Sphere

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987

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Summary

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

Human Perception Coupled With Fear of the Unknown

What a person can understand is limited by human perception. Most people can only perceive things that are familiar or that fall within certain parameters. In this novel, Norman discusses the anthropomorphic problem with regard to alien life, or the tendency of people to believe that alien life forms will be similar to humans in looks and vulnerabilities because this is all they can perceive. Norman argues that humans are frail animals and want alien life forms to be just as vulnerable. Likewise, the fear of the unknown contributes to the lack of a person’s ability to imagine a life form or other entity as more than what they can understand through basic human perceptions.

The novel pushes the limits of human perception by placing characters in a situation where they come into contact with a power that allows them to manifest their imagination as reality. This power gives Harry the ability to bring his biggest fears to life without consciously understanding that he’s behind the manifestations. The power allows Beth to express her feminine side while intensifying her insecurities, especially as they relate to men. Through Harry and Beth, the novel explores what a human mind is capable of without an understanding of the depths of this power. Only when Norman is exposed to the power does any sense of human control emerge because he’s aware of how such a power can affect his subconscious mind. However, even Norman doesn’t fully understand the power and sees it only as an extension of his own mind.

As a person who held that paranormal powers are underappreciated and considered them an unexplored science, Crichton presents the limitations of human perception in terms of willing ignorance of the mind. Through the way that each character responds to the sphere’s power, the novel suggests that human perception can be expanded in significant ways if a person accepts the potential of what the mind is capable of and is open to explore that potential. Nevertheless, fear of the unknown often limits people’s ability to expand their understanding of things they can’t fully comprehend. In the novel, fear of the unknown causes the characters to jump to incorrect assumptions. It also causes the deaths of multiple characters. Only Norman, a trained psychologist, can remain open to the human mind’s hidden potential to see what the sphere represents and to use it to protect humanity from a power it isn’t ready to have. In this way, human perception coupled with fear of the unknown helps build conflict in the plot and create a hero capable of overcoming fear to save the day.

Deception and Manipulation

The interactions of the main characters often rely on deception and manipulation. Beth has struggled with the dishonesty of colleagues, most notably the betrayal of a college professor who stole her work after a romantic tryst between the two failed. Beth’s experiences with this professor led her to distrust all men and to adopt personality traits to protect her from potential hurt. Beth’s distrust of men are evident in her quick assumption that Barnes chastising her for pushing buttons within the spacecraft is based on her gender rather than the potential danger of her actions. When Beth catches Barnes in a lie, she’s quick to point it out, adding it to her list of grievances against him. Beth sees the same deception in Ted when he steals her idea about making a statement before the team enters the spacecraft for the first time, imagining that he did so to undermine her. However, Ted later reveals that he stepped on everyone’s toes in this way in trying to make a name for himself in his profession for what he believes is his last chance at professional fame.

Manipulation comes into the plot after Harry emerges from the sphere. He begins manifesting marine life and Navy crewmen out of his imagination without being aware of doing so. This unconscious manipulation of the environment in which the team find themselves leads to the death of six people before Norman realizes what’s happening. Harry is highly intelligent and has learned to hide his fears from those around him in order to appear more confident than he usually feels in professional settings. When he’s exposed to the sphere, these fears come to the surface and begin manifesting in the isolated environment. Through these fears, Harry unwittingly manipulates those around him, causing them to try to solve a puzzle that doesn’t really exist. Beth follows Harry into the sphere, and her manifestations manipulate her perceptions, leading her to conclude that Norman is the one manipulating their environment; this conclusion leads to her violent desire to kill him. Beth believes that the only way she can protect herself is to destroy everyone around her even if it means killing herself in the process.

Deception and manipulation are important themes in the novel because they reveal character flaws and play a role in the power that the sphere gives the characters. The novel uses this deception and manipulation skillfully to add tension to the plot, pacing the story in a way that each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, building suspense and keeping readers interested in learning how that suspense will resolve.

Isolation and Survival

The novel’s setting begins on a ship in the middle of nowhere and drops to the ocean floor. These settings are highly isolated, placing the characters in a situation in which they depend on each other for their survival. While on the ocean floor, the characters are abandoned by ships on the ocean surface during a storm, further isolating them from the outside world and any hope of rescue. Only after this storm hits does the team face attacks from a giant squid that manifests from the fears of one of their own.

By placing characters in isolation, the novel implies danger before it arrives. The addition of the surface storm and the ships’ untethering from the team on the ocean floor intensify this sense of isolation and the hints of danger. When the giant squid arrives, it satisfies a suspense that the novel has been building from the beginning. The question then becomes how the characters will survive. The text skillfully increases the imbalance between isolation and survival with each character death and the increasingly frightening attacks on the habitat. As each character dies, Norman becomes more isolated as the narrating character, which culminates when Beth locks him away in her laboratory in an attempt to kill him. Norman’s escape foreshadows survival, but suspense continues to build when he chooses to go to the sphere rather than immediately escape in the sub.

The sense of isolation continues even after Norman chooses to return for Harry and Beth before ascending to the surface. He and his companions are placed in a decompression tank for several days, again isolating them. Although their survival seems assured, the novel holds out uncertainty just a moment longer as the characters must decide how to deal with the reality of what they found on the spacecraft and the events that resulted after Harry entered the sphere. The moment that Norman and Harry chose to use the sphere’s power to forget the sphere and all that happened, they reconnect with the sailors on the ship, and only then does the sense of isolation diminish. In this way, the novel uses isolation and survival creatively to build suspense and a sense of danger in the plot while offering the opposite as a reward to the characters for surviving their ordeal and making a moral choice to deal with all they discovered.