51 pages • 1 hour read
Arthur C. ClarkeChildhood's End
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 20-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Last Generation”
Part 3, Chapter 20 Summary
Karellen addresses the world at large. He reveals the purpose of the Overlords and explains as best he can what has happened to the children of Earth and what will happen in the near future.
The Overlords were sent by what they refer to as the Overmind to usher in a new evolution for humanity: a wholly new race created by an evolution of mind rather than a physical evolution. Karellen explains that just as the Overlords are above humans, so too is the Overmind above the Overlords, and this entity has sent them to numerous worlds to usher in similar transformations in species.
The core of this transformation is contained in stories of paranormal phenomena—telepathy, telekinesis, and the like. The Overlords came to preserve humanity from themselves, both from the physical dangers of atomic weaponry and from the potential danger of science discovering too much about paranormal events. Too much knowledge would possibly result in disaster for the universe, but Karellen doesn’t explain how or why that would occur—it seems he simply doesn’t know and trusts what has been communicated to him.
In fact, the transformation itself remains a mystery to the Overlords, even though they have witnessed it multiple times. The only element of the transformation that Karellen is sure of is that it always happens to children, as the minds of adults “are already set in an unalterable mould” (184). Karellen also says that the Overlords will evacuate the children within whom the transformation is taking place to protect them, both from external threats and even from their own parents, who may fear them. The Overlords will then leave the remaining humans to their own devices to live out the rest of their lives as they choose.
Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary
The children of New Athens gather to board the Overlords’ ship for evacuation. Jean and George watch Jenny and Jeff, who are now no longer individuals nor children, even though they still appear as children. George remembers a similar historical event—Londoners sending their children to the country to protect them from the bombing during World War II—when children were sent away for their safety. Jeff turns as he boards the ship, but whether it is to see them one last time or a disconnected movement, they will never know.
When the children have been separated from the adults, many people choose to die rather than live without the children. In New Athens, the very atomic power that the Overlords sought to protect humanity from is used to destroy the island. Many residents, including Jean and George, choose to stay until the land is destroyed. Jean wakes the night of the explosion. She and George hold one another in their absent children’s nursery as “the island rose to meet the dawn” (188).
Part 3, Chapter 22 Summary
Jan Rodricks is returning to Earth approximately 80 years after he left. He has been warned by the Overlord Vindarten that he may find a very different world than the one he left. As he rides in the Overlords’ ship behind the three pilots headed back to Earth, he reflects on his experience with the Overlords on their planet.
When he first left the whale after waking from his drug-induced hibernation, he discovered the air was breathable and found the control room. The Overlords flying the ship could not speak English, and he had to rely on occasional hand signals from them, but attempting true communication was impossible given the cultural gulf between them.
Eventually they land on the planet lit by the star NGS 549672, and Jan meets Vindarten, an Earth specialist with some familiarity with English. Vindarten shows Jan their museum, which contains artifacts from Earth and other worlds. In touring the museum, Vindarten shows Jan a giant ruby eye, which terrifies Jan, but the Overlord offers no explanation. Jan is fascinated by a world occupied by beings who fly and discovers that this is the second world of the Overlords—they have transformed the gravity and atmosphere on this larger planet to accommodate their comfort.
Jan also remembers a time when he saw a kind of eruption of a blue ring from a mountain. It was the only thing that Vindarten prevented him from photographing; however, the Overlords did quiz him extensively on what he saw. He realizes that the Overlords saw something entirely different, and he also realizes they answer to a higher authority.
As Jan descends to Earth, he feels the culmination of his dream of space travel, until he realizes that there is something wrong, something missing. As he draws closer, he sees that there are no threads of light indicating human populated areas. He runs from the ship, eager to see his home planet but aware there has been some cataclysmic event. Karellen is waiting for him.
Part 3, Chapter 23 Summary
Karellen shows Jan what has become of humanity in the children who are slowly being subsumed into the Overmind. The 300 million children were deposited on a continent and studied from afar by the Overlords. They spent years in a kind of unified dance, and then stood still, slowly becoming one entity, with no emotion or difference between them. They eventually consumed, via unseen means, the trees, animals, and plants surrounding them. The water remains, with one river flowing uphill.
Jan is struck by the role of the Overlords in all these transformations. Rashaverak tells Jan this is the fifth race they have watched the Overmind consume. He describes the Overlords as guardians and interpreters acting in the interest of the Overmind. He refuses to explain to Jan how the Overmind communicates with the Overlords but says Jan may someday come to know.
Rashaverak explains to Jan why the Overlords were symbolic of evil to mankind. Relying on the nature of time being relative, Rashaverak explains that humankind had a kind of premonition that the Overlords were bringing the end of humanity and as a result, their figures inspired fear, even before humanity ever saw them in the flesh.
