The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“What The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Can Teach Us Today”

In this activity, students will use audiovisual learning and critical thinking to compare and contrast Adams’s novel with Garth Jennings’s 2005 film adaptation.

Since its publication in 1979, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has had a rich afterlife, sparking further books as well as film and television adaptations. The 2005 film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, directed by Garth Jennings, is one popular adaptation of the book. In this activity, students (either individually or in groups) will watch the film, then compare and contrast it with the novel. Students should reflect on the following questions:

• In what ways does the film adaptation depart from the novel, and what might be the reason for these departures?
• How does the film address more contemporary concerns?
• How might the director’s choices differ if the film was made today?
• What does the success of the film say about the enduring relevance of Adams’s novel?

After students have completed their assignment, there will be a class discussion on the film adaptation and the ways in which Adams’s novel remains relevant in the modern world.

Teaching Suggestion: As students watch the film, you might encourage them to think about the pressing topics that Adams and the filmmakers had in mind, like bureaucracy and authoritarianism, computer technology, space travel, and artificial intelligence. It may help if students think about the ways in which these pressing topics have evolved since the novel’s publication in 1979.

Differentiation Suggestion: English learners and students with executive function differences may struggle with completing this assignment. Helpful strategies might include collaborating in small groups, using organizers, or accomplishing this task together in class from start to finish (for example, by watching the whole movie in class and discussing it afterward).

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Bureaucracy and bureaucrats such as the Vogons are satirized throughout the novel.

• What is the role of bureaucracy and bureaucrats in the novel? (topic sentence)
• Discuss the way bureaucracy and bureaucrats are depicted, citing specific examples from the text. Cite any quoted or paraphrased material.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate the larger satirical significance of bureaucracy within the novel. What message is Adams trying to convey about this system of government?

2. One of the central themes of the novel is The Emptiness of Authority, satirizing diverse systems of power including the government, police agencies, and academia.

• What are the forms of power represented in the novel, and what are their functions? (topic sentence)
• Analyze specific examples from the novel that illustrate how power is used or misused, making sure to cite any quoted or paraphrased material.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate the way the novel represents the relationship between the individual and systems of power.

3. Science and technology, including spaceships and supercomputers, play a prominent role in the novel.

• How does Adams use science and technology in his worldbuilding? (topic sentence)
• Discuss specific examples that illustrate the role of science and technology throughout the novel, making sure to cite any quoted or paraphrased material.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate how the novel’s use of science and technology represents a satire or parody of Adams’s own time (1952-2001).

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Though Earth is destroyed in the first pages of the novel, it continues to play an important role throughout. How is Earth represented in Adams’s science-fictional world? How does the narrator characterize Earth? How do different characters—including Arthur, Trillian, Ford, and Zaphod—view Earth? What larger thematic and/or symbolic roles does Earth play from the beginning to the end of the text?

2. In Chapter 14, the narrator observes that the crew of the Heart of Gold are “ill at ease” because of the knowledge that “they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics—as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.” Discuss the main characters of the novel and their relationships with one another. How are the lives of Arthur, Trillian, Ford, and Zaphod interwoven? How are these characters similar or different? What is Trillian’s role within the relationship dynamic between the characters of the novel?

3. In addition to being the title of Adams’s novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the title of a fictional guide within the novel itself. What is the role of the fictional guide within the novel? How does the metafictional element introduced by the Guide influence your interpretation of Adams’s style or the novel’s messages? What is the larger significance of the Guide from a narrative, thematic, or symbolic standpoint.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Why did Ford Prefect come to Earth?

A) To live out his exile by the Galactic Empire

B) To prepare the planet for demolition

C) To update the planet’s entry in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

D) To take a vacation in a remote part of the galaxy

2. Why do the Vogons demolish Earth?

A) To make way for a hyperspatial express route

B) To remove all human life from the universe

C) Because Ford instructed them to demolish it

D) Because the mice instructed them to demolish it

3. What is the Heart of Gold?

A) The ship stolen by Zaphod

B) The computer built to answer the question of “life, the universe, and everything”

C) The official name for Earth

D) The unofficial name for the Galactic Empire

4. Why was the Infinite Improbability Drive invented?

A) To ensure fun for all space travelers

B) To cross large interstellar distances very quickly

C) To disprove the laws of probability

D) To prove the laws of probability

5. Which of the following quotes best illustrates Zaphod’s arrogance?

A) “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

B) “Someone down there is trying to kill us!”

C) “Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind.”

D) “If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

6. Which two living things from Earth escape the planet’s destruction, other than Arthur and Trillian?

A) A bowl of petunias

B) Two whales

C) Trillian’s white mice

D) Arthur’s pet cats

7. Why do the characters initially find Magrathea disappointing?

A) Because it is extremely hot

B) Because they do not find anywhere to land their ship

C) Because the surface is very bare

D) Because it seems like a completely ordinary planet

8. How does Zaphod explain to Ford his reason for wanting to visit Magrathea?

A) He does not know.

B) He is looking for a supercomputer.

C) He was sent there by Trillian’s mice.

D) He is there on government business.

9. Why did all the dolphins leave Earth?

A) They did not leave; they were wiped out.

B) They knew it was about to be destroyed.

C) They were abducted by extraterrestrials.

D) They did not want to live there anymore.

10. What is Deep Thought’s answer to “life, the universe, and everything” from Chapter 27?

A) 42

B) 24

C) There is no answer.

D) There are unlimited answers.

11. Why is Earth created?

A) To serve as a place where the Magratheans can practice making fjords

B) To fulfill a purpose only Zaphod knows about

C) To formulate the question of “life, the universe, and everything”

D) To prove a point through a social science experiment

12. Who is revealed to have commissioned Earth?

A) Mice

B) Zaphod

C) Ford

D) God

13. Which of the following quotes best illustrates the theme of Meaning Versus Meaninglessness in Existence?

A) “What do you get if you multiply six by seven?” (203)

B) “[…] there comes a point I’m afraid where you begin to suspect that if there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.” (132-33)

C) “Whatever your tastes, Magrathea can cater for you. We are not proud.” (186)

D) “Under the law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers.” (172)

14. Why do the mice want Arthur’s brain?

A) Because they have been ordered to take it

B) Because they want to exchange it with Zaphod’s brain

C) Because they consider human brains a delicacy

D) Because they believe it contains the question of “life, the universe, and everything”

15. Where does Zaphod decide to go at the end of the novel?

A) Back to Earth

B) To the Restaurant at the End of the Universe

C) Back to Magrathea

D) To his home on Vogsphere

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. Why was Trillian more drawn to Zaphod romantically than to Arthur?

2. Why are many academics upset when Deep Thought is built? How are they eventually appeased?