Claustrophobia and Agoraphobia within Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall"
By: Madison Smith
A pathological fear is a “fear that is not the norm and is considered to be unhealthy for the individual with the fear” (The Anxiety & Fear Experts). Most people experience a pathological fear at one point in their life. Most are able to overcome it, but some must live with it and accept the limitations. There are studies showing that by writing about the fear you can overcome it (Elms 130). The fear may influence the way an author writes and how the story turns out. Looking at Isaac Asimov’s works it would not be obvious that he suffers from agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces, or claustrophobia, the fear of enclosed spaces. Yet, there are several instances outside of “Nightfall” where Asimov himself admits to being agoraphobic. Knowing this, I read Asimov’s acclaimed short story, “Nightfall,” and discovered some interesting occurrences. A person not looking for anything deep would see a world driven mad by claustrophobia, but that is not what I read. As the story progresses the people of the world do suffer from claustrophobia but in the end it was agoraphobia that drives the society mad. Alan Elms says that agoraphobia is in “Nightfall” and it is there because Asimov is agoraphobic. The fact that Asimov is agoraphobic influences his writing of “Nightfall,” and how the claustrophobia turned into agoraphobia. His fear did not just appear because Asimov wanted it to, his subconscious drove his mind to change the way the story ended. Asimov intends to write a story about a world where all the people suffer from claustrophobia- and ultimately go mad from it- but instead writes an ending to where the people go mad from agoraphobia because Asimov’s subconscious fears unconsciously guided his writings.
Claustrophobia and agoraphobia are often looked at as the complete opposites of each other, but they are not. Claustrophobia is the fear of closed spaces and being trapped, often associated with a fear of darkness. When you start to experience an attack of claustrophobia it mirrors the symptoms of a panic attack, but claustrophobics experience this in small spaces like elevators or a crowded room. Agoraphobia is the fear of open, public spaces. Agoraphobia translates to mean ‘fear of the market place.’ What people do not know is that agoraphobia is really a fear of not being able to escape to a ‘safe’ place (Hadfield). “What frightens them is not the size of the room, but the amount of people in the room and the ability to leave it” (rockrweasle), meaning that in a crowded room agoraphobics will freak out because they do not have an easy escape from the room. Based on many years of research, psychologists have come to the conclusion that, many people who suffer from agoraphobia often have a small case of claustrophobia as well (Starcevic 209).
Alan Elms reports that, Isaac Asimov mentions in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green that he has severe acrophobia, the fear of heights, and a preference for being in enclosed rooms (Elms 133). In a letter he wrote to Elms he states that “I prefer enclosed spaces to open places” (qtd. in Elms 134). It is evident in The Robots of Dawn that Asimov has knowledge of panic attacks brought on by agoraphobia, as the main character, Baley, suffers an attack and the way it described is extremely detailed. There is other evidence of Asimov’s fear that does exist and many other people have come to the conclusion that Asimov does suffer from agoraphobia, but not many would say that it influences his works. Elms is one of the first to outright state that because Asimov has a fear of open spaces, agoraphobia shows up in his stories. In “Nightfall” the people, called the Lagashians, suffer from severe claustrophobia, yet at the end of the story it was agoraphobia that drove them mad. By writing about fears in his stories at all, makes it easier for Asimov’s subconscious to influence the way his stories play out.
Imagine a world where there is never true darkness, where there is always one of the six suns in the sky, where you can never get over your fear of the dark. When Alpha sets, Beta is at zenith; when Gamma is at aphelion, Delta is near. The whole planet is bathed in perpetual sunlight from its constant companions, so that the inhabitants of Saro City have never seen the stars, have never known the total darkness of night. “You will go mad, completely, and permanently! There is no question of it!” (Nightfall 8). The psychologists of Lagash predict that all of the people will go mad because of the oppressive darkness that will prevail when all of the suns disappear. In a room with the curtains drawn there sits a psychologist and a reporter in total blackness. The reporter said that he could survive in the dark but, the psychologist said you will think that “the walls of the room were crushing in on you in the dark” (Nightfall 8). This is one of the first examples of how Asimov intended that the people of Lagash would go mad by claustrophobia; he uses foreshadowing to tell the readers that this is how the story will end, but that is not how it happens. At this point in the story there was only one sun in the sky and it was about to go into an eclipse. Two scientists who were running late come into the observatory, where the story is set, and a reader can get the first hint that Asimov was starting to write a different ending. The two built a building that simulated the experience of stars appearing and said that, “It was just a roof with holes in it…there isn’t any effect at all” (Nightfall 10). This is important because it hints at the Lagashians not going mad from claustrophobia, but perhaps something else. As the first piece disappeared there were sounds of screaming coming from the city. The destruction had started. Soon after the cultists convinced the people the only way to save their souls was to try and storm the observatory where the scientists were trying to record the eclipse for future civilizations. The citizens headed towards the observatory but were stopped from breaking in as the last bit of sunlight disappeared.
