Short Story 'The Cold Equations'

The Cold Equations, by Tom Godwin, is a dystopian story about how the rules have to stay the way they are to save the many, even if you have to kill a person in the process. Everyone has to follow the rules even if they aren’t moral, or else the punishment is capitol. This is not unlike Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, where the rules are enforced by the firemen, and they cannot be changed. These rules are supposed to help society become a utopia, but at the end, they only create a dystopia. When Montag disregards the rules, and starts reading, he is chased after, and the government attempts to kill him so they may keep the society in place and the people ignorant. When Marilyn breaks the rules, and boards the shuttle illegally, the government

The short story,“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin explains the theme of think before you act. To begin with, Tom Godwin portrays the theme of think before you act when Marilyn stowaways in the stardust and unknowingly something has to be done with her so the spaceship to save fuel,”Is that it? she asked at last. Just that the ship doesn't have enough fuel?” on page 5 This quote helps me prove my theme because it shows that she obviously didn’t think before she went into the ship. Second, another reason why the theme of think before you act is shown in the story,” the cold equations” is on page when Barton says ,”These little ships are always given barely enough fuel to reach their destination and if you stay aboard your added weight will cause

There are countless stories that one can read and forget about the next day, however this is not one. The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin is such a moving story with so many incorporated themes that leave an impacting message in the reader's life. I really enjoyed the writing style of Tom Godwin. He starts with a phrase that gets the reader's attention immediately and gets us wondering why him not being alone is such a big deal. After this he gives us the answer and some background information about the frontier and jumps right into the story again. There’s a lot of intensity to start with, but when we are introduced to Marilyn the author gives us some relief and the way he does this is by using literary language such as similes and metaphors and sarcasm. I love this contrast because it doesn't stay at one level if not it changes in a way that is entertaining for the reader and it allows us to want to read more. Not only this, but Tom Godwin uses a lot of situational and dramatic irony to add to the intensity and story. Another reason this story stands out is because of all the theme that is incorporated and not only the fact that there are many things but the technique used to incorporate the theme. Many stories use the characters difficult situations or a symbol to introduce theme. On the other hand, Tom Godwin uses situations that the reader can relate to and not only creates emotion within the characters, but within the reader. Some themes I came across were: your actions

The short story “Cold Equations” begins with the main character being on a space cruiser that carries 4 EDS’s that continues on a certain course until one of the colonies needs an EDS, which it will then drop down to the colonies just for enough time to drop off an EDS then it will go back up to continue its course. Before takeoff, they only put enough fuel in the spaceship to go a certain distance with the certain weight that is on the ship, so when or if their is a stowaway they must be jettisoned as soon as they are found so it doesn’t risk the lives of the rest of the crew. There is a sensor on the ship that tells if there is something radiating heat, the sensor came on and the pilot found a young girl, Marilyn, in the supplies closet. According to the rules about stowaways he was supposed to throw her out the airlock immediately but the pilot could not bring himself to do it until he absolutely had to. He talked to Commander Delhart about this situation but the commander couldn’t do anything other than give the Pilot a time of when Marilyn had to for sure be jettisoned, which was at 19:10. Marilyn then wrote to her parents telling them what

He was a mess; hair askew, eyes hazy, and most of all, he held absolutely no confidence. Icelus was a minor god; an absolute disappointment to everyone. In the Greek prophecy it stated that one of the two brothers would lead to live a very fulfilling life, while the other would caused the downfall of the human race.It was clear that Melenos was the brother destined for greatness, as he had the ability to live inside other peoples dreams. He was abandoning all other paths for the one that could lead to success and fame.

Without using dialogue, the director John Carpenter visually sets up a story that moves us from the vastness of space, to the suffocating confines of an Antarctic research station cut off from the rest of the world. By using location, color, and the narrowing of our field of view, he tells us that something bad has come from the universe far beyond, but will soon be very close. Into a cold and hostile world of perpetual white ice and snow, an environment the research station occupants must hold at bay to survive, comes a new, deadly threat. And as the story unfolds, the characters become trapped in an ever-shrinking and terrifying world, where a battle between ice and fire will unfold.

