essay about childhood ends

Childhood's End Essay

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Childhood's End

51 pages • 1 hour read

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapters 15-19

Part 3, Chapters 20-24

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Einstein’s theory of relativity and the nature of time underscores Karellen’s explanation for the premonition of fear humans have in response to the Overlords. Discuss the treatment of time in the novel, especially considering the chronology of the novel and the places where the timeline is in question.

Childhood’s End was first published in 1953, just four years after the Soviet Union conducted its first successful nuclear bomb test. How does the novel respond to the apocalyptic fears of nuclear war that were so prevalent in its era?

The Overlords introduce technologies that greatly ease humanity’s burdens, bringing about a seemingly utopian world. How does the novel treat potential anxieties surrounding technology? What does it suggest about the dangers of excessive reliance on technology?

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Childhood’s End

Arthur c. clarke, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Science and Mysticism

In Childhood’s End , a benevolent race of aliens comes to govern Earth. The Overlords , as humanity names them, initiate a century of utopia on Earth, which ends with all human children transcending into the Overmind , an immaterial, universal collective consciousness. In doing so, the children advance the human race into the next stage of their evolutionary development, though they destroy the Earth and the non-transcendent humans in the process. The Overlords want…

Benevolent Dictatorship and Freedom

The leader of the Overlords states, “All political problems can be solved through the correct application of power […] for it’s the application of the power, not its amount, that matters.” Through the Overlords, Clarke envisions an ideal use of power to govern a stable, efficient society that provides for all of its people. Such a power is empathetic, non-invasive, and nurturing, becoming largely invisible in everyday life and maintaining order from a distance. However…

Utopia and Creative Apathy

The Overlords have transformed Earth into a utopian society, free from competition, struggle, or suffering. Every human being has access to everything they need for next to no cost, education has become a lifelong pursuit, and life itself—formerly defined by conflict—has become defined by comfort and leisure. However, this loss of conflict and struggle has resulted in a simultaneous loss of ideals—no progress has been made in the arts or sciences, and the humanistic spirit…

Individuality, Globalization, and Progress

The utopian society that the Overlords have initiated has gone to great lengths to unify the masses of humanity. Every person on Earth has become proficient in English—since that is the language that the Overlords use to communicate with the humans—travelling the world has become a common pastime, and loosened sexual mores have eliminated many of the boundaries of the family unit. The world, in effect, is becoming more homogenous and interconnected, appearing more and…

The Fate of Humanity

In much of Clarke’s other writing, as well as the majority of science fiction written in his era, there is a humanistic optimism, a conviction that through science, technology, and determination, humanity can reach the stars. With the possibility of space travel approaching more rapidly than any dare dream (Clarke himself admitted to being blown away by how quickly the first humans landed on the moon) the possibilities seemed endless. Mankind would soon be pioneering…

To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.

Childhood's End

Nations, alliances of nations, and national institutions are in decline, while a state perhaps best described as  Oligarchia  is on the ascent. George Dyson explains in this, the first Edge New Year's Essay.

GEORGE DYSON is the author of  Turing’s Cathedral  and  Darwin Among the Machines.  George Dyson's Edge Bio Page

"To ring in the New Year in the most depressing and hope-crushing way possible, Dyson sat down with Edge.org” —  Brett Tingley, Mysterious Universe

Childhood's End

  All revolutions come to an end, whether they succeed or fail.

The digital revolution began when stored-program computers broke the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things. Numbers that do things now rule the world. But who rules over the machines?

Once it was simple: programmers wrote the instructions that were supplied to the machines. Since the machines were controlled by these instructions, those who wrote the instructions controlled the machines.

All revolutions come to an end, whether they succeed or fail.

Two things then happened. As computers proliferated, the humans providing instructions could no longer keep up with the insatiable appetite of the machines. Codes became self-replicating, and machines began supplying instructions to other machines. Vast fortunes were made by those who had a hand in this. A small number of people and companies who helped spawn self-replicating codes became some of the richest and most powerful individuals and organizations in the world.

Then something changed. There is now more code than ever, but it is increasingly difficult to find anyone who has their hands on the wheel. Individual agency is on the wane. Most of us, most of the time, are following instructions delivered to us by computers rather than the other way around. The digital revolution has come full circle and the next revolution, an analog revolution, has begun. None dare speak its name.

Childhood’s End was Arthur C. Clarke’s masterpiece, published in 1953, chronicling the arrival of benevolent Overlords who bring many of the same conveniences now delivered by the Keepers of the Internet to Earth. It does not end well.

To those seeking true intelligence, autonomy, and control among machines, the domain of analog computing, not digital computing, is the place to look.

The digital revolution progressed through five stages: the repurposing of war-surplus analog vacuum tube components into the first generation of fully-electronic stored-program computers; the era of large central mainframes; the era of the microprocessor and personal computer; the advent of the Internet; and finally the era of fully-metazoan codes that populate the mobile landscape of today. The next revolution is the assembly of digital components into analog computers, similar to the way analog components were assembled into digital computers in the aftermath of World War II.

