1. “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth…”
By Arthur Clarke

2. Setting: Time: Future; 1 day Place: The Moon
P.D.: Multi-level space colony 250,000 miles from Earth. Inside a plastic dome, fierce sun, jet black sky. Moonscape: “jumbled wasteland of craters, mountains, ravines”

3. Plot:
When he is ten, Marvin’s father takes him outside for the first time for a long trip across the moon.
Marvin sees Earth and feels a pull toward the planet (homesick.)
His father talks of nuclear pollution and reinforces the dream of returning to Earth in some future generation.
Marvin prepares to take part in keeping that dream alive.

4. Characterization: Marvin Marvin’s father Ten years old
Lives in a dome on the moon
Earth calls to his heart – the sight of it awakens in him desire to know colors, sea, rain, snow…
Causes him to feel the “anguish of exile” = he understands why his father brought him here  to learn the dream (goal) of reclaiming the Earth.
Marvin’s father
“Drives with a reckless and exhilarating skill as if…trying to escape from something.”
Takes son on a pilgrimage to see the Earth to pass on the goal of reclaiming it in some later generation.
Views pilgrimage as a rite of passage for his son.

5. Conflict: 1. Man vs. Self Man vs. Nature The men vs. their dream
The Earthmen on the moon colony vs. the need for a future goal
Having the dream to return to Earth some day gives the men strength to carry on and look forward to the future.
Man vs. Nature
The men vs. nuclear war/pollution
The Earthmen cannot return home

6. Theme: A goal gives people reason to live
Our actions on Earth will have consequences for humanity and our planet
Men carry future of the race
“But unless there was a goal, a future toward which it could work, the colony would lose the will to live, and neither skill nor science nor machines could save it then.”
A boy’s growth into manhood
Rite of passage
Learning of the dream and the role he will play

7. Literary Elements & Techniques
Point of View – 3rd person omnicient
Foreshadowing – the sky is black; the stars do not twinkle
Allusion
#1 – the title refers to psalm 137 in the Bible
#2 – Armageddon (explained on pg 160.) The final battle between good and evil.