Critical Analysis of "Contact" by Carl Sagan
Critical Analysis of "Contact" by Carl Sagan
Contact is a science fiction book written at the end of the 20th century. It is a novel that depicts the life of a person from the very birth until her late thirties. Ellie Arroway is a girl that discovers her attraction for science from an early childhood. Her father, who dies when she is only 10, encourages her love for physical astronomy. Many people don’t understand her passion and believe that she will never be successful, but she finishes school, goes to MIT, and then gets a PHD at California Institute of Technology proving to everybody that they were wrong. After finishing her studies, Ellie is assigned to different laboratories around the country, eventually ending up in New Mexico, where she is working on a project called SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Many scientists believe that this is a worthless project. Among these scientists is Drumlin, her teacher from CIT. After four years with no results, Ellie depicts a message that is comprised of prime numbers. This is believed to be the biggest discovery of the time, as the message comes from Vega. The problems begin when the message turns out to be a transmission of Hitler’s welcome speech at the 1930s Olympic games. United States is worried about the impact of this discovery in the world’s politics. A second message that is approximately 40,000 pages long follows the original one. Unfortunately nobody is able to translate it. The entire world’s scientific community is involved in the search for the primer, but nobody can find out what the message says.
Finally, Ellie is invited by Hadden, a multimillionaire and an extremely intelligent person, for a conversation. While talking, Hadden gives Ellie the hint where to search for the primer. It turns out that the pages of text are instructions for building a machine. Two similar machines are being built, one in the United States, and another one in the Soviet Union. Only five people can go once the Machine is completed. All the nations are trying to compete for a seat in the Machine. In the end, 5 countries are selected: Unites States, Soviet Union, China, India, and Nigeria. Unfortunately, Drumlin is the one who is going to represent the United States. When the American machine is almost ready, a terrorist attack destroys it through a bomb explosion and in the process Drumlin...