Samuel R Delany’s High Weir, is a story published in 1967. The story describes an expedition group that is stationed on Mars and how one of the memebers goes through a mental breakdown and experiences delusions. The story is narrated by the man himself and throughout the story, he himself starts questioning his sanity. High Weir takes the reader on a wild SF rollercoaster. Confusing the reader with the thoughts of the narrator and with the actual events taking place outside the narrators mind. Delany gives the reader a SF experience that could transition to the real world.
There are five characters introduced in the story. Dr. Smith, Ling Wong Smith, a chinese psychologist who was put on duty to decifier the holograms discovered. These holograms were discovered while the team was exploring Mars. The group finds remains of an ancient martian civilization that only stored their informatin/records in holograms. …show more content…
After Smith gives the sendative to Rimkin, he hopes it keeps him asleep for hours but unfortantly Rimkin had other plans. Upon awaking, Rimkin escapes base and heads back outisde to Mars. He tries to take off his spacesuit, his team swoops in and stops him. Ramkin keeps repeating to his colleagues that he is a Martian and needs to remove his suit. He refereces to his colleagues as ‘potatoes,” this leads the reader back to the beginning of the story. This illustrates the beginning of Rimkins breakdown and how he believed that his by sticking potatoes on top of eachother, “like snowmen--they would look just like these men in spacesuits on Mars” (Delany, 183). Right there, Rimkin doesn’t recgnize his team and shows beginning signs of his mental breakdown. His team finally address the fact that Rimkin is having delusions and remind him of his job and his full name. Rimkin doesn’t seem to catch the information because the author concludes with Rimkin asking, “Aren’t I… aren’t I really a Martian?” (Delany,
There are five characters introduced in the story. Dr. Smith, Ling Wong Smith, a chinese psychologist who was put on duty to decifier the holograms discovered. These holograms were discovered while the team was exploring Mars. The group finds remains of an ancient martian civilization that only stored their informatin/records in holograms. …show more content…
After Smith gives the sendative to Rimkin, he hopes it keeps him asleep for hours but unfortantly Rimkin had other plans. Upon awaking, Rimkin escapes base and heads back outisde to Mars. He tries to take off his spacesuit, his team swoops in and stops him. Ramkin keeps repeating to his colleagues that he is a Martian and needs to remove his suit. He refereces to his colleagues as ‘potatoes,” this leads the reader back to the beginning of the story. This illustrates the beginning of Rimkins breakdown and how he believed that his by sticking potatoes on top of eachother, “like snowmen--they would look just like these men in spacesuits on Mars” (Delany, 183). Right there, Rimkin doesn’t recgnize his team and shows beginning signs of his mental breakdown. His team finally address the fact that Rimkin is having delusions and remind him of his job and his full name. Rimkin doesn’t seem to catch the information because the author concludes with Rimkin asking, “Aren’t I… aren’t I really a Martian?” (Delany,