What is the theme of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing?

Answer 1

Like any important work of literature, there are many themes. The most prominent themes in this book include: questions of identity, rationalism vs. emotionalism, and pursuit of knowledge as folly. A close reading of the text will undoubtedly reveal more, but these are the ones I found to be important.

Questions of identity arise in the college as the members are given numbers rather than names, creating an added dimension to their own identities, meanwhile Octavian has no knowledge of his home country, the outside world, or initially even his status as an experiment. Everything is kept from him, and it is through the death of his mother that he comes to find that the college is not a suitable place to discover his place. Fittingly, it is through the eyes of another, Private Evidence Goring and his letters to home, that we see Octavian struggle through the emotional trauma of his mother's death and her subsequent treatment at the college, and his struggle to make a place for himself in the Revolution. Only in the end, when he is recaptured, does he take his firm stance in opposition to everything the college represents and establish his identity as an enemy to slavery, both metaphorical and literal.

Rationalism vs. emotionalism questions arise throughout the dealings of the college. At every turn, Octavian is told to "observe." When his dog dies, he becomes emotional, but Mr. Gitney (03-01) coaches him to rather observe and rationalize his emotions. He is given constant mental exercises to observe events around him and to deduce conclusions based on natural hypotheses he should form. It is when he begins to realize the relationship he is supposed to have with his mother as loving and supportive and not just subject interaction that he begins realizing the folly of relying solely on rationale. The break between rationalism and emotionalism occurs during the Pox Party, when his mother succumbs to the virus and dies and he discovers that this beautiful woman he never knew the way he wished was being dissected as a rational continuation of their experimental status. He runs away and spends the following days observing, never letting his emotions take over because they are too powerful for someone who has been trained to control them. As he begins to realize the folly of his rationalism and begins succumbing to emotion, he is recaptured by the college and is forced to confront the entire system of rational thinking, which he sees with his newfound clarity of conjunctive rationale and emotional intelligence as being unpure and fallacious. His final rejection of that system in the last pages lead to his freedom.

Pursuit of knowledge as folly ties in closely with the previous discussion. The College of Novanglian Lucidity has abandoned all efforts at pursuing knowledge that is not rational. They begin to cut themselves off from their own humanity as they conduct experiments on animals and humans that people today would never condone. It is this pursuit of knowledge that leads to the ill treatment of Octavian. While the folly is not nearly as obvious as it is in other works, such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,it is clear when the college begins its slow decay into an institution that does not seek answers to questions they have formed, but rather seeks questions to answers they have already decided. Had the pursuit of knowledge been maintained as a true pursuit of the unknown, it would have maintained itself, albeit in ways the world would not approve. Instead, they began playing God, forming an answer and bending the experiments so they provided the suitable results.