74 pages • 2 hours read
Douglas AdamsThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
This short chapter consists of an entry from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, describing the planet of Magrathea. Magrathea specialized in creating designer planets for the wealthiest members of the galaxy during the golden age of the Empire. The venture was so successful that Magrathea became so absurdly wealthy that it plunged the rest of the Empire into “abject poverty” (78). Thus, they no longer had clients for whom to design planets and faded into “the obscurity of legend” (78). Nobody, it seems, believes anymore that such a planet ever existed.
Chapter 16 Summary
Arthur walks onto the bridge as Zaphod and Ford are arguing over the existence of Magrathea: Ford insists that the planet is only “’a fairy story [that] parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to be economists’” (79). All four gaze down at the planet and can at least agree that it looks very beautiful and very old. Arthur realizes something is missing: tea. Eventually, the narrator confirms that the planet below them is Magrathea. The narrator also adds that in the ensuing events, nobody will be killed, though someone will sustain a bruise to the arm—this information is relayed in advance so that the readers should not experience stress over the uncertainty of the characters’ fates.
Chapter 17 Summary
Arthur goes in search of tea, which is dispensed by a Nutri-Matic machine and is “almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea” (83). The tea revives Arthur and he joins the conversation regarding the foray onto the planet. He wonders if it is safe and Zaphod assures him that it is since it is a ghost planet. Immediately after his assurance, they are startled to hear a voice transmitted to the ship, asking them to leave. The voice begins politely, but as the ship continues to move closer to the planet, it becomes threatening, mentioning “guided missiles” that are “currently converging with [the] ship” (84). Apparently, Magrathea does not want visitors.
Zaphod tries to take control of the ship in order to attempt evasive maneuvers, but he does not really know how to fly it. He steers the ship directly into the path of the approaching missiles. It again appears as if the group are headed for certain death. They are hurled against the far wall of the cabin, unable to reach the controls. Suddenly, Arthur asks what would happen if they turned on the Infinite Improbability Drive. He can reach it, so he does: “The next thing that happened was a mind-mangling explosion of noise and light” (88).
Chapter 18 Summary
The crew are saved: “And the next thing that happened after that was that the Heart of Gold continued on its way perfectly normally with a rather fetchingly redesigned interior” (89). The ship now looks like a classical conservatory, with marble statues and a spiral staircase and a garden around the control panel. Not only has the interior of the ship been altered by the Infinite Improbability Drive, but also the missiles have been transformed into a “’a bowl of petunias and a very surprised-looking whale,’” as Ford reports (89). They are no longer in danger.
The chapter then recounts the thoughts of the whale as it plummets through the atmosphere towards the planet’s surface. It questions the purpose of existence; tries to name various body parts and sensations; and wonders whether the hard surface fast coming toward it will be its friend. Then, “after a sudden wet thud, there was silence” (91). In contrast, the bowl of petunias only groans, “Oh no, not again” (91).
Chapter 19 Summary
The Heart of Gold has landed, and the four humanoids and the android prepare to disembark. Trillian cries out that her mice have escaped. The narrator points out that this seemingly trivial result of a most dramatic escape from certain death would have been taken more seriously had the crew known more of the intellectual hierarchy of Earth. The computer—whose personality has been altered by Zaphod to be more anxious instead of cheerful—reluctantly lets the crew out. A few moments later, unbeknownst to Zaphod and the rest, the computer opens the hatch again, “in response to a command that caught him entirely by surprise” (93).
Chapter 20 Summary
The surface of Magrathea is “dullish brown” and “dullish gray,” devoid of any natural or manufactured feature of interest. The group soon realize that they are walking about in the muck of splattered whalemeat. However, the whale’s crashlanding on the surface has opened up a fissure in the surface that leads to underground tunnels—the Magratheans were rumored to have lived underneath the unpleasant surface of their planet. Zaphod appoints Arthur and Marvin as guards to the opening, as he, Ford, and Trillian descend into the tunnels.
Ford questions Zaphod on the purpose of their visit. Zaphod responds that he really does not know, that he often wonders why he does the things that he does, from running for President of the Galaxy to stealing the Heart of Gold to searching for Magrathea. He confesses to Ford and Trillian that he went looking for some answers to his own vague motivations and underwent some brain scans. After some superimposing of results, Zaphod discovered “’A whole section in the middle of both brains that related only to each other and not to anything else around them’” because “’Some bastard had cauterized all the synapses and electronically traumatized those two lumps of cerebellum’” (98). Ford asks him if he knew who might do such a horrifying thing. Zaphod says yes, since the culprit “’left their initials burned into the cauterized synapses’” (98): Those initials are Z.B.
