74 pages • 2 hours read
Douglas AdamsThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 22-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
The old man assures Arthur that he and his friends will not be harmed, explaining that the missiles were launched via an ancient automated system. He also explains that the inhabitants of Magrathea are not dead, as is commonly assumed, but rather that they have been sleeping, waiting for the economic environment of the Galaxy to rebound. The old man demands that Arthur come with him, “’deep into the bowels of the planet’” (103). They decide to leave Marvin behind. Finally, the old man reveals that his name is Slartibartfast, to which Arthur responds incredulously.
Chapter 23 Summary
The narrator breaks in again to explain that, while “man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins,” the opposite turns out to be true (105). In fact, the dolphins had tried to warn the humans of the upcoming destruction of the Earth, but the humans had mistaken their antics for adorable play. Thus, the dolphins “left the Earth by their own means,” escaping the annihilation of the planet (105). The narrator then says that there is actually another species even more intelligent than the dolphins.
Chapter 24 Summary
Slartibartfast leads Arthur down into the depths of Magrathea via an enormously speedy aircar. He reveals that he knows Arthur is an Earthling, but he does not tell him how he knows this. As they emerge onto the “’factory floor’” of Magrathea’s once thriving planet-building business, Arthur is overwhelmed by the scale of the operation (108). Arthur is taken aback by one planet in particular: He sees what looks like another Earth under construction. He is even more astonished by Slartibartfast’s response: “’We’re making a copy from our original blueprints’” (108). He goes on to reveal that Earth was actually a designer planet, commissioned by mice—who are actually a highly-evolved, pandimensional species—built for a particular purpose. Unfortunately, it was destroyed about five minutes before said purpose was completed. Thus, the Magratheans are rebuilding the planet. Earth, in Slartibartfast’s explanation, is “’an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program’” (110). Arthur has a difficult time processing this information.
Chapter 25 Summary
Slartibartfast recounts the long story of how the commission of “Earth” came to be. Millions of years in the past, there was a species intensely concerned with the great metaphysical questions of existence, such as the true purpose of life. They decided to build a great computer, “the size of a small city” (111), to answer these great questions. Deep Thought, as the computer was called, is tasked with finding the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. There is great controversy over this undertaking, as the influential philosophers on the planet protest that they will be out of a job if the computer comes up with the answer. However, Deep Thought informs the people that it will take at least seven and a half million years to determine the answer, during which time the philosophers can amass much fame and wealth publicizing their various theories on what that answer will be. Thus, the computer is left to do its work.
Chapter 26 Summary
Arthur interrupts Slartibartfast’s story. He wonders what all of this has to do with the Earth that he knew, not to mention the pandimensional mice. Slartibartfast patiently explains that this is only the first half of the story and offers to take Arthur on a tour of the new Earth-in-progress. Arthur sadly refuses. “’[I]t wouldn’t be quite the same,’” he says (116).
Chapter 27 Summary
Slartibartfast takes Arthur to his office, which is cluttered with books and maps. He offers Arthur a headset to wear, wherein Arthur will be able to witness the second half of the story as a recording. The day that Deep Thought will pronounce its answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything has finally arrived. After much fanfare and anticipation, Deep Thought slowly awakens and finally gives his answer: “’Forty-two,’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm” (120).
Chapter 28 Summary
The answer provokes an immediate uproar, to which Deep Thought patiently explains, “’I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is’” (121). This creates more turmoil until the people decide to ask Deep Thought to now calculate the question. When the great computer says that it does not have the capacity to do so, it suggests that it can build another, greater computer which can. Deep Thought names this new, ultra-computer “’the Earth’” (122).
Chapters 22-28 Analysis
Adams again critiques the capitalist system and the response of the rich to the economic collapse that they themselves engendered. As Slartibartfast admits to Arthur, the Magratheans decided to avoid the chaos of the collapse of the Galactic Empire and sleep until “’everybody else had rebuilt the economy enough to afford rather expensive services’” (102). Arthur is rather shocked by this callous admission, though Slartibartfast deflects his reaction by claiming himself to be “’a bit out of touch’” (102). The rapacious capitalists will both destroy the system that feeds them and rely on those left behind, impoverished and hungry, to clean up their economic mess. Indeed, like Slartibartfast, they are out of touch with the common people. The narration also notes that Arthur is “a regular Guardian reader,” which serves to explain his appalled reaction (102). The Guardian, an English newspaper founded in the nineteenth century, is considered the paper of choice for the more liberal political left in England. Arthur’s reading habits characterize (or caricature) Arthur as an enlightened thinker, someone who questions unfettered capitalist growth.
In addition, these chapters once again break the fourth wall, inserting omniscient narration to disrupt the plot. This creates situations of dramatic irony in which the reader is privy to a greater understanding of events and ideas than the characters themselves. Chapter 23, in its entirety, is a narrative intrusion, explaining the “important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem” (105). The chapter reveals that dolphins are more intelligent than humans, and that there is still yet another species more intelligent than humans besides the dolphins. This tantalizing hint is dropped before the characters become aware of said species’ intelligence. The species “spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man” (105). This information, paired with the earlier hint about Trillian’s lost mice and the attention that should have been paid to their escape in Chapter 19, points to mice as the most intelligent species of all.
Slartibartfast eventually reveals the truth to Arthur when he explains that Earth was originally made by the Magratheans and that it was actually a super-intelligent computer commissioned by the mice, who are highly-evolved pandimensional beings. Not only does this information disrupt everything Arthur has ever thought about his home planet, it also calls into question every metaphysical assumption about existence he has ever considered. If Earth is “’an organic computer’” (110) and mice have “’been experimenting on [him]’” (109), then the reasonable philosophical question about the purpose of existence must be reframed to an absurd degree.
Further, the story behind Earth’s commissioned creation ruptures humanity’s understanding of itself. In the unending quest for the ultimate answer to the greatest question of life, the universe, and everything, a race of hyper-intelligent beings engineer a computer that spits out a wholly unsatisfying answer: Forty-two. This leads to the question of what is the question, which in turn leads to the commissioning of the organic super-computer called Earth. The philosophers’ seven-and-a-half-million-year debate over what that deeply significant answer might be gives Adams the opportunity to satirize academia and the authority of “experts.” As Deep Thought tells them, “’Everyone’s going to have their own theories about what answer I’m eventually going to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves?’” (115).
Instead of portraying the philosophers as enlightened thinkers engaged with the most important questions of human existence, the author depicts them as closeted capitalists desiring fame and money. They are all given nonsensical names, like “Majikthise” and “Vroomfondel” (114). Their names are as ridiculous as their endless, fruitless pursuits, the author implies. The philosopher Phouchg’s shallow pronouncement about Deep Thought’s amazing creation that it calls Earth—“’What a dull name,’” he complains (122)—further underscores the philosophers’ imaginative and intellectual impoverishment.
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