As the last of the sunlight disappeared there was “a strange, deadly, silence from outside” (Nightfall 20). The narrator then looks up and sees the night sky filled with “thirty thousand mighty suns” shining down on them in “a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference” (Nightfall 20). Here is when the Lagashians truly start to go mad. They are not going mad from claustrophobia, but rather agoraphobia because they feel so tiny and small in comparison to the tens of thousands stars in the night sky. They had never seen even one star, and so the Lagashians thought that there might be six, at most not the thousands that there was. At this moment the quote that Asimov used as a prompt really fits in. He uses a quote by Emerson that asks the question, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore…” (qtd. in Nightfall 1). Basically Emerson is asking how people would react to seeing the stars for the first time and Asimov depicts a very interesting reaction to the stars. The main scientist begins to experience the symptoms of the madness and thinks that it was “very horrible to go mad and to know that you were going mad” (Nightfall 20). As all of the Lagashians start to go mad the narrator hears one last sentence from a random scientist, “Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn’t know we couldn’t know…” (Nightfall 20). The scientist is suffering from agoraphobia as the stars shine down and he is not the only one. “In the direction of Saro city, a crimson glow began growing…that was not the glow of a sun” (Nightfall 20). The Lagashians had started to succumb to the madness and “the long night had come again” (Nightfall 20).
Asimov started out writing a story where all the people were supposed to go mad by being suffocated by the darkness yet in the end they were overwhelmed by the vastness of space and numerous numbers of stars they had never even dreamed of before. Was the fact that he was an agoraphobic unconsciously influence him to change the way the Lagashians were supposed to go mad? The evidence suggests that yes it did. At least in “Nightfall” it seems as if this is the case, because there was not even a hint that there were actually thousands of stars out there and that that would overwhelm the Lagashians into becoming agoraphobics until nearly the last page. The people suffered from both claustrophobia and agoraphobia, but ultimately went insane from the stark vastness of the universe. “Nightfall” is a prime example of how pathological fears can subconsciously influence a person to do something, such as change the way a story was supposed to end.
Claustrophobia and agoraphobia are often looked at as the complete opposites of each other, but they are not. Claustrophobia is the fear of closed spaces and being trapped, often associated with a fear of darkness. When you start to experience an attack of claustrophobia it mirrors the symptoms of a panic attack, but claustrophobics experience this in small spaces like elevators or a crowded room. Agoraphobia is the fear of open, public spaces. Agoraphobia translates to mean ‘fear of the market place.’ What people do not know is that agoraphobia is really a fear of not being able to escape to a ‘safe’ place (Hadfield). “What frightens them is not the size of the room, but the amount of people in the room and the ability to leave it” (rockrweasle), meaning that in a crowded room agoraphobics will freak out because they do not have an easy escape from the room. Based on many years of research, psychologists have come to the conclusion that, many people who suffer from agoraphobia often have a small case of claustrophobia as well (Starcevic 209).
