HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
Suspense in “The Cold Equations”
INTRODUCTION
Interesting
comment
Space is widely considered the last frontier, the last great
challenge to human exploration. Because space exploration is
dangerous, strict rules based on our understanding of the laws
Complexity
suggested
of nature must be made and followed. Can the dangers and
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
demands of this final frontier also take human nature into
Thesis statement
account? In “The Cold Equations,” author Tom Godwin uses
plot developments to build suspense progressively as he
explores this complex question.
BODY
Key point 1
Godwin begins creating suspense in the very first scene
by revealing the presence, but not the identity, of someone
aboard the Emergency Dispatch Ship other than Barton, the
Supporting
detail
pilot: “He was not alone. . . . There was something in the
supply closet across the room . . . a living, human body.” These
Elaboration
statements raise questions in the reader’s mind. Is Barton
supposed to be alone? Who is the stowaway, and is the
From The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin. Copyright 1954 by Tom Godwin. Electronic format by
permission of Tom Godwin Estate and Barry N. Malzberg.
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
person dangerous?
Supporting detail
Before answering those questions, Godwin establishes
the first cold equations. Expensive, huge hyperspace cruisers
travel between Earth and the space colonies and the exploration
parties working at the outer edges of the galaxy. These
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
cruisers, because of the distance and expense, run on tight,
Elaboration
clearly established schedules between planets. They cannot
Supporting details
detour for any reason. However, each hyperspace cruiser
carries four Emergency Dispatch Ships (EDS) that can be
dispatched from the cruiser to assist in any emergency
situation. The EDS use a completely different kind of fuel—a
bulky rocket fuel stored on the cruiser. The fuel is rationed
carefully, and its consumption is regulated and controlled by
EDS computers. These computers “were very precise and
Elaboration
accurate and omitted nothing from their calculations.” The first
set of cold equations of the short story, then, is scientific and
mathematical: Space travel is a closely calculated series of
schedules; each EDS carries the exact amount of rocket fuel
needed to reach the emergency situation. In this arrangement
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
an EDS is never expected to experience any emergency itself.
Barton’s EDS is speeding toward a government survey group
to rescue six men who desperately needs serum to recover from
disease.
Supporting details
Whereas the first cold equations are scientific and
mathematical, the second cold equation is legal: “Any
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stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned
immediately following discovery.” At the beginning of the
short story, then, the consequences of violating any of these
first equations is clear. When Barton first notices the white
hand on the tiny gauge registering a stowaway, he knows and
Elaboration
accepts the consequences of the scientific, mathematical, and
legal calculations. However, as Barton considers the necessary
fate of all stowaways—death—and when he rises from his
pilot’s seat and walks toward the stowaway’s hiding place, his
thoughts and actions make the reader more anxious.
In answer to Barton’s demand to “Come out,” the
Key point 2
stowaway steps from the closet. At that moment, both the
reader’s and Barton’s suspense are resolved on one level, for
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
Supporting details
there has been an actual person on board illegally. Then, when
Barton realizes that the intruder is an innocent teenager, it hits
him—and the reader—“like a heavy and unexpected physical
blow.” A young, innocent, smiling, female stowaway emerges
from her hiding place and asks him, “Now what?” Her question
Elaboration
sets off another kind of suspense. Now the reader’s question is:
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
Will Barton really have to kill a defenseless teenager?
Key point 3
Supporting details
The answer to that question reveals another cold
equation at work to create suspense. Marilyn is from Earth,
where there are no hard and relentless laws of the space
frontier. Marilyn “thought in terms of safe, secure Earth. Pretty
girls were not jettisoned on Earth; there was a law against it.”
Even though she knew she would be breaking a law by stowing
away on the EDS, she had no idea of the consequences she
would pay. Moreover, on Earth, “where life was precious and
well guarded and there was always the assurance that tomorrow
would come,” Marilyn “had never known danger of death.”
Supporting detail
Barton knows a different kind of world, “where the lives
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
of men could be as fragile and fleeting as sea foam tossed
against a rocky shore.” Barton’s job is to rescue men out on
Nuance explained
“the hard, bleak frontier.” The implication in the story is that if
Barton is from Earth originally, now he operates with the cold
Elaboration
equations of the space frontier. The suspense underlying this
part of the story is the question: Does Barton have enough
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
humanity left to respond to Marilyn’s plight? His thoughts
show the reader his sympathy for Marilyn and his guilt over
what he must do, but his words to Marilyn are realistic, based
on his role in the rescue operations. He carefully explains to
her another, harsh cold equation of space travel: The life of one
stowaway cannot be saved by the pilot of a rescue vehicle at
the expense of seven other lives.
