Playful Parody and Philosophical Counter-Narrative: Douglas Adams’ Science Fiction Comedy by Gerd Sivertsen Prestegard Master’s Thesis Department of Foreign Languages University of Bergen May 2020 i Samandrag Denne masteroppgåva tar føre seg den parodiske science fiction-trilogien, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy av Douglas Adams, som diverre vert diskutert svært lite i akademia. Oppgåva ser på korleis forfattaren nyttar parodi sjangeren til å kommentera på dei tomme paradigma i science fiction, samstundes som han produserer ein mot-forteljing til den eksisterande dystopiske litteraturen. Oppgåva definerer difor bøkene som positiv dystopi. Grunna bøkenes post-moderne parodiske natur er dei svært vanskelege å definere, trilogien er difor også definert, i denne oppgåva, som ein komedisk science fiction-parodi med element frå den pikareske tradisjonen. Dystopisk litteratur er framleis populært i det 21. hundreåret og Douglas Adams sine bøker er difor framleis aktuelle som mot-forteljingar i dag. Gjennom bøkene sin parodiske mot-forteljing vert lesaren presentert for ei ny og frigjerande filosofisk måte å sjå og forstå verda på. Bøkene til Adams utfordrar grensene for kva me tenker science fiction skal innehalda. Dei utfordrar òg vår forståing av kva ein legg i omgrepa forteljar, plot og karakter. For å undersøka desse elementa i bøkene tar eg i bruk teoriar om science fiction, parodi, metafiksjon og narratologi. I kapittel ein utforskar eg konsepta novum, World Building og Big Dumb Objects. Dette er konsept som er direkte relatert til science fiction-sjangeren. I kapittel to vert dei narratologiske konsepta forteljar og forteljing studert med omsyn til korleis dei fungerer i ein moderne parodi og i samanheng med den pikareske tradisjonen. I kapittel tre tar eg føre meg korleis karakterane i trilogien fungerer sett i høve dei overordna parodiske elementa og i samanheng med den gjennomgåande filosofiske tankegangen i bøkene. ii Acknowledgments First of all, I would like to like to express my gratitude to my wonderful and patient supervisor, Randi Koppen. Thank you for all the guidance and thorough feedback! Thank you to my amazing group of friends at the study hall for all the motivation; all the lunches; for giving me feedback and constructive criticism; and for keeping in touch every day after coronavirus threw us out of the university grounds. Thank you to my roommate for enduring my endless complaining and for believing in me. Thank you to my parents, who have kept me on the right track. Thank you for feeding me and housing me during these last weeks; for the strict words when I procrastinated and the comfort when I needed it. And finally, thank you for getting me to where I am today. Lastly, I would like to thank Beyoncé for making me believe that I can do anything I set my mind to and for giving me the attitude I needed to finish this. If it was not for Homecoming giving me energy during those late-night sessions, I might have given up. iii Table of Contents Samandrag ............................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. iv Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: ............................................................................................................................... 13 Playing with Conventions: Novums, Big Dumb Objects, and World-Building ............... 13 The Novum .......................................................................................................................... 14 Big Dumb Objects................................................................................................................ 25 World Building .................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 33 Chapter 2: ............................................................................................................................... 35 Playing with Narrative: Narrators, Narratives, and Counter-Narratives........................ 35 Narrator ................................................................................................................................ 35 The Counter-Narrative: Adams’ Philosophy in The Trilogy ............................................... 37 The Positive Dystopia .......................................................................................................... 41 The Trilogy and the Picaresque Tradition ............................................................................ 45 The Parodic Style of the Narrator ........................................................................................ 55 Narrative Digression ............................................................................................................ 57 Chapter Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 62 Chapter 3: ............................................................................................................................... 64 Playing With Character: Challenging Expectations and Empowering the Reader ........ 64 A Whale ............................................................................................................................... 67 The Philosophical Pairs........................................................................................................ 69 Arthur Dent: Anti-Hero, Picaro and Quintessential Englishman......................................... 74 Ford Prefect .......................................................................................................................... 77 Zaphod Beeblebrox the First ................................................................................................ 77 iv Marvin the Paranoid Android .............................................................................................. 79 Technological Characters..................................................................................................... 81 Chapter conclusion............................................................................................................... 82 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 83 v Introduction ‘Don’t Panic!’ In this thesis, I will discuss Douglas Adams’ five-part trilogy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a science fiction parody that presents a counter-narrative to the bleak dystopias so often associated with the science fiction genre. I shall argue that Adams’ playful approach to science fiction provides a timely critique of the genre while also offering readers a more liberating and imaginative approach both to literature and to life itself. The trilogy consists of the novels The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984) and Mostly Harmless (1992), hereafter referred to by their individual titles, or collectively as The Trilogy. Several books aimed at the fans have been written about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Douglas Adams; such as Neil Gaiman’s Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and You and 42: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Douglas Adams, edited by Jessica Burke and Anthony Burdge. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is also clearly a popular book among academics, given the number of papers published with some version of the heading “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to X.” Some BA and MA theses have also been dedicated to the novels. However, The Trilogy does not seem to be receiving the same attention at higher levels of academia. A few scholarly works can be found, such as a collection of essays, edited by Nicholas Joll, called Philosophy and The 1 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In Joll’s book, the different philosophical aspects of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are discussed, it also touches upon the literary conventions of science fiction (SF) in relation to the philosophy. While the collection has many useful discussions on philosophy and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it is written by philosophers and not by literary critics. Literary analysis is, therefore, not given much attention. The Trilogy, when mentioned in literary discussions, is usually done so in passing. The novels are usually mentioned in relation to parody or comedy; they are, unfortunately, rarely the focus. Brooks Landon, in his book Science Fiction After 1900, mentions The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as an example of successful SF parody, while George Watson takes a slightly different approach in his book Heresies and Heretics, as he claims that Adams’ ‘big idea’ was ‘[t]urning the science fiction of H. G. Wells and his disciples into farce’ (Landon 2002, 4; Watson 2013, 191). Carl Kropf’s article “Douglas Adams’s ‘Hitchhiker’ Novels as Mock Science Fiction” is one of the few articles dedicated