Nature uses digital coding for the storage, replication, recombination, and error correction of sequences of nucleotides, but relies on analog coding and analog computing for intelligence and control. No programming, no code. To those seeking true intelligence, autonomy, and control among machines, the domain of analog computing, not digital computing, is the place to look.

Digital computers deal with integers, binary sequences, deterministic logic, algorithms, and time that is idealized into discrete increments. Analog computers deal with real numbers, non-deterministic logic, and continuous functions, including time as it exists as a continuum in the real world. In analog computing, complexity resides in topology, not code. Information is processed as continuous functions of values such as voltage and relative pulse frequency rather than by logical operations on discrete strings of bits. Digital computing, intolerant of error or ambiguity, depends upon precise definitions and error correction at every step. Analog computing not only tolerates errors and ambiguities, but thrives on them. Digital computers, in a technical sense, are analog computers, so hardened against noise that they have lost their immunity to it. Analog computers  embrace  noise; a real-world neural network needing a certain level of noise to work.

Electronics underwent two fundamental transitions over the past 100 years: from analog to digital and from vacuum tubes to solid state. That these transitions occurred together does not imply a necessary link. Just as digital computation was first implemented using vacuum tube components, analog computation can be implemented in solid state. Analog computation is alive and well despite vacuum tubes being commercially extinct.

The spectacular success of digital computers in modeling real-world phenomena, encoded as algorithms with the results used as output to control something in the real world, has outshadowed very different ways that digital computers, and networks of digital computers, can be used. Algorithms and digital simulations have become so embedded in our culture and world view that we find it almost impossible to recognize that other forms of computation, without algorithms or digital models, effectively control much of the world.

We assume that a search engine company builds a model of human knowledge and allows us to query that model, or that some other company (or maybe it’s the same company) builds a model of road traffic and allows us to access that model, or that yet another company builds a model of the social graph and allows us to join that model — for a price we are not quite told. This fits our preconceptions that an army of programmers is still in control somewhere but it is no longer the way the world now works.

The genius — sometimes deliberate, sometimes accidental — of the enterprises now on such a steep ascent is that they have found their way through the looking-glass and emerged as something else. Their models are no longer models. The search engine is no longer a model of human knowledge, it  is  human knowledge. What began as a mapping of human meaning now defines human meaning, and has begun to control, rather than simply catalog or index, human thought. No one is at the controls. If enough drivers subscribe to a real-time map, traffic is controlled, with no central model except the traffic itself. The successful social network is no longer a model of the social graph, it is the social graph. This is why it is a winner-take-all game. Governments, with an allegiance to antiquated models and control systems, are being left behind.

These new hybrid organizations, although built upon digital computers, are operating as analog computers on a vast, global scale, processing information as continuous functions and treating streams of bits the way vacuum tubes treat streams of electrons, or the way neurons treat information in a brain. Large hybrid analog/digital computer networks, in the form of economies, have existed for a long time, but for most of history the information circulated at the speed of gold and silver and only recently at the speed of light.

We imagine that individuals, or individual algorithms, are still behind the curtain somewhere, in control. We are fooling ourselves. The new gatekeepers, by controlling the flow of information, rule a growing sector of the world. 

What deserves our full attention is not the success of a few companies that have harnessed the powers of hybrid analog/digital computing, but what is happening as these powers escape into the wild and consume the rest of the world.

The next revolution will be the ascent of analog systems over which the dominion of digital programming comes to an end. Nature’s answer to those who sought to control nature through programmable machines is to allow us to build machines whose nature is beyond programmable control.

By Brett Tingley January 18, 2019

To ring in the New Year in the most depressing and hope-crushing way possible, Dyson sat down with Edge.org to discuss the digital revolution and where he sees it heading.

George Dyson: After the digital revolution, the wheel continues to turn. But who is in control?

January 11, 2019

That's what we mean by understanding how our digitized world works. But the science historian George Dyson continues to look and looks for the digital to raise an analogous revolution. And that, he warns, could take the book out of his hands.

[Continue to the German translation]

[ED. NOTE: George Dyson, Kafka, Heidegger, Pirsig, Arendt, Wiener, and Edge ]

By Nicolás Boullosa January 8, 2019

George Dyson dedicates an interesting  essay  in  Edge  to explore digital evolution from a human system to an algorithm that no longer depends on human programmers, and the worrying implications of this phenomenon. But Dyson does not settle for the diagnosis and explores an original proposal for a solution: returning cybernetics to its analogue heart .

For Dyson, what we know today as a digital revolution has not ended, but it has mutated into something very different, abandoning the possibility of the first years and leaving behind its "childhood". For a long time, computer science has not responded to the old paradigm of machines controlled by instructions that, in turn, have been designed by humans, who supervise execution.

