May 19, 2012
In the book Children of Men, P.D. James paint for her readers a world in which the human race is thrown into infertility by an unknown cause. The inability for men to reproduce and sustain their species certainly would be considered by most if not all to be apocalyptic. She masterfully creates a scenario in which hope seems lost. As a reader, I felt as if I too was trapped in the helpless world.
I felt that one of the most poignant excerpts from the book comes within the first chapter (pg. 11, last sentence of the continued paragraph) and completes the dooms-day picture. “History, which interprets the past to understand the present and confront the future, is the least rewarding discipline for a dying species”. This simple sentence instantly gives the reader a feeling of hopelessness for the infertile world. The promise of a future is in my opinion what truly helps to define what an apocalypse is. The term had a wide range of possible meanings. But in my opinion, an event isn’t truly apocalyptic until it seems there is no moving forward after the event; like the setting of a sun that will not rise again.
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