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24 pages 48 minutes read

Tom Godwin

The Cold Equations

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1954

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Literary Devices

Third-Person Limited Perspective

Godwin mostly employs third-person limited perspective so that the reader only sees events and characters through the perspective of one character, the pilot. An anonymous, indistinctly described male who is familiar with the conventions of the space frontier, the pilot is an optimal guide for Godwin’s male readership, who might identify with him and trust his authority.

This means that while readers can guess at what Marilyn feels through her speech and behavior, the information is mediated through the pilot. For example, after Marilyn speaks to Gerry for the last time via the communicator, the pilot sees that “she sat motionless in the hush that followed” and conjectures that it is “as though listening to the shadow-echoes of the words as they died away” (Location 8991). The “as though” simile reveals that the pilot is at one remove from Marilyn, who he proposes to understand. The narrative’s refusal to follow Marilyn’s perspective directly puts her heroism at a distance and imbues her with the sentimentality of sacrificed young women from classic literature.

Denouement

Denouement is a French term that relates to how a narrative unfolds, both in terms of building conflict and resolving it. In Godwin’s story, the final premise is present from the outset in the fact of a stowaway who “signed his own death warrant” as a result of his transgression (Location 8488). The premise is fulfilled at the end when the stowaway, Marilyn, falls to her death. However, the conflict of the story occurs not in the fact that there will be a death, but in the surprise element of the stowaway’s femaleness. Although the pilot knows that he will have to get rid of the girl, he resolves to do so in the most humane way possible. Even after he executes his plan, having taken measures to extend her lifeline and enabling her to contact her family, he finds that he cannot square his actions with his ideals of human justice, regardless of how science and utilitarianism justify them. The twist at the end of the tale, therefore, is psychological rather than rooted in an unexpected action.

Metaphor

Metaphor, the literary device that directly transforms one thing into another by stating that they share the same qualities, is used most literally in Marilyn’s conversation with Gerry. Marilyn attempts to console Gerry for her impending loss by listing all of the metaphorical guises she might assume after death. She imagines that “maybe I’ll be the touch of a breeze that whispers to you as it goes by; maybe I’ll be one of those gold-winged larks you told me about, singing my silly head off to you” (Location 8981). Both of these images defer Marilyn’s invisible body to personified elements or animals. Thus, either as the wind or as a bird, she will have some sensory means of alerting Gerry to her presence. However, she then moves on to suggest an absence of images, as she contemplates becoming “nothing you can see but you will know I’m there beside you” (Location 8982). Even this invisible absence is a metaphor of a presence that attempts to counter the finality of death. Arguably, Marilyn’s frantic list of metaphors indicates that she subconsciously recognizes the finality of death and is trying to put up one last fight against the inevitable.

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