By Nick Bilton January 3, 2019

Could 2019 be the year that these and other emergent technologies evolve from merely creepy to potentially totalitarian? In a New Year’s Day  column  published on  Edge , a Web site devoted to discussions about science, technology, and philosophy, George Dyson, the science historian and author, argues that we’ve reached an inflection point. “Once it was simple: programmers wrote the instructions that were supplied to the machines,” Dyson writes. “Since the machines were controlled by these instructions, those who wrote the instructions controlled the machines.” Today, code itself has come alive: algorithms sift through our search histories, credit-card purchases, and geolocation to model our personalities and anticipate our desires. For this, a small number of people such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, have become unimaginably rich.

In the beginning of the essay, Dyson cites the novel  Childhood’s End , written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1953, which tells the story of a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by mysterious “Overlords” who “bring many of the same conveniences now delivered by the Keepers of the Internet to Earth.” As Dyson points out, this story, much like our own story, “does not end well.”

By  David Pescovitz ,  January 2, 2019

Over at  EDGE.org , the must-read hub of intellectual inquiry and head-spinning science, Boing Boing pal and legendary book agent John Brockman is launching a new series of essays "from important third culture thinkers to address the empirically-driven and science related hot-button cultural issues of our time." First up is author George Dyson's  "Childhood's End,"  a provocative riff on how the digital revolution has stripped much of our individual agency and that "to those seeking true intelligence, autonomy, and control among machines, the domain of analog computing, not digital computing, is the place to look."

January 4, 2019

"The search engine, initially an attempt to map human meaning, now defines human meaning. It controls, rather than simply catalogs or indexes, human thought..."  [Continue reading George Dyson's "Childhood's End"]

January 2, 2019

Powerful  short essay  on the digital revolution. The map has become the territory. “We assume that a search engine company builds a model of human knowledge and allows us to query that model, or that some other company builds a model of road traffic and allows us to access that model. This fits our preconception that an army of programmers is still in control somewhere, but it is no longer the way the world works. The search engine is no longer a model of human knowledge, it is human knowledge. If enough drivers subscribe to a real-time map, traffic is controlled with no central model except the traffic itself. The social network is no longer a model of the social graph, it is the social graph” (1,250 words)

Brett Tigley January 18, 2019

Despite the  frequent warnings  of both experts in the field and laymen, we continue to march along towards a future dominated by artificial intelligence constructs. For some reason, those with the ability to shape our futures just really want us to become the subservient Terminator fodder of a superintelligent AI hivemind built right into the very fabric of the technosphere. Are we creating our new overlords? Even worse, have already already created them? Could it be possible that we’ve already passed the tipping point and are already controlled by AI constructs?

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Childhood Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on childhood.

Childhood is the most fun and memorable time in anyone’s life. It’s the first stage of life which we enjoy in whatever way we like. Besides, this is the time that shapes up the future. The parents love and care for their children and the children to the same too. Moreover, it’s the golden period of life in which we can teach children everything.

Memories of Childhood

The memories of childhood ultimately become the life long memory which always brings a smile on our faces. Only the grownups know the real value of childhood because the children do not understand these things.

Moreover, Children’s have no worries, no stress, and they are free from the filth of worldly life. Also, when an individual collects memories of his/her childhood they give a delighted feeling.

Besides, bad memories haunt the person his entire life. Apart from this, as we grow we feel more attachment to our childhood and we want to get back those days but we can’t. That’s why many people say ‘time is neither a friend nor a foe’. Because the time which is gone can’t come back and neither do our childhood. It is a time which many poets and writer praises in their creations.

Importance of Childhood

For children, it has no importance but if you ask an adult it is very important. Moreover, it a time when the moral and social character of the children develop. In this stage of life, we can easily remodel the mindset of someone.

Also, it is very important to understand that the mindset of children can be easily altered in this time. So, we have to keep a close eye on our children.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

What Should You Do in Childhood?

In childhood, one should need to enjoy his/her life without any worry. It is a time in which one should have to take care of his diet, his health, and immunity. Besides, the children should be taught to be neat and clean, to eat, read, sleep, play, and to do exercise regularly and these things should be in the habits of the child.

Moreover, we should try to influence children to start productive habits such as reading, writing that should help them in later life. But the books they read and what they write should be carefully checked by the parents.

Care for Everyone

Children are like buds, they care for everyone equally without any discrimination. Also, they are of helpful nature and help everyone around them.

Moreover, they teach everyone the lesson of humanity that they have forgotten in this hectic lifestyle of this world. Besides, these children are the future of the country and if they do not grow properly then in future how can they help in the growth of the nation .

In conclusion, we can say that childhood is the time that makes our adulthood special. Also, children’s are like pottery vessels whom you can shape in any way you like. Besides, this their innocence and helpful nature gives everyone the message of humanity.

Most importantly, they learn by either making mistakes or seeing their elders.

FAQs about Childhood

Q.1 Why childhood is the best period of life? A.1 It is the best time of life because the memories that we make in our childhood always brings a smile on our face. Also, it is the time when the character of the child is shaped. Besides, it also is the best time to understand life and gain knowledge.

Q.2 What is the most important characteristics of a child? A.2 According to me, the most important characteristics of a child is his innocence and helpful nature.

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The Broken Promise of Childhood

Why it so often seems that childhood dreams remain unfulfilled..