Flame sad that he had to leave his friend keeps going up the mountain.The air got thinner and thinner as he goes . Soon Flame Finds Dr cold on his cold throne. “Ha ha ha ha ha you Flame can’t stop me now,” says dr cold as he shoots a blizzard at him. Flame dodges the blizzard but slams into a wall his sight gets blurrier and blurrier. “Ha oldest trick in the book slam into a wall then shoot a blizzard Now I can attack you anywhere,” Exclaims the sinister Dr Cold . Pow boom crack Flame keeps getting hit.Flames sight gets better but still can’t see Dr cold.boom he got hit. Flame flies to the ceiling. Now he looks for a shadow in the blizzard he zooms down and hits it. It was just a small ugly scarecrow with stupid glass buttons and tiny Little pieces of ice and snow sticking out of it with blood on it.

A discovery made the ice man the world's oldest mummy .In 1991 there were two hikers in the mountain Otztal Valley, Italy.They found a man that was frozen solid ice in the ground; he was frozen for over 4,000 years ago. The scientist referred him as the ice man. The scientist have been able to discover many things that happened to the Iceman and how he died.

The dim lights of morning glow through the crystalline curtains. Like everyday, I smelled the nauseating stench that leaks from my mouth. I sit in the uncomfortable chair that my wife never replaces because she is always “working”. It’s Monday, so I would rather stay in slumber. My wife is making meatloaf with the dreadful peas that change the dish’s aroma to muck. All she does is work and never pays attention to me. The woman is honestly nothing to me. Suddenly, an idea struck me. I shall kill her at the time of saturday's supper. On the day of Tuesday, she laid out a tie which flooded me with anger. Why does she want me to get a job so bad? She constantly jabs me to get a job, but she already has enough jobs for us to keep the house.

The cool air swept past me, blowing my thick, long, mousy brown hair into my bright green eyes, obstructing my vision. I hastily spat the straying hairs out of my mouth as I stared intently into the thick, dark forest. Coldwater was a small town, only about 650 people; everyone knew everyone, what they were doing, who they were seeing, the gossip of the town.

One statement that can never be deliberated as possibly being an opinion, would have to be that everybody makes mistakes. Obviously, some of the smartest people you could ever possibly meet have most definitely made mistakes in their lives, some may be more significant than others. Nonetheless, they are all mistakes made by human beings, this is what we do, especially the younger generations. Whenever a group of teenagers get together to have some "fun," nothing ever any good is going to come out of it. It is almost a given, that mistakes are going to be made in the process, but it is what we do after these mistakes that make us who we are. There was one time that my friends and I went out on an eerie night looking for a good time,

Jealousy: Lysa was romantically interested in Petyr Baelish, however, Petyr constantly ignored Lysa and was romantically interested in Catelyn Stark who was Lysa’s sister (Martin, 1996). Consequently, Lysa became extremely jealous of Catelyn for stealing Petyr away from her (Martin, 2000). Lysa’s jealousy reached a climax when she became jealous of Sansa Stark who inherited many physical features of Catelyn (Martin, 2000). Jealousy was a quintessential trait exhibited by individuals with anxious attachment style which was highlighted by Hazan and Shaver in their research on attachments (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Marshall, Bejanyan, Di Castro and Lee (2012) also found that individuals with anxious attachment styles were more prone to exhibit their feelings of jealousy on the internet (Marshall, Bejanyan, Di Castro, & Lee, 2012). Lysa’s jealousy towards Catelyn for stealing her romantic interest could be perceived as a convincing example to consider Lysa as an individual with an anxious attachment style.

The Cold Equation written by Tom Godwin is a science fiction short story that raises issues in philosophy. The story is about a girl named Marilyn that sneaks on to an EDS, a little ship carrying fever serum to six men stationed on a planet Woden. Marilyn’s brother had been one of the six men stationed there and she wanted to see him because it had been ten years since she had last seen him. Marilyn was scheduled to take a ship to the planet Mirmir where she would see her brother in one year, but she couldn’t wait any longer knowing that there was a ship on its was to Woden. There was a law that stated that any stowaway discovered on an EDS should be jettisoned immediately upon discovery. The EDS carried limited

She picked up a cigarette, lighted it and blew out some smoke. Then she said suddenly gay and laughing, " You know Toby, you have a new approach, ice water. Even Don Juan never tried that; did he?" Toby sighed with relief, for he had been very much upset. "I don't know who Don Juan was", he said, much relieved, "I'm awfully glad you can laugh about a thing like this,

In the short story “The Cold equation” the setting takes place in a control room for these airplanes and space ships. Where later on the story introduces a EDS pilot who flies airplanes who later finds a young little girl who is a stowaway because of an accident that happened.