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The short story, Holdout, but Robert Scheckley, is a story about racism and how it affects everything around it. On a spaceship, captain Sven discovers that his radioman, Forbes, will not serve with a new replacement four-hours before take off. This in turn will affect how the crew run and act on the ship. Captain Sven then goes on to ask different people why his radioman might not want to work with this new replacement. Every single crewmember he asks say it is nothing personal, but it is only racial grounds and therefore, Forbes will not work with the new man. The Captain then wonders how this can be, for the whole crew is racially different.
There is an Israeli, a Venusian, Chinese, some Russians, New Yorkers, Melanesians, Africans, and so many other races that the captain could not see why Forbes would not work with this one member. After talking with Vilkin, the Israeli, Sven discovers he hasnt read or know any about Forbes race, Mountain-Georgian. Vilkin suggests that Sven read two books. Sven ends up taking the advice, but comes to no conclusion about the matter. While this is going on, Sven finds out he must blastoff at the time when scheduled, which makes him very concerned. He decides to go to Forbes himself and find out what the problem is.
By talking to Forbes, he finds out that Mountain-Georgians dont get along with each other. He then tries and reasons with Forbes, telling him a story to make him see things in a big picture. He then asks for Forbes to give the new man, Blake, a shot. Forbes agrees, but after the meeting the man, he has trouble keeping his word. The two Mountain-Georgians stood next to each other in silence when Forbes blurts out You all white?
By doing this, he finds that Blake is one-eighth Cherokee. This in turn doesnt make Blake a full Mountain-Georgian and Forbes becomes real friendly with the guy, like he was someone new. The crew then gets along and the ship is able to takeoff on time. In the story Holdout, the author, Robert Sheckley, tells of a racial world and all the problems that it holds. He uses the setting of a spaceship, where in truth, he seems to be describing our home, the planet earth.
The two are very similar because a spaceship is a place that is always working and a place that needs to run smoothly, just like earth. The first couple sentences describe the spaceship, and earth. The crew of a spaceship must be friends. They must live harmoniously in order to achieve split-second interaction that becomes necessary from time to time. (P. 82) This also describes earth because in order to grow and prosper, there must be no hatred and everyone must get along. By relating the spaceship to earth, the author shows that not only does being prejudice racially hurt everything around a person in space, but also in the long run, it will hurt everything around you wherever one is. The author depicts the world as a bad place when racial prejudice is being used.
He does this by showing the crewmembers worrying about why Forbes wont work with Blake. When Ksrat tells the captain all is fine Except for the Forbes problem of course. (P. 87), the captain sees the crew is worrying about the problem. This causes much confusion and the ship might not have been able to take off in time. Every crewmembers mind was not on the task at hand, but on the conflict. In real life, nothing will ever happen as long as racial prejudice is around.
The world cannot strive to become better if it does not get along with itself, and the people cannot work with each other. Forbes shows he cannot get along with Blake when he says, thats the one thing I cant do. (P. 88) He is telling Captain Sven that of all the things he can do, but he cannot get along with the man as long as he is there. The problem here was that Forbes was judging Blake by the outside, and the whole time, Captain Sven was trying to get him to at least know the inside of Blake. This goes along with the saying Dont judge a book by its cover. Forbes is judging Blake by his cover, and not what he really is all about.
Once racial prejudice is over and that day finally comes, it might be said that the world has taken a giant step to better life itself.
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Research essay sample on Sven Discovers Captain Sven Forbes