Updated June 25, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer

Children want to grow up, and they often look forward to the prospect of becoming young adults with considerable excitement. Even when they feel unhappy, the thought of growing up gives them hope. In the back of their developing minds is a vague and amorphous but compelling feeling that the future will be good and better, perhaps, unimaginably better.

This state of youthful hopefulness and optimism tends to persist throughout adolescence and one’s early 20s – if checkered by some heartaches and frustrations – but there often comes a point in life at which many begin to feel as though childhood ’s promise was a false one. For some, this feeling intensifies and leads to a midlife crisis. Why? What exactly is it that childhood promises and that adulthood fails to deliver?

It may seem that, perhaps, the answer has to do with particular aspirations such as becoming a singer, an astronaut, or a world-class athlete . Many children dream of such things and most do not, as adults, become what they dreamed of. This can be a source of disappointment. The situation is captured pithily and well by Joe Dator in a cartoon which features two preschoolers, one playing with a toy car, and the other arranging Lego pieces. One says to the other, “What do you want to be when you give up?” In a related vein, novelist George Eliot writes in Middlemarch that among the large number of middle-aged people “who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.”

But failure to make one’s dreams come true is probably not a sufficient explanation for two reasons. First, there is often something inauthentic about early aspirations, because children don’t know themselves very well yet. As they learn more about their own proclivities and talents, they conclude that they don’t really want to be singers or astronauts.

On the flip side, no one is immune from disappointment and crises later in life, no matter who they became. In fact, many have difficulty dealing with life as a highly successful person. There is no shortage of famous people who died early because of a drug overdose – Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Whitney Houston, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Elvis Presley – and many others. These are remarkably high-achieving people. German director Fassbinder, for instance, who died at the age of 37, had managed to produce 40 feature films and a couple dozen plays and to win more than one prestigious award in his brief career . Presley is, to this day, known as “The King of Rock ‘n Roll.” Mark Twain, who may have been the first author to become a world celebrity , struggled with depression and suicidality for a long time. The editor of the Mark Twain project at Berkley wrote that : “He ... had not embraced his talent. He was tormented by it. He was drinking too much and didn’t know what to do with himself.”

What then? It may be that the imagination of a child holds up what seems to us the most exciting part of what we think we would like – the finished product, the world’s recognition, and so on – and not, for instance, the unavoidable criticism (there is always someone who doesn’t like what you do) or the hours spent working alone. But I suspect there is more to the explanation.

One other piece, perhaps, is this: We do not imagine that as we grow up, we would make mistakes, accumulate regrets, and come to carry the distinctly human burden that one may call “ mental clutter .” When we picture growing up, we fancy becoming freer and more autonomous, not people whose memories hold them back. We cannot imagine this, in fact, because short of traumatic events such as early parental death, the pains of a child, while acute, tend to be short lived and are often replaced by moments of pure joy.

There is something else. As children, we look forward to transitioning to the next stage of life, young adulthood, not to middle age or old age. In fact, I suspect children do not quite believe they are going to grow old and die. To a 5-year-old, old age and death are things that happen to other people. It is as though the early twenties serve as a screen, occluding what comes after. Once we become adults, we see what follows afterwards much more clearly.

But the most important element, perhaps, is this: The world is new and exciting for a child. A child does not need to make an effort to see it that way. Every day is full of discoveries. (Some come to believe on this basis that the world itself was better when they were children.) Indeed, a child may not want to go to bed, because life is so interesting to her that she does not want to miss any of it by sleeping . When adults stay awake, that’s generally due to insomnia .

The promise of childhood is, at its core, not the promise that you would become this or that but rather, that the world is full of treasures, and will remain so. There often comes a point, however, at which it begins to seem to a person that he has seen it all before. What a child does not anticipate is jadedness, particularly jadedness now known to precede old age and death.

Still, a child is not mistaken that it is better to be an adult and in ways she can’t quite imagine. Peter Pan’s Neverland is not truly attractive to adults, except in fantasy . If it were possible to stop growing older at any age, I am quite certain most would pick 30 or 20 rather than 3 or 13. This is true despite the decrease in energy levels that comes with age and the fact that excitements available to adults are mild compared to those available to a child. (Some try to preserve the thrill by falling in love every other month, but the success of this strategy is dubious.) Aging works a bit like sedation.

Still, I suspect that few would trade their middle-aged selves for their child selves even though the younger version may have been like motorboats, while an adult may have to manually row the boat down the river of life (and go upstream too). The magic of endless novelty and the superpower of unlimited energy supply may have been taken away, but we are able to exert more control over our circumstances as well as over ourselves. The promise of childhood has been not so much broken as replaced: The dreams of effortless great things have turned into plans about achievable goals . We are better at dealing with disappointment too and can even direct negative emotions toward productive ends. Childhood offers many gifts, but there is one that only adulthood can give us – the gift of maturity.

Iskra Fileva, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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Paris Hilton testifies before Congress on Capitol Hill about childhood sexual abuse

Paris Hilton testified before Congress while advocating to modernize child welfare programs Wednesday.

