The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If nothing else can be said about Douglas Adams’s book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it certainly sells better than the Encyclopedia Galactica. The Hitchhiker’s guide is pure comedy and satire, trading logic and sense for irony.

            One of the topics The Hitchhiker’s Guide likes to make fun of the most is politics and authority. The character that should have the most authority, the President of the Imperial Galactic Government, Zaphod Beeblebrox, is nothing more than a popular figurehead who does anything to capture people’s attention and keep them entertained by his antics. He takes the phrase “two-faced” to a new level, as he literally has two heads, as well as a third arm he had attached to help improve his ski-boxing. The position that should have the most power is simply a figurehead seat for the most popular diversion. This pokes fun at leaders themselves as well as alluding to government corruption both in the book and in the real world.

            Douglas Adams also likes to poke fun at the organization of authority and its projects. The first problem we encounter is when Arthur wakes up one morning to find a bulldozer crew ready to tear down his house to build a bypass that has nothing to do with him. The overseer of the project, Mr. Posser, ignores all of Arthur’s protests, saying he could have complained beforehand, when they put up the notice, which was hidden in a basement and locked up. While it is delivered in a satirical way, it does hit upon the issue of people in the minority being mistreated simply for the majority’s convenience. And in the end, it is all for nothing anyway, as the world is destroyed minutes after they bulldoze the house down. We can see similar issues still occurring today, such as the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and how the protesters were mistreated and ignored.

            While Douglas Adams delivers everything in a satirical and comical way, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy hits upon some real issues in society; it does so in an absurd way, but the jokes would fall flat if the topics were not relevant in some way. While the absurdity of the situations and characters appeal to our more light-hearted humor, the issues at its heart and the way they are delivered appeal more to our dry and dark humor. By blowing the situations out of proportion, we can laugh at it and cope with the real situations better.