Alan Elms reports that, Isaac Asimov mentions in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green that he has severe acrophobia, the fear of heights, and a preference for being in enclosed rooms (Elms 133). In a letter he wrote to Elms he states that “I prefer enclosed spaces to open places” (qtd. in Elms 134). It is evident in The Robots of Dawn that Asimov has knowledge of panic attacks brought on by agoraphobia, as the main character, Baley, suffers an attack and the way it described is extremely detailed. There is other evidence of Asimov’s fear that does exist and many other people have come to the conclusion that Asimov does suffer from agoraphobia, but not many would say that it influences his works. Elms is one of the first to outright state that because Asimov has a fear of open spaces, agoraphobia shows up in his stories. In “Nightfall” the people, called the Lagashians, suffer from severe claustrophobia, yet at the end of the story it was agoraphobia that drove them mad. By writing about fears in his stories at all, makes it easier for Asimov’s subconscious to influence the way his stories play out.
Imagine a world where there is never true darkness, where there is always one of the six suns in the sky, where you can never get over your fear of the dark. When Alpha sets, Beta is at zenith; when Gamma is at aphelion, Delta is near. The whole planet is bathed in perpetual sunlight from its constant companions, so that the inhabitants of Saro City have never seen the stars, have never known the total darkness of night. “You will go mad, completely, and permanently! There is no question of it!” (Nightfall 8). The psychologists of Lagash predict that all of the people will go mad because of the oppressive darkness that will prevail when all of the suns disappear. In a room with the curtains drawn there sits a psychologist and a reporter in total blackness. The reporter said that he could survive in the dark but, the psychologist said you will think that “the walls of the room were crushing in on you in the dark” (Nightfall 8). This is one of the first examples of how Asimov intended that the people of Lagash would go mad by claustrophobia; he uses foreshadowing to tell the readers that this is how the story will end, but that is not how it happens. At this point in the story there was only one sun in the sky and it was about to go into an eclipse. Two scientists who were running late come into the observatory, where the story is set, and a reader can get the first hint that Asimov was starting to write a different ending. The two built a building that simulated the experience of stars appearing and said that, “It was just a roof with holes in it…there isn’t any effect at all” (Nightfall 10). This is important because it hints at the Lagashians not going mad from claustrophobia, but perhaps something else. As the first piece disappeared there were sounds of screaming coming from the city. The destruction had started. Soon after the cultists convinced the people the only way to save their souls was to try and storm the observatory where the scientists were trying to record the eclipse for future civilizations. The citizens headed towards the observatory but were stopped from breaking in as the last bit of sunlight disappeared.
As the last of the sunlight disappeared there was “a strange, deadly, silence from outside” (Nightfall 20). The narrator then looks up and sees the night sky filled with “thirty thousand mighty suns” shining down on them in “a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference” (Nightfall 20). Here is when the Lagashians truly start to go mad. They are not going mad from claustrophobia, but rather agoraphobia because they feel so tiny and small in comparison to the tens of thousands stars in the night sky. They had never seen even one star, and so the Lagashians thought that there might be six, at most not the thousands that there was. At this moment the quote that Asimov used as a prompt really fits in. He uses a quote by Emerson that asks the question, “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore…” (qtd. in Nightfall 1). Basically Emerson is asking how people would react to seeing the stars for the first time and Asimov depicts a very interesting reaction to the stars. The main scientist begins to experience the symptoms of the madness and thinks that it was “very horrible to go mad and to know that you were going mad” (Nightfall 20). As all of the Lagashians start to go mad the narrator hears one last sentence from a random scientist, “Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn’t know we couldn’t know…” (Nightfall 20). The scientist is suffering from agoraphobia as the stars shine down and he is not the only one. “In the direction of Saro city, a crimson glow began growing…that was not the glow of a sun” (Nightfall 20). The Lagashians had started to succumb to the madness and “the long night had come again” (Nightfall 20).
Asimov started out writing a story where all the people were supposed to go mad by being suffocated by the darkness yet in the end they were overwhelmed by the vastness of space and numerous numbers of stars they had never even dreamed of before. Was the fact that he was an agoraphobic unconsciously influence him to change the way the Lagashians were supposed to go mad? The evidence suggests that yes it did. At least in “Nightfall” it seems as if this is the case, because there was not even a hint that there were actually thousands of stars out there and that that would overwhelm the Lagashians into becoming agoraphobics until nearly the last page. The people suffered from both claustrophobia and agoraphobia, but ultimately went insane from the stark vastness of the universe. “Nightfall” is a prime example of how pathological fears can subconsciously influence a person to do something, such as change the way a story was supposed to end.