The "Paris in Love" star and hotel heiress returned to Washington, D.C. to speak before the House Ways and Means committee about the modernization of the country's foster care system.

"When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of night and transported across state lines to the first of four residential facilities," Hilton told the congressional committee.

"For two years, I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff. I was violently restrained … stripped naked, thrown in solitary confinement," she told lawmakers.

Paris Hilton shares Carter Reum wedding details: 'Of course, he did cry'

Hilton said her parents, Hilton & Hyland co-founder Rick Hilton and "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Kathy Hilton, were "completely deceived, lied to and manipulated by this for-profit industry about the inhumane treatment I was experiencing."

"So, can you only imagine the experience for youth who were placed by the state and don't have people regularly checking in on them?" she said to lawmakers.

'We're all survivors': Paris Hilton alleges widespread abuse at her former school in new documentary

"This $23 billion-a-year industry sees this population as dollar signs and operates without meaningful oversight," Hilton added.

She continued: "What is more important? Protecting business profits or protecting foster youth lives?"

Hilton, who welcomed her son Phoenix with husband Carter Reum last January, said she is "here to be a voice for the children whose voices can't be heard."

"As a mom, these stories break my heart" she told congressional committee members.

Paris Hilton has long advocated in state capitols and Capitol Hill on behalf of children safety issues

In recent years, Hilton has become one of Hollywood's leading advocates on child safety issues.

In 2022, Hilton went to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers and spoke in front of the U.S. Capitol building and flanked by dozens of survivors holding posters. Through tears, she said that she wasn't ready to speak out loud about the sexual abuse she experienced, but directed others to read an USA TODAY op-ed .

In the piece, she opened up for the first time about recollections of being physically forced into complying with "sham" gynecological exams in the middle of the night.

"If we tried to protest or question anything, they said it was a bad dream," Hilton wrote in the column. "They told us to stop making things up. But looking back on these experiences as an adult woman, I can recognize these exams for what they were: the sexual assault of children." 

Since first opening up about her own abuse, she has  met with lawmakers in Utah  and  D.C. , including senators and White House staff.

Paris Hilton previously addressed abuse allegations in 2020 documentary 'This Is Paris'

In her September 2020 documentary This Is Paris," Hilton leveled disturbing accusations toward a Colorado boarding school she attended as a teenager, claiming she was verbally, emotionally and physically abused and left with insomnia, anxiety and trust issues. 

In the YouTube Originals documentary, Hilton alleges her tumultuous young adult years were the result of experiencing verbal, emotional and physical abuse during the 11 months she attended Provo Canyon School, a Utah boarding school for troubled teens. The trauma, she said, left her with anxiety, trust issues and insomnia.

Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff

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It Ends with Us

Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of ... Read all Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents' relationship. Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection but Lily begins to see sides of him that remind her of her parents' relationship.

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'A Quiet Place: Day One' Ending Explained: Do Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn Survive?

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The Big Picture

• A Quiet Place: Day One introduces new characters Sam and Eric, played by Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn, navigating the alien invasion in New York City.
• Sam's mission to find Harlem pizza stems from comforting childhood memories with her father.
• Sam sacrifices herself to distract the aliens, allowing Eric and Frodo to escape to safety.

In 2018, John Krasinski 's A Quiet Place first introduced us to the family of Lee (Krasinski) and Evelyn ( Emily Blunt ) Abbott, survivors of an invading and nigh-invulnerable alien species (often called Death Angels) who viciously attack anything that makes a sound (except each other, despite the extremely loud way they attack their prey). The Abbotts' struggles were continued in A Quiet Place Part II , meeting new survivors and finding surprising ways to deal with the alien threat. The new prequel A Quiet Place: Day One follows brand new characters, Sam ( Lupita Nyong'o ) and Eric ( Joseph Quinn ), set adrift in New York City on day one of the alien attack. The new setting and memorable new characters provide the closest and most extensive look at the Death Angels ' arrival that audiences have seen so far, and the very first look at their devastating effects on packed urban centers. It also provides an expanded, though still partial, look into some survivors who came to lead the island colony of A Quiet Place Part II . With so much packed into this film, let's take a look at everything that went down in the bittersweet finale.

A Quiet Place: Day One

What is 'a quiet place: day one' about.

In A Quiet Place: Day One , Sam is a cancer patient and hospice resident who heads into Manhattan with other residents and nurse Reueben ( Alex Wolff ) to see some puppetry. Their trip is interrupted by the Death Angels' initial descent from the stars , destroying the bus, killing many, and stranding Sam and Reuben among the terrified initial survivors. Here they first meet Henri ( Djimon Hounsou ), the man who eventually comes to lead the island survivor community that audiences meet in A Quiet Place Part II. Sam ends up heading off alone (save for her adorable cat Frodo) on her true mission: returning to Harlem, and finding a slice of Patsy's Pizza . Despite everyone being told to get to the water as the aliens can't swim and survivors are being rescued on government-mandated boats, Sam is determined to make it to Harlem. She comes to meet her most important human companion, Eric ( Joseph Quinn ), a displaced British law student in New York, and the pair of unlikely travelers journey together to Harlem (despite Sam's initial attempts to get rid of him), changing each others' lives along the way.

