The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Themes
Absurdity
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the galaxy is a pretty messed up place, where very few things end up fulfilling our expectations—and most things turn out wrong. The existence of an Infin...
Sadness
When your planet blows up, you might get depressed. This is totally normal, especially since most therapists and antidepressants probably got blown up, too. This is Arthur's situation, but he's not...
Foolishness and Folly
If you like yelling back at books and movies when characters do foolish things, then have we got a treat for you: on almost every page of Hitchhiker's Guide, characters are doing dumb things. Zapho...
Awe and Amazement
The galaxy in Hitchhiker's Guide is a pretty amazing place, full of binary stars, vast empty spaces, and aliens that want to destroy your world—which is actually a giant computer. There may even...
Defeat
In Hitchhiker's Guide, defeat is the natural condition for all of our favorite characters. This makes some sense for a comedy, since it's usually funny to watch people fail—as long as they don't...
Art and Culture
Art and culture are great things in Hitchhiker's Guide, especially if you want to hurt people. That's what happens with Vogon poetry, which probably should be prohibited by the Geneva Convention, s...
Science
In Hitchhiker's Guide, science is mostly about proving how unimportant we are or how wrong we are about the universe around us. In that way, it's basically like science in real life: it makes us co...
Language and Communication
We might as well call this the theme of "Miscommunication," because in Hitchhiker's Guide, characters have a lot of trouble understanding each other, even with the Babel fish translating all langua...
Exploration
Exploration in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is about moving out into the unknown and experiencing new things, which are almost always scary or dangerous. For instance, remember the cheerful...
Politics
In Hitchhiker's Guide, politics is a giant mess, which is very different from how it is in real life. Politics has to do with how groups of people live together, and it's not a pretty sight. For in...