Review of Alan C. Elms's "From "Nightfall" to Dawn: Asimov as Acrophobe"
By: Madison Smith
“From “Nightfall” to Dawn” talks about how, through writing, people can work through their fears of certain things such as acrophobia, the fear of heights. Elms is a psychologist specializing in psychobiography and he asks the question; why do science fiction writers write what they do and how does it relate to their psychological make-up? (130) This search leads him to Isaac Asimov, “the creator of simple characters...enjoyed by everyone and psychologically disturbing to no one.” (132) Elms begins to research more about Asimov and reads his book The Robots of Dawn and comes to the conclusion that it focuses more on the main character's psyche than the adventure going on in the story. He believes that the main character’s fear of open spaces, agoraphobia, and acrophobia are actually a reflection of Asimov’s own fears. Elms becomes curious and starts to search for more of Asimov’s stories that might have more to do with psychology rather than just telling a story. He stumbles upon “Nightfall” which is a story that deals with all the suns, six of them, disappearing and the people going mad from claustrophobia- the opposite of what Elms believes Asimov is scared of. But at the ending of “Nightfall,” agoraphobia comes into play and people begin to suffer it along with the claustrophobia. This is important because this causes Elms to think that Asimov unintentionally let his fear of open spaces join in on the story. He comes to this conclusion because the agoraphobia does not really occur in the people of the story until the very end when they see stars for the first time. To start to find more evidence that supports this claim, Elms looks at Asimov’s autobiography and finds plenty of evidence to suggest that Asimov is agoraphobic and decides to write to Asimov. They exchange several letters in which Asimov admits to having agoraphobic tendencies, but he insists that they are very mild. (135) Asimov insisted that he is not claustrophobic and he simply imagined what it must be like in order to write “Nightfall.” Elms believes that Asimov is downplaying his fears because Asimov does not really believe in what psychologists say about fears unconsciously influencing a person (136). Elms finishes up his essay with the conclusion that even if Asimov denies his fear they come out in his writings and that it was his fears that caused “Nightfall” to end the way it did.