Sam and Eric Meet Because of a Very Cute Cat

Eric first appears from inside a flooded subway tunnel , soaked, terrified, and clearly overwhelmed by trauma. He's panicking but catches his breath when he sees Frodo peering down at him from above. Locking eyes with the cat snaps him back into focus, and he subsequently finds Sam. Her mind is entirely set on returning home to Harlem , and the frightened and isolated Eric has nowhere else to turn to and doesn't want to be alone, so he follows Sam and Frodo on her journey (despite her best attempts to lose him). The pair end up proving useful to each other : Sam keeps a cool head amidst crisis, no doubt aided by her history of wrestling with her own certain mortality, while Eric has a complimentary physical strength to help Sam when pain proves too much.

'A Quiet Place Part II' Monsters Explained: How The Sequel Hints at Their Ultimate Defeat

Can humanity defeat the monsters and turn a quiet place to, well, just a place?

The unlikely travelers help each other survive harrowing circumstances, and in doing so they subtly become friends against an increasingly dangerous apocalypse . Saving a cat from creatures has a strong pedigree in monster movie history, famously in Ridley Scott 's 1979 classic Alien (even sparking an influential, somewhat infamous screenwriting book ), making it both amusing that the cat (and, specifically, the regular task of finding, transporting, or saving it) was so integral to the protagonists' meeting. In this particular franchise, it's also a smart plot device given cats' reputations as silent predators with adorable faces.

Sam's Obsessed With Finding Harlem Pizza Because Of Her Childhood Memories

As the duo gets closer to Harlem, along with Sam's health depleting by the second, we discover the reason for Sam's obsessive journey for Harlem pizza against the flow of panicking people. Sam has strong, comforting childhood memories with her father (before his untimely death, also from cancer), specifically seeing him perform jazz and grabbing Patsy's Pizza . Facing her own mortality at the end of her projected lifespan and what could be an apocalypse has made Sam want to revisit and remember that warm memory above all else . When Eric and Sam discover that getting Patsy's is no longer possible as the building has been destroyed, Eric has an idea: What if they find the jazz club she so associates with her father? Here, they share some whiskey and Eric tracks down pizza from another restaurant and writes "Patsy's" on the box. The new friends share a beautiful set of moments, and, with Sam's mission complete, the pair set out to hit the shore before the boats leave the harbor .

This very specific protagonist goal may seem strange at first, but it's an original, moving spin on some classic themes in film and literature history. The long journey home has been a staple theme in Western literature since Homer's Odyssey , inspiring a variety of works of literature and films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? The film also shares a theme with a classic of film history (often considered one of the best films of all time), Citizen Kane . That film's central mystery starts with the dying words of news magnate Charles Foster Kane ( Orson Welles ), who utters "Rosebud" on his deathbed. We come to discover that in his dying moments, he was reflecting on a moment of innocence from his childhood--Rosebud was his childhood sled. Just like Charles Foster Kane, Sam's thoughts are on warm childhood memories at the end of her life .

How Does 'A Quiet Place: Day One' End?

Sam and Eric find the harbor, seeing both a set of populated ships preparing to depart and, clearly, the Death Angels lined up at the shoreline. The creatures can't swim, and thus are fruitlessly patrolling the space between Sam and Eric, keeping the duo from easily heading to shore. Sam steels herself, and puts her yellow jacket on Eric, then hands him her beloved cat. It's clear: she wants him to survive, and to carry on with her beloved feline friend, as she has no chance of survival with her illness. Eric begins the dangerous trek to shore as Sam runs in another direction, making as much noise as possible.

The distraction allows Eric and Frodo to board the ship, one populated with Henri (and, presumably, other survivors that will create the island colony of A Quiet Place Part II ). Eric later finds a heartwarming note in the jacket pocket — saving Eric and Frodo had been Sam's plan following the rekindling of her childhood memories. The final scene belongs to Sam alone . She takes one last walk through the deserted streets of Harlem, listening to Nina Simone 's "Feeling Good." She relishes her last moment of normality before pulling the earphones out of the portable speaker to let the music blare. An alien hits the ground behind her and the screen cuts to black. It's fair to assume that Sam immediately gets killed by the Death Angel . But, hey, at least she went out Feeling Good and having made her way home.

A Quiet Place: Day One is in theaters on June 28th.

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East side ends West's streak in 2024 Shrine Bowl

WICHITA, Kan. (Catch it Kansas) - Saturday night in Emporia, the annual summer all-star football game that faces some of the state’s best against each other returned. The 2024 Shrine Bowl featured a lopsided start, and a spirited comeback that fell short in the end. The East Team took this year’s matchup 36-25.

The win by the East team is the first win for the East since 2018. The team MVP for the victorious East side was BYU commit, QB Dylan Dunn of Blue Valley Northwest. On the West side, the team MVP was Clay Center’s Brody Hayes.

