Fear of Permanence in Asimov’s “Nightfall,” “The Last Question,” and “The Last Answer”
By: Tyler Nelson
Three of Isaac Asimov’s most famous and well-regarded short stories – “Nightfall,” “The Last Question,” and “The Last Answer” – include characters dealing with very similar challenges regarding impending doom and, in a broader sense, infinity. By using peoples’ natural fear of perpetuity and their determination to avoid it, Asimov shows how people are both afraid of permanent death and permanent life.
In “Nightfall” there is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and unease about the coming apocalypse. All six of Lagash’s suns will soon set and plunge the planet into what the Cultists and the team of astronomers suspect will be total darkness. The astronomers know there is no way to stop it and try to gather all the data they can to store in a cache where it will be uncovered when the suns rise again. They are afraid that the darkness will cause everyone to go mad and destroy their civilization. Naturally, none of them want to die, and the death of civilization would be the death of most people in the society. They know that it happens every two thousand years or so and don’t want that cycle to continue. In the short term, the astronomers are trying to prevent their own deaths and the death of their society, but in the long term, they want to break a cycle that appears to be permanent.
“The Last Question” deals with a much more distant coming doom, but one that is far more hopeless. Humanity in this case deals with a more depressing, looming knowledge of the end of the universe. They do not actively try to fight the end, instead asking the computer they created for more mundane purposes if it was possible to prevent it. Each time it says no and people go on about their business. Saving themselves is utterly hopeless, as the AC can’t gather sufficient data to prevent the end of the universe until the universe has already ended. They keep trying, however, and unwittingly end up indirectly recreating the universe. Mankind’s fear in this story, like in “Nightfall,” is of an end. However, it is not about the end of their lives or their civilization necessarily, but of the end of the entire universe. They are afraid of a permanent end of life itself. This fear is less personal than that in “Nightfall,” but it is one that more terrifying because of our innate drive to continue our species.
“The Last Answer” differs from the other two stories in that the fear driving the story is not of a permanent end, but of a permanent continuation. Murray, the protagonist, dies and is told by what he assumes is some sort of god that he will exist forever. He is afraid of infinite life because people can’t fathom large numbers, let alone infinite ones. He doesn’t want to live forever, and decides that logically, the being that brought him to this afterlife couldn’t want to live forever either. He decides to try his best to think of a way to end his existence, an idea that seems very strange to us because we know that we won’t live forever, and we don’t want to cease to exist. However, Asimov asserts through this story that infinite life would not be something people would enjoy once they had it.
These three stories all deal with people and their struggle to overcome the inevitable. “Nightfall” and “The Last Question” deal with humanity’s fear of death, and more generally, its fear of a permanent end. This fear is a natural by-product of only being alive for a finite time. “The Last Answer” demonstrates the opposite of this fear: Murray is terrified of never being able to truly die. What ties these three brilliant short stories together is peoples’ seemingly inherent aversion to permanence, or more specifically, being stuck in a permanent situation without knowing how to change it. It is a bit of an oxymoron how people are so afraid of death, but when considering infinite life, most people would probably not want it. Death is the ultimate closure. People don’t like it, but most would prefer it to eternal life because as much as people hate for life to end, it would likely be worse for it to never end.
In “Nightfall” there is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and unease about the coming apocalypse. All six of Lagash’s suns will soon set and plunge the planet into what the Cultists and the team of astronomers suspect will be total darkness. The astronomers know there is no way to stop it and try to gather all the data they can to store in a cache where it will be uncovered when the suns rise again. They are afraid that the darkness will cause everyone to go mad and destroy their civilization. Naturally, none of them want to die, and the death of civilization would be the death of most people in the society. They know that it happens every two thousand years or so and don’t want that cycle to continue. In the short term, the astronomers are trying to prevent their own deaths and the death of their society, but in the long term, they want to break a cycle that appears to be permanent.
“The Last Question” deals with a much more distant coming doom, but one that is far more hopeless. Humanity in this case deals with a more depressing, looming knowledge of the end of the universe. They do not actively try to fight the end, instead asking the computer they created for more mundane purposes if it was possible to prevent it. Each time it says no and people go on about their business. Saving themselves is utterly hopeless, as the AC can’t gather sufficient data to prevent the end of the universe until the universe has already ended. They keep trying, however, and unwittingly end up indirectly recreating the universe. Mankind’s fear in this story, like in “Nightfall,” is of an end. However, it is not about the end of their lives or their civilization necessarily, but of the end of the entire universe. They are afraid of a permanent end of life itself. This fear is less personal than that in “Nightfall,” but it is one that more terrifying because of our innate drive to continue our species.
“The Last Answer” differs from the other two stories in that the fear driving the story is not of a permanent end, but of a permanent continuation. Murray, the protagonist, dies and is told by what he assumes is some sort of god that he will exist forever. He is afraid of infinite life because people can’t fathom large numbers, let alone infinite ones. He doesn’t want to live forever, and decides that logically, the being that brought him to this afterlife couldn’t want to live forever either. He decides to try his best to think of a way to end his existence, an idea that seems very strange to us because we know that we won’t live forever, and we don’t want to cease to exist. However, Asimov asserts through this story that infinite life would not be something people would enjoy once they had it.
These three stories all deal with people and their struggle to overcome the inevitable. “Nightfall” and “The Last Question” deal with humanity’s fear of death, and more generally, its fear of a permanent end. This fear is a natural by-product of only being alive for a finite time. “The Last Answer” demonstrates the opposite of this fear: Murray is terrified of never being able to truly die. What ties these three brilliant short stories together is peoples’ seemingly inherent aversion to permanence, or more specifically, being stuck in a permanent situation without knowing how to change it. It is a bit of an oxymoron how people are so afraid of death, but when considering infinite life, most people would probably not want it. Death is the ultimate closure. People don’t like it, but most would prefer it to eternal life because as much as people hate for life to end, it would likely be worse for it to never end.