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explication of that mystery and the establishment of psychological credibility for the final scene. |
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A major part of the story's appeal, certainly for Campbell and no doubt for his readers as well, was the alignment of forces: the rational people, the scientists, opposed by the irrational, the mobs and the Cultists. The mobs reject the warnings of the scientists because ordinary people place their faith in everyday experience continuing as it always has and will not believe in such abstractions as theories of gravitation and calculations about an invisible satellite. The Cultists, on the other hand, have preserved unique information about earlier catastrophes, but they interpret that information according to their desires rather than their intellects. They reject scientific "facts" in favor of religious "knowledge." They are right about events but for the wrong reasons, and thus their responses are also irrational. |
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Against these forces Asimov placed the scientists, who may be passionate enough in pursuit of their goals (Aton blusters at Theremon, and another astronomer, Beenay, attacks Latimer), but they are willing to accept whatever "truth" best explains the facts. In earlier stories ("Black Friar of the Flame," which was written early in 1939, "Half-Breed," ''The Secret Sense," etc.), Asimov had sometimes allowed emotion to become a motivating force. In "Nightfall" he established the position that he was to maintain throughout most of the rest of his work: rationality must struggle to prevail in a world made difficult not only by the mysteries and hard truths of the universe but by people unable or unwilling to think clearly. The subject of "Nightfall" is ignorance; ignorance of the laws that govern the universe, ignorance of phenomena such as "night" and "stars," which makes the Lagashians, even the scientists, victims of their fears. |
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Asimov's style suited his subjects and his method. The mystery and the puzzle are story types in which only rationality can prevail, and Asimov's direct, clear prose, as unlyrical and unmetaphorical as possible, persuaded readers that they were being presented all the facts upon which to draw their own conclusions. Asimov, in fact, objected to a paragraph that Campbell inserted near the end of the story: |
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Not Earth's feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye: Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster. Thirty thousand mighty suns shone down in a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference than the bitter wind that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world. |
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In his autobiography Asimov complained that this |
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