The 2025 Shrine Bowl will take place in Dodge City for just the second time ever.

Copyright 2024 Catch it Kansas. All rights reserved.

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Thomas L. Friedman

Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Lisbon

I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election. And Donald Trump, a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He is the same fire hose of lies he always was, obsessed with his grievances — nowhere close to what it will take for America to lead in the 21st century.

The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for re-election and is releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

The Republican Party, if its leaders had an ounce of integrity, would demand the same, but it won’t, because they don’t. That makes it all the more important that Democrats put the country’s interests first and announce that a public process will begin for different Democratic candidates to compete for the nomination — town halls, debates, meetings with donors, you name it. Yes, it could be chaotic and messy when the Democratic convention starts on Aug. 19 in Chicago, but I think the Trump threat is sufficiently grave that delegates could quickly rally around a consensus nominee.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wants to compete, she should. But voters deserve an open process in search of a Democratic presidential nominee who can unite not only the party but also the country, by offering something neither man on that Atlanta stage did on Thursday night: a compelling description of where the world is right now and a compelling vision for what America can and must do to keep leading it — morally, economically and diplomatically.

Because this is no ordinary hinge of history we are at. We are at the start of the biggest technological disruptions and the biggest climate disruption in human history. We are at the dawn of an artificial intelligence revolution that is going to change EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE — how we work, how we learn, how we teach, how we trade, how we invent, how we collaborate, how we fight wars, how we commit crimes and how we fight crimes. Maybe I missed it, but I did not hear the phrase “artificial intelligence” mentioned by either man at the debate.

If there was ever a time that the world needed an America at its best, led by its best, it is now — for great dangers and opportunities are now upon us. A younger Biden could have been that leader, but time has finally caught up with him. And that was painfully and inescapably obvious on Thursday.

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Childhood's End

By arthur c. clarke, childhood's end quotes and analysis.

It might be, too, that he was beginning to identify himself with the Overlords and thus to become detached from humanity. Narrator, 20

This novel certainly isn't one that readers should turn to if they want complex, well-drawn characters; however, it does feature a few notable figures, with Stormgren being one of them. The most fascinating characters are, perhaps unsurprisingly, all males and all dreamers. They are not totally heroic but are more passive; their actions include trying to see past a vision screen and stowing away on a supply ship. They are outsiders to an extent, isolated from personal ties. Only George has serious family connections, but even he has a more isolated interior life. What particularly sets Jan and Stormgren apart is that they are already estranged from deep human relationships and have more in common with the Overlords than they may care to admit; this makes it easier for them to be vessels of the Overlords' messages.

There was no mistake. The leathery wings, the little horns, the barbed tail -all were there. The most terrible of all legends had come to life, out of the unknown past. Narrator, 61

Although Clarke is an avowed atheist and repudiates the need for religion in this text, he does weave in elements of and allusions to the Christian faith. Here, his Overlords resemble nothing more than the devils out of illuminated manuscripts and Dante's Inferno. They are ugly and terrifying, evoking images of sin and hell and the end of the world. However, the irony is that they are actually there to save the world--sort of. They do bring about the end of the human race, but in a benevolent way, as it is inevitable in order for the Children to join the Overmind. As for the Overmind, it is like God or the Oversoul, but its purposes and origins are unclear.

Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias -boredom. Narrator, 68

Utopia is nothing if not a mixed bag. On the one hand, many of the things that cause death and despair are gone: racism, crime, poverty, and fear have vanished. The human race is more intellectual, their material needs are satisfied, and technology and the end of strife have made their lives easier, more leisurely, and safer. They do not have to work too hard or do things they don't want to do; the false comforts of religion are gone, and they exist in a serene and stateless world. However, Utopia is also, frankly, boring. Creativity, dreams, hopes, and aspirations have vanished. People are dulled, stagnant. They do not know exactly what the meaning of life is, and try desperately to discern what it might be in a time when things seem perfect.

Man, was, therefore, still a prisoner on his own planet. Narrator, 85

One of the things that the Overlords prohibit is space research or travel; at one point, Karellen even says pointedly that the stars are not far man. This vexes mankind in that they lose a sense of adventure and possibility, and are veritable prisoners on their own planet. However, Jan comes to agree that mankind is not ready for what is out there in the far reaches of space; it is too disconcerting, too incomprehensible, and too foreign. The Overlords were right to shield mankind from an equivalent situation of a man from the Stone Age showing up in modern times. Of course, it isn't quite clear if Clarke himself believes this; in fact, he has said that he does not. He does seem cognizant, though, that there may be much we have to reconcile ourselves to that makes us uncomfortable or afraid.

