Robert A. Heinlein, “They”

Texts:

Heinlein, Robert A. “They.” 1941. Science Fiction Terror Tales. Ed. Groff Conklin. NY: Gnome Press Inc., 1955. 214-232.


Commentary:

The narrator shows all signs of paranoid schizophrenia, suspecting even Dr. Hayward (not the character on All My Children) and his own wife Alice of being in on a plot to create the illusion of an innocuous, fatuous world around him: “all this complex stage setting, all these swarms of actors, could not have been put here just to make idiotic noises at each other” (218). When alone, the narrator puts himself through a Cartesian self-examination, but recollections of moments of realization and one particular instance when he chanced to catch “them” messing up the matrix in terms of the weather (230-231) convince him of the truth of his assessment.

Indeed, Dr. Hayward is really the Glaroon!


Works Cited

Heinlein, Robert A. “They.” 1941. Science Fiction Terror Tales. Ed. Groff Conklin. NY: Gnome Press Inc., 1955. 214-232.

Literature