Childhood's End Analysis

The setting of Childhood's End is really the planet Earth. Yeah, we know, most novels can lay claim to being set on Earth, but for this one, it really is all of Earth. Characters cruise around visi...

The narrator in Childhood's End is not a part of the story itself. He/she/the Overlord/whatever is an outsider looking into the events of the story and describing them to us, like a radio announcer...

Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. Childhood's End is card-carrying member of the science fiction genre. In fact, Clarke is part of a group of authors—including Robert Heinlein, Isaa...

The tone of Childhood's End sounds like a scientist discussing an experiment he performed to a seminar of his co-workers. Here's a sampling of what we're talking about:In many ways, the appearances...

The world of Childhood's End had some pretty heavy subject matter to get across to the reader—science, alien technologies, paranormal activities, extraterrestrial landscapes, and the transcendenc...

Before we discuss what's up with the title, we thought we'd share this famous quote, spoken by one Isaac Newton:To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undi...

When it comes down to it, the ending of Childhood's End is all about the unknown. Humanity has joined an unknown species named the Overmind to venture into the unknown reaches of space for an unkno...

Mount Science can be a treacherous climb thanks to those steep technical slopes. And its sister peak, Mount Mysticism, can be equally dangerous to the uninitiated. And Clarke wants us to climb both...

We Come In PeaceExposition (a.k.a. the stuff you need to know to enjoy the story) is the name of this stage's game. Basically, the initial situation occurs during the novel's first section, "Earth...

A young hero falls under the shadow of the dark powerThere isn't really a single hero or dark power in Childhood's End. No Frodo versus Sauron. No Luke Skywalker versus the Emperor.Instead, the dar...

Well, this is convenient, isn't it? Here we are analyzing the three-act plot structure, and the book is nicely split into three sections. Better still, the novel's sections actually fit into their...

Clarke belongs to the big three of science fiction, and joining him in this honor are Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. By their powers combined, these guys helped bring the genre out of the pulp e...

The sex in Childhood's End has all the steaminess of a biology class taught by a professor who only has a passing, theoretical knowledge of the horizontal pastime. Case in point:In particular, the...

Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle" (2.51)Elias Lünnrot, Kalevala (2.98)G.K. Chesterton (4.84)"The Pied Piper of Hamelin" (5.15)George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (15.37)Plato and his Philoso...