Out of the Silent Planet

“Ransom could never be sure whether what followed had any bearing on the events recorded in this book or whether it was merely an irresponsible dream. It seemed to him that he and Weston and Devine were all standing in a little garden surrounded by a wall. The garden was bright and sunlit, but over the top of the wall you could see nothing but darkness. They were trying to climb over the wall and Weston asked them to give him a hoist up.”

The novel’s first instance of Christian imagery serves as an early warning about the corrupt nature of Weston’s and Devine’s characters. In Ransom’s hallucination, they attempt to leave the bright and holy garden for the darkness of the unknown, paralleling the story of the Fall of Man.

“‘Weston! Weston!’ he gasped. ‘What is it? It’s not the moon, not that size. It can’t be, can it?’

‘No,’ replied Weston, ‘it’s the Earth.’”

The revelation that Ransom has been abducted into space takes the novel from the relatively ordinary to science fiction, all in the breath a sentence. The preceding few chapters have established a sense of normalcy, so this discovery allows the reader to feel Ransom’s shock upon realizing he has left Earth.

“We have learned how to jump off the speck of matter on which our species began; infinity, and therefore perhaps eternity, is being put into the hands of the human race. You cannot be so small-minded as to think that the rights or life of an individual or of a million individuals are of the slightest importance in comparison with this.”

This quote encapsulates Weston’s philosophy: progress for progress’ sake and progress over everything. Ironically, though he professes his ultimate goal to be the furthering of the human race, he does not care how many individual humans are harmed in pursuit of that goal. Despite his proclaimed humanitarianism, he has no qualms about making Ransom a human sacrifice, and he is willing to completely exterminate the intelligent creatures of Malacandra.