Doomsday Conspiracy Essay, Research Paper
Many science fiction stories fall into similar categories based on theme. It is also true that a particular story may have more then one theme contained in the work. In the Novel Doomsday Conspiracy, written by Sidney Sheldon, a very strong and powerful theme stands out. Human beings fear what they don t understand. We all fear what we can t explain. This is also present in the story Share Alike.
In Doomsday Conspiracy, Admiral Whittaker fears what he cannot understand. He is afraid, as well as the entire U.S. Government, that the aliens that have crashed on Earth because they wanted to attack it or cause some sort of harm. He fears the aliens and the crash because he does not understand them. He then assigns Robert Bellamy to find the witnesses that saw the UFO. The Admiral wanted to kill them so the alien could never be brought into the sight of the public. Whittaker feared the aliens who actually came to warn us about destroying our own planet. The people who came to help us and they were almost killed because of the fact that human beings fear what they do not understand. The entire time the government and the Admiral feared these harmless aliens because they didn t understand them. All they wanted was to tell us not to destroy our own humanity.
Now, in Share alike, the theme of human beings fearing what they don t understand makes up a lot of the story. The one man fears the other because of what he is. He is not trying to kill him or torture him but yet he is still scared. Craig is scared and fears Erick Hofmanstahal because he is a vampire. Erick must feed off of him to survive but then again it could have just killed Craig. Hofmanstahal was a normal person except for the fact that he was vampire. Craig was so afraid of the fact that Erick was a vampire just because he didn t understand how it was possible or even true. He also didn t understand how a vampire lives. This just scares the heck out of him. He can t think about it without fear. All because he can t understand what another being does or how they live. At the end of the story Craig kills Erick. He killed out of fear and anger. He killed out of anger for drinking his blood, when the boat was in the distance, he should really have understood that he had no choice. The fear took over and won once more again. So he killed him only to find out that he has now become a vampire and fear himself more then anything.
Both science fiction stories fall into similar categories based on theme. Both stories have the same themes. But they are completely different stories. They both have different settings, and characters but both share the same theme. Both Share Alike and Doomsday Conspiracy themes are based on human beings being scared of what they don t know. As long as we are frightened of things we never can overcome them. Both stories are trying to teach us a lesson. That lesson is that if we do not understand something then we should learn to understand it before we become terrified or obliterate it.