Zaphod Beeblebrox is about to explain more when gas starts to fill their lungs. Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian quickly pass out.
Chapter 21 Summary
Meanwhile, Arthur reads random passages from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In one, he learns of a young man, Veet Voojagig, who determines to discover a planet where the dominant lifeform is ballpoint pens, believing this would explain where all of his lost pens ended up. Eventually, he claims that he did find such a planet, but when an expedition is sent to confirm his discovery, all that is found is a “small asteroid” (99). Still, Voojagig becomes a rich man, mysteriously paid many thousands each year, as a friend, Zaphod Beeblebrox, started a “highly profitable secondhand ballpoint business” (100).
Arthur grows tired of the book and tries to engage Marvin in conversation. The robot rebuffs every attempt, so Arthur decides to go on a walk. He stumbles across an old man.
Chapters 15-21 Analysis
In introducing readers to the legendary planet of Magrathea, Adams is able to engage in an extended critique of empire and the inevitable inequitable distribution of wealth and resources that follows. As The Guide recounts the age of empire: “Many men became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor—at least no one worth speaking of” (78). The passage critiques imperialism and economic inequality, as those who wield imperial power are wealthy, while those under the control of imperial power are not only poor but also not fully human (“no one worth speaking of”). The book takes this economic imbalance to its logical, if absurd, extreme. As Magrathea continues to amass wealth, the Galaxy supporting its massive fortune becomes ever poorer, which renders Magrathea’s “custom-made luxury planet” services obsolete: “And so the system broke down, the Empire collapsed, and a long sullen silence settled over a billion hungry worlds” (78). The Empire’s unchecked greed destroys itself from within.
The author continues his satire of consumer capitalism in the depiction of Magrathea’s now-defunct services. Before the disembodied voice from the planet threatens the Heart of Gold, it assures the crew that “as soon as our business is resumed announcements will be made in all fashionable magazines and color supplements” (84). Commercial advertisements will reassure anxious potential consumers that their capitalist impulses and disposable wealth will once again be consequential—especially in distracting them from the more pressing problems of justifying their existence or contemplating inequality. These are constant preoccupations in the novel: how capitalism (and authority in general) intersect with individual needs and metaphysical instincts, raising the question of what the purpose of existence should be. In an aside, The Guide reveals contemptuous views of the kind of conspicuous consumption displayed by the ultra-rich: “an Antarean parakeet gland stuck on a small stick is a revolting but much-sought-after cocktail delicacy and very large sums of money are often paid for them by very rich idiots who want to impress other very rich idiots” (86-87). Amassing wealth, like justifying existence, is often portrayed as a pointless endeavor.
The author also continues to break down the traditional barriers between authority—this time, literal authorship—and the masses of potential readers. In another meta-fictive move, Adams breaks the so-called “fourth wall” that exists between the author and the reader. When Arthur and his cohorts are under threat from the Magrathean missiles, the narrator reaches out directly to the reader: “Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy [ . . . ] [I]n order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated [. . . ] the following facts will now be revealed in advance” (82). The narrator then goes on to assure the reader that the ship will not be destroyed and all the characters will be safe—other than the slight bruise someone will suffer. A few pages later, the narrator again breaks in to remind the reader that “the deadly nuclear missiles do not eventually hit the ship. The safety of the crew is absolutely assured” (87). The relationship between author and reader, in this scenario, is one of equals—each knows as much as the other.
Later, however, the narrator also foreshadows events and plot points. When Trillian exclaims that her mice have escaped in the chaos of dodging the missiles, the narrator steps in and draws the reader’s attention to the event, revealing, “human beings were only the third most intelligent life form present on the planet Earth” (92). While giving nothing specific away, the narrator manipulates the reader’s focus and withholds particular details. In this way, the meta-fictive move undercuts the egalitarian distribution of knowledge for the sake of suspense, while still flagging the disappearance of the mice as something worthy of notice.
The crew of the Heart of Gold survive another improbable escape from death via the Infinite Improbability Drive, with Arthur emerging as the equally-improbable hero. When Arthur engages the Drive, causing the missiles to transmogrify into a whale and a bowl of petunias, Zaphod exclaims, “’Hey, kid, you just saved our lives, you know that?’” (90). When Arthur humbly demurs—“’it was nothing really’”—Zaphod agrees with him: “’Oh well, forget it then’” (90). Although Arthur’s heroism is immediately undermined, he remains central to the story. He is the one to summarize the underwhelming experience of reaching Magrathea, calling it “an event that should quite naturally fill one with awe” before adding, “’Pity it’s such a dump though’” (94). It is also Arthur who unwittingly stumbles across the lone figure on the planet’s surface who will eventually reveal its—and many others’—secrets.
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