Key point 4
Once again, the suspense of the moment—whether
Marilyn will die—is resolved, but only momentarily, as a new
concern becomes part of the story’s plot. Barton’s orders are to
“immediately” jettison a stowaway. Godwin intensifies the
suspense by withholding until nearly halfway through the story
Supporting details
just how long Marilyn has to live. After Barton questions her
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
about how and why she stowed away, he slows the rate of the
ship’s deceleration to conserve fuel. He does not believe that
his action will change the outcome of events, but it is all he can
do to postpone the unavoidable. Next, he calls Commander
Delhart of the Stardust, the ship on which Marilyn had been
traveling. He is sure this action is also “futile” since the
spaceship will not be able to turn back for her. Still, he pursues
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
this “one vain hope” to save Marilyn. Wanting to give her as
much time as possible to accept her fate, he puts off calculating
Elaboration
the deadline until Commander Delhart orders him to do so. All
these delays create suspense by seeming to leave open the
possibility that Marilyn may somehow be rescued. To add to
this suspense, the author repeats both the cold rules of space
travel and Marilyn’s human, emotional pleas. Readers are
forced to see the subtle difference in the tone created by the
language of the rules and the tone created by Marilyn’s
language.
Key point 5
Because Marilyn has boarded the EDS in order to see
her brother, her getting to speak to him before she dies
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
becomes an important plot element. With time running out for
Marilyn, the author further increases the suspense by making
Supporting details
her brother temporarily unreachable. When Barton contacts
Gerry’s base station on the planet Woden, Gerry is out in a
helicopter that does not have a working radio. He is expected
back at the camp soon—“in less than an hour at the most”—but
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Elaboration
Marilyn has less than an hour to live. Meanwhile, Woden is
gradually turning, the camp slipping away from the range of
the radio. The uncertainty about whether Gerry will return in
time suggests that Marilyn may not even get to say goodbye to
her beloved big brother.
Supporting details
The time that Marilyn will be jettisoned is 19:10. At
18:30, Barton tries again to raise the signal contacting Group
Two, her brother’s group who is working eight thousand miles
across the Western Sea on Woden, an impossibly long distance
away. At this point, Godwin interrupts the narrative with more
explanation and background information, as Barton thinks
about what had caused the need for his EDS vehicle to be
employed in the first place. A tornado had ripped through the
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
camp, destroying months of work, and leaving six men
vulnerable to disease unless Barton gets there with the serum in
time. In his thoughts Barton presents another cold equation:
Elaboration
Despite human advances in science and engineering, all human
Supporting details
endeavor is ultimately subject to the laws of nature. The air
masses over the Western Sea had developed a “thundering,
roaring destruction that sought to annihilate all that lay before
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
it.” Foreshadowing the actions that will come from following
the cold equations, Barton describes the tornado as destroying
“with neither malice nor intent.” The tornado had been “a blind
and mindless force, obeying the laws of nature. . . .”
Elaboration
Barton’s speculation leads him to the final cold equation
that requires him to act in the same way as the tornado—“with
neither malice nor intent.” The equation he repeats to himself
is: “h amount of fuel will not power an EDS with a mass of m
plus x safely to its destination.” Neither he nor Marilyn can
Ambiguity
explained
escape the harsh reality of that final equation. Barton’s small
rebellion against those equations, no consolation at all, is that
he does not act “immediately” to jettison Marilyn, as the law
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HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
Analyzing a Short Story
requires.
CONCLUSION
Summary of key
points
At important points in the story, Godwin deliberately
holds back crucial information—who the stowaway is, when
she must die, and whether she will be able to contact her
Restatement of
thesis
brother. The result is suspense, which keeps the reader
uncertain and anxious right up to the story’s tragic conclusion.
Copyright © by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. All rights reserved.
He presents a world in which humans are sacrificed for other
humans, a world in which the principles of science, math, and
the laws of nature are the ultimate equation. In that world there
is no room for a “smiling, blue-eyed girl” wearing white,
imitation gypsy sandals and anxious to see her brother after ten
General comment
years, to make a foolish mistake. If Godwin’s vision of the
grim world of future space travel is accurate, we must consider
whether exploring the final frontier is worth the price.
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