Jubal Harshaw

“Thou art God.” With these three words, he has been able to describe himself, and other creative/destructive beings that live upon the Earth as God. Not only have these words made an impression on individual characters, but also their communities. Jubal Harshaw is one of the few characters that Heinlein voices his thoughts through. With his advice and guidance, Mike convinced the world that he could make a paradise; a utopia. Politics and space foreign affairs were some of the major ideas in Stranger

Stranger in a Strange Land is a book written by Robert A. Heinlein that completely throws away the social mores of the late fifties/ early sixties society. The book opens with a ship returning from a trip to Mars with an interesting passenger, a man, Michael Valentine Smith who was the son of a previous voyage to Mars that was believed to be entirely dead. This was a human raised by Martians, who are an ancient race that has various powers that are discovered later in the book to be possessed by

as none of Smith’s biological heritage is discussed in the novel. The title instead metaphorically relates to the adoptive family Smith finds among Jill, Jubal Harshaw, and his servants. With his innocence and naïveté, Smith’s perception of the world is completely structured from his environment under the guidance of Jubal and his coterie. Jubal immediately begins to treat Smith with a fatherly fondness, and everybody in the household begins affectionately referring to him as “Mike.” This leads Mike

reporter, and Jill Boardman, a nurse at the hospital that is holding Smith, plot to free “The Man from Mars.” However, the government becomes aware of the rouse, and kidnap Ben. With no one left to turn to, Jill brings Smith to Jubal Harshaw, whom provides protection for Smith. Jubal is a lawyer that helps Michael understand the world through his abundance of books and knowledge. At first, Smith

Jubal holds a perpetual fondness for sculptures, and throughout the novel they repeatedly betoken the fate of The Man from Mars, Valentine Michael Smith. After Michael left his mentor, Jubal, in order to teach humanity what he calls “Truth”, Jubal is visited by Ben Caxton, a liberal columnist and old friend to Jubal, who came to express his concerns for the untraditional sexual practices of the church that Mike founded. Before given a chance, Jubal shows his collection of sculptures, starting with

In society there are people who lead with authority and those who follow. Parents, teachers, religious leaders, and government officials are just a few of the people in society that provide people with a sense of right and wrong, giving advice and guidance through hardship. Society is grateful for those who they believe are all-knowing individuals who will only do right by them. These teachers and government officials in society are the equivalent to “Old Ones” in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a

Humanity in Science Fiction The human experience can be well characterized by certain parts of the media we create. We reflect what we feel and face in our lives, in what we create, especially in our music and writing. The science fiction we create is especially reflective of these things, because it is often written in a way that explores the human condition as it is and as it may be in the future. These pieces of media do more than demonstrate the ideas of those who create them, they provide us