Week Thirteen: Literary Speculation


The Seventh Voyage

I loved this story! I thought it was really creative and thought provoking. At surface level, it was just a sci-fi, space themed, short story, but then you realize it is so much more. It is a story that criticizes adult society, government, and human follies. These themes are cleverly intertwined into a high paced, smart, and entertaining story.

The main character, Tichy, is on a space voyage and runs into some trouble when a repair job is needed on his space craft. This would not be a huge deal accept for the fact the repair is a two-person job and he is all alone. When he hits the vortex and it disrupts the space time continuum, Tichy meets the future and past versions of himself. One for each day of that week. Of course, the focus of these multiple versions of himself is to fix and repair the space craft. This is where the themes and underlying message of the story starts. Why can’t he and the rest of his selves work together and fix the problem? That should be easy, right? They all want the same thing. But no. While they are all Tichy, they are all still fighting for themselves and themselves alone. The situation escalates when the Tichys multiply, creating a government that seems to be a democratic republic, and figure out a solution that way. It takes two child Tichys, while the adults were busy arguing, to fix the repairs, no problem. While the adults overcomplicated things, brought their own troubles to the table, and argued, the children simply did the task that was needed to be done. Why is that? This is a commentary on today’s society. Why can’t adults figure things out the simple way? Kids just do, adults need a committee.

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