"You mean?..." he gasped. His voice trailed away and he had to begin again: "Then what in God's name are my children?" George Greggson, 166

This is a shocking moment for George Greggson and for readers. Clarke has laid the groundwork for something going on with the children, but it is a complete shock to discover that they are not quite human; or, rather, that they are more human than considered possible, as they evolving into the next stage of their humanity. This is interesting because it gives characters that we don't really know and will never get to know a primacy in the novel that is unforeseen. The Children are a twist in the last act, a revelation of the Overlords' actual plan here on Earth. It is profoundly impactful because it seems to call into question all of the prior parts of the novel. The Overlords, in essence, did not necessarily care for humanity; they were simply its caretakers, in order to prepare their Children to move on.

"Telepathy, as you have called it, is something like this...That is why Jean could tap the knowledge of her unborn son." Rashaverak, 168

This is one of the elements of the novel Clarke has since repudiated in terms of having any real belief or investment in it. Clarke had dabbled in these sorts of paranormal interests as this book was written, but later disavowed it. In his preface he writes, "I would be greatly distressed if this book contributed still further to the seduction of the gullible, now cynically exploited by all the media." He does see it as fine for the plot of his work of fiction as long as readers see it as just that. This telepathy/mysticism/paraphysics is the explanation for how Jean is able to connect with Jeffrey, the first Child to undergo the transformation, how humans were able to have premonitions regarding the future presence of the Overlord. It is like religion but has close ties to science, at least in Clarke's book.

In that instant, George knew he was in the presence of a tragedy transcending his own. It was incredible, but somehow just. Despite all their powers and their brilliance, the Overlords were trapped in some evolutionary cul-de-sac. Narrator, 169

George, as a stand-in for the reader, articulates what we will soon begin to feel: that the Overlords are not all-powerful and are essentially "midwives," as Karellen calls them, and will never attain the transcendent transformation that the human race will. They are doomed to repeat this same action of helping a race on a foreign planet prepare itself to join the Overmind over and over again, but will never get to do it themselves. For all their brilliance and technological savvy, they are stuck. This is a great and tragic irony, especially in light of the ways the Overlords have been viewed throughout their time in power.

...it was then that he guessed, for the first time, that the Overlords had masters too. Narrator, 195

This conversation between George and Rashaverak reveals the answers to the mysteries from the first part of the text that had so occupied the human race. The Overlords are NOT all-powerful--in fact, they serve another entity and are not the most advanced creatures in the universe. They actually envy human beings and exist in a tragic state of their own, as their job is to prepare the human race for evolution and not to evolve themselves. The revelations will continue to come -the Overlords knew that the human race was doomed, and they tried to prepare them for it by limiting their study of telepathy and cutting off their access to the stars. All of this turns on its head many of the conventions of traditional science fiction novels in which the "alien invaders" are almost omnipotent and do not have humanity's best interests in mind, but, as the human will be ending under the Overlords' watch, there is still something subtly menacing or at least disturbing about them.

There was nothing left of Earth. They had leeched away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them... Narrator, 211

This is either the end or the apotheosis of the human race, but it is definitively the end of the Earth. The Children have absorbed its energy, its matter, its life force, and transcended join the Overmind. It is a violent, disruptive event that is perhaps difficult for readers to unilaterally praise. Despite the fact that we are assured that the human race has been prepared for this wonderful evolution and that it is an honorable thing, especially as compared to the "evolutionary cul-de-sac" that is the Overlords, it is difficult to not 1) be disturbed by the Children themselves in their homogeneous, lifeless, alien state and 2) despair that this bang of an ending (NOT a whimper) happened in such a catastrophic fashion. Even Jan's claim to feel a sense of fulfillment rings a tad false. Clarke thus leaves us with a degree of ambivalence about the novel's concluding events: we are not entirely happy about them.

Yet, Karellen knew, they would hold fast until the end: they would await without despair what destiny was theirs. They would serve the Overmind because they had no choice, but even in that service they would not lose their souls. Narrator, 211

One of the remaining mysteries of the text is what Karellen's motivations really are. He has remained an ambiguous figure, sometimes clearly articulating his thoughts, other times masking them. Those humans who come into contact with him wonder what his long game is. Stormgren tried to probe this, but Jan's musings are perhaps more fitting: "How much of this...had Karellen planned, and how much was masterful improvisation?...Jan was certain, now, that Karellen was involved in some vast and complicated plot. Even while he served it, he was studying the Overmind with all the instruments at his command" (207). This is speculation, of course, but it is speculation that it is easy to support. At the end Karellen watches the end of the Earth and the human race, sending yet another race of the evolved to the Overmind, but he seems to indicate that he and the other Overlords are not quite as complaisant and compliant as they seem. They may yet find a way to assert themselves that goes beyond the Overmind's bidding.

Childhood’s End Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Childhood’s End is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Childhood’s End

Childhood's End study guide contains a biography of Arthur Clarke, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Childhood's End
• Childhood's End Summary
• Character List

Essays for Childhood’s End

Childhood's End essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Childhood's End by Arthur Clarke.

• The Humbling of Humanity Through Extraterrestrial Intervention: An Unlikely Utopia in Childhood's End
• All Mankind Will Ever Be: The Decline of Creativity in 'Childhood's End'

Wikipedia Entries for Childhood’s End

• Introduction
• Plot summary
• Publication history
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