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The original concept behind the Overlords, in the short story, was not that they were shepherds for the human race. The point of "Guardian Angel" was simply the irony of having these beneficial aliens turn out to look exactly like our conception of the devil.
- Karellen
Karellen is the only character to appear throughout the...
- The Overmind
The Overmind is sufficiently powerful to make the Overlords...
- Jan Rodricks
Jan Rodricks represents what is lost in the great...
- George Greggson
Of all the characters in Childhood's End, George Greggson,...
- Themes
In much of his fiction, Arthur C. Clarke supports the idea...
- Full Book Summary
The radicals do give Stormgren the idea to use a scanning...
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- Symbols
The Overlords. As mentioned above, the Overlords can be seen...
- Karellen
Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion [1] of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture.
She is first Greggson’s mate, then his “contracted” wife. Natural psychic powers lead her to a vague fear of the Overlords, who are alerted to them during an early paranormal séance.
- Events in History at The Time of The Novel
- The Novel in Focus
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Life in the fifties
“We have arrived at the point … where there is just no real alternative to peace” (Constable, p. 25). With this one brief phrase, United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower summarized the prevailing mood of the fifties. Despite an exterior of unprecedented material bliss, beneath the surface lay the fear of impending doom at the hands of the Soviet Union. In the closing days of World War II, many longed for a return to the peaceful stature of prewar society. But as early as the Yalta Confer...
The birth of the United Nations
One of the most intriguing characters in Clarke’s novel is Rikki Stormgren, the sixty-year-old Secretary General of the United Nationswho serves as the human mediator with the Overlords when they first arrive on Earth. It is primarily through Stor-mgren’s conversations with Karellen, an Overlord, that the reader gains several insights into the Overlords’ actions. At the writing of the novel, the United Nations was still a fledgling organization, less than a decade old. The world officially ga...
The space age
Historians hesitate to attach an exact date to the start of the space age. But its three founding fathers can be named with more certainty. From the first father of the space age, Robert Goddard (1882-1945) of the United States, came contributions to rocket theory that were rivaled only by his launching of the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926. The second, Kon-stantin E. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) of Russia, solved theoretically the problem of escaping the Earth’s atmosphere and introduced the...
The plot
Childhood’s End is a novel told in three separate parts: “Earth and the Overlords,” “The Golden Age,” and “The Last Generation.” Before these parts begin, a brief prologue introduces the reader to two ex-German rocket scientists, Kon-rad Schneider and Reinhold Hoffman. The year is 1975 and both men are vying for the opportunity to be the first to launch a rocket into space. As Clarke cuts from one man to the other, providing the reader with glimpses of how close each truly is to reaching his...
THE OVERLORDS AS DEVILS
Scholars tie the concept of the devil, or Satan, as the embodiment of pure evil almost entirely to the Hebrew and Christian faiths. In various other religions, good and evil have been regarded not as two contrary forces but rather as polar opposites of a larger divinity. This affects how one views the devilish-looking Overlords in the novel. By the time they show themselves in the story, all religions have disappeared, except for Buddhism, a faith that subscribes to the notion of a larger div...
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER
Clarke’s father died prematurely when Clarke was only thirteen years old (of lung complications resulting from poison gas inhalation suffered in World War I). Some scholars believe that the impact the tragedy had on Clarke is evident in his writings, citing in particular the scene in Childhood’s Endin which George Greggson imparts a silent farewell to his son Jeff. Meanwhile, several light years from the earth, Jan Rodricks awakens from his self-induced slumber, his dream of making it aboard...
Clareson, Thomas D. Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction. Columbia: University of South CarolinaPress, 1990. Clarke, Arthur C. Childhood’s End. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Constable, George, ed. This Fabulous Century: 1950- 1960.Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1970. Hollow, John. Against the Night, the Stars: The Science Fiction of Arthur...
The Overlords, as the proverbial devils, both protect humanity from self-destruction and offer it a utopian Earth to live on, and yet, by the stagnation that comes with utopia, rob humanity of its soul.
Chapter 1. As two cosmonauts are preparing themselves for ventures into the solar system, massive alien ships arrive overheard. “The human race was no longer alone.” Five years later, the aliens, whom humanity has christened “ the Overlords,” govern the Earth.
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Childhood’s End is Arthur C. Clarke’s first successful novel. Set in the future, the novel spans over 130 years from the arrival of the alien race known as Overlords to the completed absorption of the world’s children to the entity known as the Overmind.
