost unknown. Civil war engagements which literally have family members squaring off against each other is more palpable than citizens of one nation warring against citizens of another even though in the grand scheme of the species as a whole, there is really no difference at all.