Intertextuality
I remember reading a quote once that said "good artists copy; great artists steal." The original author of this quote is shrouded in mystery, since all of the people that were quoted saying it probably stole this quote from someone else. Literary works draw insights and ideas from the real world and the societal-cultural and religious connotations to define themes that communicate the nature of human beings and the world we live. Asimov's ‘The Last Question’ draws many similarities from ‘The Book of Genesis’ from the bible. The intertextuality of the book; ‘The Last Question’ with the bible, is to emphasize fate, which is a motif throughout the entire story.
Intertextuality
From the book of Genesis in the Bible, upon creation, human beings were characterized by innocence until the time Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree (Genesis 5:3). Isaac Asimov at the various stages of the book shows how every invention at the various time periods of human life brought in new problems. While humanity was able to understand the good and evil in life, the mystery of the life after death lingers humanity to date. Technological inventions and anthropological research that have strived to unravel the mystery of the functionality of the universe and the ability to curb the mortal nature of humankind are yet to provide a definite solution to humanity’s dilemmas (Ronda, 8). In the book ‘The Last Question,’ Isaac Asimov portrays a fictional scientific world to depict the limitations of human understanding of the universe and ultimately defines God as stated in the book of Genesis as the Supreme Being. While the Bible states that upon the commitment of sin by Adam and Eve, they were supposed to understand good and evil and be like God, however, it is evident that human beings still know very little about the mystery surrounding God and life. The Multivac and the AC in the story by Isaac Asimov strives to define answers for the dilemmas faced by the various characters in the short story. While the technological innovations at various stages of humanity depicted in a future time fail to provide answers, the question is on who is God and what His role is in human life.
Isaac Asimov’s concluding quote
Isaac Asimov’s concluding quote that ‘let there be light’ has a deeper meaning which can be interpreted from the provisions of the book of Genesis in the Bible. It is evident that the context throughout the entire story by Asimov refers to the world before the biblical creation and the AC system is God. Asimov states that ‘One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but again’ (Asimov, 9). Drawing from the book of Genesis, God speaks as not a single being but a multiple as seen in the case where He says that ‘Let us make mankind in our image…’ (Genesis 1:26). Is the voice of God that of the people fused into the AC? Also, from the book of Genesis, God created the world from nothing, and as seen in the texts by Isaac Asimov, the world towards the end of the book was '…asymptotically, to the absolute Zero' (Asimov, 9). Here, it is evident that Asimov uses the AC as a representation of God and the world in the context of the book is from a past period before the Biblical creation written in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Humanity in the book by Isaac Asimov
Humanity in the book by Isaac Asimov strived to solve the dilemma surrounding entropy. However, the draining of the sun’s energy, as well as that of other stars across the numerous galaxies, eventually led to the 'end of everything.' The contemporary world seems to be an earlier version of the earth in the Asimov’s short story plot. The deductions from the ‘Last Question’ prompt a further thought on what if the current universe was a new creation from past destruction when humanity struggled to overcome entropy. God from the Asimov’s assertions could be a Supreme Being from a past universe that overcame entropy and chose to establish a stable world. The limited understanding and mortality could be a way to ensure continuity of humanity and prevent the resource depletion witnessed in the past world as people seemed to have advanced in the use of technology drawing energy from the universe and overcoming mortality.
Conclusion
Intertextuality between the book ‘The Last Question’ and the Bible are evident where the controversy on the fate of humanity is represented. The nature of the world towards the end of Asimov’s work and the Biblical depiction of the universe before God’s creation in Genesis is the same. Also, the fusion of the AC and the characteristics of God as per the Bible as all-knowing are similar and the Biblical quote that ‘let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3) concurring with Asimov’s conclusion in the book ‘The Last Question.’
Work Cited
Asimov, Isaac. The Last Question. United States; Columbia Publications, 1956
Ronda, Bruce A. The Fate of Transcendentalism: Secularity, Materiality, and Human Flourishing. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017.
The Holy Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017