Jan is the last man on Earth. He has skipped over the last years of humanity’s existence and the devastation connected to them. He lives in a villa near an abandoned town and has rediscovered his passion for music. His curiosity remains but is nearly satisfied. The Overlords are company enough for him as he lives out his remaining years with his music.
Part 3, Chapter 24 Summary
Jan wakes from a nightmare to discover, looking at the night sky, that the moon has been turned around. Rashaverak visits him to explain that the children have begun to change the solar system. The Overlords are leaving, as any tampering with the sun would have disastrous effects on their spacecraft. Jan decides to stay, wanting to see what happens to his home. Karellen says that there is something Jan can do for the Overlords.
Jan narrates the end of the world. The children leave to join the stars, and in their wake, the Earth dissolves. Jan is struck by a feeling of fulfillment; he accepts what he sees as the core of the purpose of humanity at a deep philosophical level.
The Earth disintegrates entirely, fueling the ultimate transformation of the children. From an immense distance, Karellen watches the literal end of the world on his screen. He mourns for his own race, who will never advance beyond where they are. However, he still has a purpose, and he reflects on the value of the people he has known as the ship silently surges back to his home world.
Part 3, Chapters 20-24 Analysis
The end of the novel offers conflicting views of the children’s transformation. Most of humanity goes the way of Jean and George—dying to escape the pain and meaninglessness left in the wake of the children’s transformation. But Jan, returning from space, accepts the transformation as a new advent in human progress. The Overlords, as underscored by Jan and Rashaverak’s discussions and Karellen’s speech, see the transformation as a net positive, though they recognize The Tragedy of Parenthood reflected in the humans’ experience of the loss. The narration is largely neutral, describing the transformation and its varying interpretations as representing the tension between Individual Achievement Versus Collective Advancement. The fundamental question of whether the novel presents a bleak view of the future as disaster or a miraculous assent to the stars is left largely to the reader. Karellen’s speech also highlights The Relationship Between Science and Mysticism as he explains why the Overlords cannot transform as the humans do. The novel’s climax is interspersed with the falling action, and the ending focuses less on the transformation itself than on the questions the novel raises.
From the perspective of most humans in the novel, the Overlords have destroyed humanity. The end of children and childhood results in most humans giving up completely: “[O]thers, who had set more store by the future than the present, and who had lost all that made life worth living, did not wish to stay” (187). George and Jean and many on New Athens are included in that set, suggesting that individual ambition or freedom requires faith in the possibilities of the future. However, the humans who choose to live out their lives find a purpose or reason to live grounded in the present. Those who choose to live, like Jan, find their only solace in the beauty of nature, art, and culture.
Jan’s experience with the Overlords has widened his perspective, and even though he has now come to agree with Karellen that “the stars are not for man” (137), he is satisfied with his life’s achievements and pursuits. Jan’s last years, before the end of the world, are filled with music. The value of art is a minor theme throughout the novel, and the possible lesson of the end of Jan’s life is that the value of art transcends science, religion, politics, and even the literal end of the world. All those who chose to live on despite the loss of the children do so to experience beauty, which is the fundamental principle in art. Even though Jan chooses to live, he stays behind rather than joining the Overlords when the end of the world is imminent. His opportunity to narrate his experience is also indicative of a kind of art—he writes the end of the world in his narration just as the novel narrates his experiences.
Another view of the novel’s climax is offered by Karellen and the Overlords. Karellen explains in his speech that the Overlords will never transform as humans do. The Overlords attribute this difference primarily to the human capacity for telepathy and other paranormal talents. The Overlords are clearly a scientific species rather than a mystical or religious one. As a result, they lack the capacity to become part of the Overmind. This underscores that The Relationship Between Science and Mysticism is also rooted in perspective: From the Overlords’ technologically advanced perspective, everything they do is pure science, even as to most humans they appear indistinguishable from the supernatural beings described in religious texts and myths. There is also a suggestion repeated throughout the novel that the Overlords have no childhood. Karellen says that the transformation always takes place in children, and when Jan tours the Overlord planet, he never sees children. When The Inspector visits New Athens, Chairman Sen intends to discover “how the Overlords bring up their kids—assuming, of course, that they have any” (160), but his probes are only ever met with deflection. The capacity of children to maintain open minds is required for the Overmind to assimilate them. It appears that the Overlords have no phase of life in which their minds are as malleable as those of human children.
Karellen’s reflections at the close of the novel show that he views his species’ inability to transform as marking the end of their potential for advancement—suggesting that humanity has not been destroyed but instead has surpassed the potential of even the Overlords. The Overlords’ interpretation is purely positive: Humanity has achieved its highest possible development by becoming part of the collective achievement of the universe.
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