His Master's Voice: Analysis of Major Characters
"His Master's Voice: Analysis of Major Characters" explores a complex array of individuals involved in a scientific project centered around an alien message. The narrative features Peter E. Hogarth, a deceased mathematician and moralist, whose internal conflicts highlight the contradictions between his self-image and actions. Dr. Saul Rappaport, a Holocaust survivor, offers a critical perspective on government manipulation of scientists, while Yvor Baloyne, the project’s linguist, uses humor to navigate the pressures of funding and military intervention. The cast also includes Donald Prothero, an average physicist with profound insights, and Dr. Eugene Albert Nye, a government lawyer whose diplomatic demeanor conceals a vengeful side. Notably, Sam Laserowitz, a confidence artist, suspects the alien origins of the neutrino emissions but faces tragic consequences. The ensemble is rounded out by figures like Dr. Michael Grotius, who introduces groundbreaking substances, and Dr. Tihamer Dill, Jr., who embodies a resigned acceptance of authority. Together, these characters reflect diverse responses to ethical dilemmas in science, the potential for military exploitation, and the quest for understanding in the face of existential challenges.
His Master's Voice: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Stanisaw Lem
First published: Gos pana, 1968 (English translation, 1983)
Genre: Novel
Locale: The desert Southwest
Plot: Science fiction
Time: The 1960's
Peter E. Hogarth, a professor of mathematics. A middle-aged man who has died of an undisclosed illness by the time his memoirs are published, Hogarth is a moralist whose actions contradict his opinion of himself as an evil man. An independent thinker and scientific iconoclast, he proves that a neutrino message sent to Earth by unknown aliens is a circular description of an (unknown) object. Confronted with the military application of this knowledge, he despairs, but he is relieved on learning that such an abuse is not possible. Hogarth comes to think that the message was a test that he (like humankind) failed bitterly.
Dr. Saul Rappaport, a physicist in the vanguard of his science. A skinny Polish Jew with a birdlike head and a bad stomach, Rappaport came to America after barely surviving the Holocaust. He believes that the American government keeps scientists like French farmers keep pigs: to hunt for truffles and feed acorns while the owners collect the prizes. Rappaport defies the idea that future humans should become ultraefficient machines. He disappears after Project His Master's Voice (HMV) ends.
Yvor Baloyne, a linguist and philologist who is science director of the HMV project. Fat, beardless, and essentially timid, he overcomes his frailties with humor and irony. He tries to keep the project funded and independent. After a military intervention, his threatened resignation gives the scientists a last respite. He ends up as an influential professor and dean in America.
Donald Prothero, a physicist. A pipe-smoking second-generation Anglo-American, Prothero is, to Hogarth, the “personification of averageness” yet possesses a “mind of the first order.” He discovers a potential military application of the message from the stars and envisions a terrible future war. Relieved at the eventual failure of his experiment, he later dies of cancer.
Dr. Eugene Albert Nye, a government lawyer. Well-groomed and diplomatic, yet not without vengefulness, Nye is instructed to keep an eye on the scientists. Immune to their personal insults, he is removed from the project at Baloyne's insistence, only to be replaced by another man.
Dr. Sam Laserowitz, a confidence artist who is the first to suspect that the series of neutrino emissions may be a message from aliens. After defying attempts at bribery and intimidation, he ends up in a mental hospital, where he commits suicide.
Swanson, a rogue physicist who makes available to Laserowitz and Rappaport the tapes with the interstellar message. Paid off by the CIA, he keeps silent and prospers.
Dr. Michael Grotius, a biophysicist who introduces Hogarth to the project and creates a strange substance by using instructions derived from the partially decoded message.
Dr. Romney, a biologist who first discovers the life-promoting qualities of the message.
Dr. Tihamer Dill, Jr., a shiftless physicist and ultrarealist who makes his peace with authority, ridicules the moral concerns of others, and goes to live in Canada. The hostility of Dill's father toward Hogarth motivated the latter to demonstrate excellence.
Dr. Lerner, a military cosmogonist who postulates that the “message” is nothing but an accidental leftover from cyclical contractions of the universe every sixty billion years.
Dr. Sylvester, an Army astrobiologist, small of stature and with a pasty complexion. He believes that His Master's Voice is an attempt by a dying civilization to influence the next universe.