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"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" Reading Response

            The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams is a book about the adventures of a group of friends as they travel throughout the universe.  Arthur Dent is a man from Earth, which has recently been destroyed to make way for an inter-galactic highway.  Zaphod Beeblebrox is the ex-president of the universe, who cut himself off from parts of his brain, which now controls his destiny, unbeknownst to himself and others.  Trillian, or Tricia McMillan as she was formally known as, is also from Earth.  Ford Prefect is a writer for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a book which informs people about the innumerable parts of the universe, even though it is not always correct.  The last member of their group is Marvin, a very depressed android.  Through the adventures of the group, Adams teaches the readers about how justice is served in our world.

            Justice, according to Adams, isn't always served.  One example of this is how, in the book, Zaphod Beeblebrox locked off part of his brain, but that part of his brain made plans, and now he has to follow these plans, even though he doesn't want to, and doesn't even know what these plans are and doesn't want to know.  According to the book, Zaphod says, “‘I don’t know what this great thing I’m meant to be doing is, and it looks to me as if I was supposed to not know.  And I resent that, right?  The old me knew.  The old me cared.  Fine, so far so good.  Except that the old me cared so much that he actually got inside his own brain-my own brain- and locked off the bits that knew and cared, because if I knew and cared I wouldn't be able to do it…. But this former self of mine killed himself off, didn't he, by changing my brain.’” The injustice here is that Zaphod has no idea what he must do next, and doesn't know what these “plans” that his brain made are.  You’d think that this injustice would somehow be served with some sort of justice, but, in the book, there is no justice served.  Zaphod is at the whim and mercy of his brain; even though he doesn't know what his brain wants him to do.  Even though his brain brings this injustice, Zaphod himself blocks justice, and is the only one who can bring is.  Justice could be served if Zapod could just unlock the parts of his brain that are locked to him, and discover what he’d been planning.  This injustice pulls the story line along and makes you wonder: what was Zaphod like before he locked his brain off?  Another example of how Adams shows this is through the dying-out of the original Earth species.  According to the book, when Earth was first created, it was inhabited by life-forms that head naturally developed on Earth.  Then, a spaceship full of a different race of fully-developed aliens crash-landed on Earth, which caused Earth’s original inhabitants to start dying out.  You’d think that justice could be served by something terrible happening to the alien race, but no such justice is served.  Instead, no justice is served at all, and the original Earth species continues to die out while the alien one thrives.  This shows that Adams believes that justice is not always served.

            Justice is not always served, if ever, in the way that you expect it to be.  An injustice that shows this is revealed to the reader during a conversation between a man named Roosta, a colleague of the former self of Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Zaphod himself.  According to the book, “‘Beeblebrox,’ he said, sticking his hands behind his head, ‘have you any idea what’s going to happen to you on the Frogstar? … They’re going to feed you’ said Roosta, into the Total Perspective Vortex….You can kill a man, destroy his body, break his spirit, but only the Total Perspective Vortex can annihilate a man’s soul.  The treatment lasts seconds, but the effects last the rest of your life!’… ‘Any idea why these guys want to do this to me?’… ‘They believe that it will be the best way of destroying you for ever.  They know what you’re after… You want to meet the man who rules the Universe.’” The injustice shown in this quote is the fact that “these guys”, whose identity is unknown, want to destroy Zaphod Beeblebrox’s soul just because his former self made plans to find the real person who controls the universe, and now his current self has to follow through with those plans, regardless of whether or not he wants to.  You’d expect that in order for justice to be served here, something bad would have to happen to the people who want Zaphod’s soul destroyed, but this is not how justice is served here.  Instead, justice is served because Zaphod escapes and is taken to see the man who controls the universe.  The people who block justice here are the people who want Zaphod’s soul destroyed, and, surprisingly, it is Zaphod’s former self who brings justice by making the plans for Zaphod to escape and see the man who controls the universe.  Yet, Zaphod’s former self not only brings justice, but blocks it in a way because the current Zaphod had no idea of the plans he’d made and only got into this mess in the first place because of those plans.  Another example of how justice isn't always served in the way that you expect it to be is when Zaphod and the others leave a restaurant without paying by writing someone else’s name on their bill, therefore making someone else pay for their food, and then stealing a spacecraft.  You’d think that the justice served for this wouldn't be very severe.  You’d be wrong.  In an unexpected turn of events, that spacecraft turns out to belong to the same person who had to pay their bill, and is scheduled to crash into a sun.  Even though they will die, the owners of the spacecraft won’t rescue them, forcing them to stay in the spacecraft and die.  This seems very extreme, but it is the justice that gets served to them.  This shows how Adams believes that justice isn't always served in the way that you expect is to be.

            As you can see, Douglas Adams had several views on justice.  He believed that justice is not always served, and when it is, it’s not always served in the way that you expected it to be.  We can apply these views to our own lives.  They help us realize that life isn't always fair, and they teach us that life is unpredictable.  This can go a long way in helping people, especially kids, prepare for the world outside.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Synthesis Page