Hero

• Who is the hero of the book?
• What happens when you try to graph the book according to Campbell’s hero’s journey?
• What are the differences between the trajectories of Frank and John?
• Go to Characters Page to see questions and discussions of thematic roles for various characters.

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Thematic Oppositions

• Social : order and disorder -- carnival (when all conventions are inverted: timeslip)
• Economic: the gift economy vs. the capitalistic economy (61, 66, 106, 297, 299, 315, 341. . .)
• Environmental : terraforming vs. Preserving natural ecology (Russell vs. Anne: 39, 169, 258,)
• Political: feudalism and colonialism, transnational capitalism, independence ( 87, 242, ) NB Parallels here to Heinlein, esp. Moon is a Harsh Mistress
• Religious: Christianity vs. Areophany

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Thematic Unifiers

(Perspectives that offer hope for unification/ community/ exchange)

• Utopian social engineering through architecture (Arkady: 36, 59, 163, 165, 342)
• Scientific community as utopian model of exchange
• Viriditas (Hiroko’s ideas about creating/worshiping life/life force)
• Consciousness (2,177-8, 292, 323, 379, 387) -- to what degree does this novel have a
• philosophically cyber-punk slant: a sense that man and machine create the consciousness of Mars?

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Critiques

(Things that are bad: cause fragmentation, separation, illusion, distortion)

• Masks, personae, lies
• Hierarchical and absolutistic thinking
• Greed

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Symbolic Contexts

(See Mars Glossary for page numbers for specific concepts)
• Myths of Mars: Red Man, Coyote (2-3, 315, 384-7)
• Arabic & Sufi concepts
• Japanese and Zen Concepts
• 217-221 Greimas semantic rectangle: Can this be used to structure complex double oppositions in the book?

Last update: 7/16/97