Nightfall by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov
Source- archive.org

 The 'Nightfall' by Isaac Asimov is a popular science fiction story published in 1941. The story talks about a possible planetary world which has never experienced darkness and is always under the influence of constant light. The celestial mechanism of Lagash is such that it is surrounded by six suns which allows the planet to experience eternal daytime. However, it is also revealed that every 2049 years, there’s a multi-solar eclipse because of which the planet falls into the state of utter darkness for few hours making it desolate for the inhabitants to live in.

Once in two-thousand years, all the suns of Lagash extinguish as they move far away from the it and the planet is left to stumble alone as it plunges into darkness. The fictional planetary world who see the night sky for the first time end up destroying their civilization. According to the beliefs of the cultists in the story when darkness engulfs, men are robbed of their souls and they become inhuman. Darkness influences them to such an extent that they become like beasts desperate for light and they go insane.

According to the story, there have been historic evidences which show that their population has gone mad and destroyed civilization many times when this thing called “night’ fell every thousand years. Throughout the story, the scientists of laboratory were on tenterhooks and were trying to record their observations of the phenomena for the future civilizations to know and sustain. Since the inhabitants of Lagash have never experienced the absence of light, the total eclipse will make them go insane. In the attempt to escape from the darkness, they will try to create light by setting their cities on fire, and thereby causing accident and involuntary destruction of their civilization and then new cycle of life begins.

As a result of delving into sunless atmosphere and the consequent loss of mankind and civilization every two thousand years, one can conclude light as the source of survival for the people of Lagash whereas darkness is symbolic of death.  According to me, the night and darkness is also used as a metaphor for self-destruction which results into global humanitarian crisis for their planet. The magnificent revelation of the vast universe and the disclosure of the fact that their planet was in the centre of an inter-galactic system leaves a grave impact on the people. It was not only the irruption of the nightfall or darkness on Lagash, but also the knowledge of the cosmos and stars that makes them go insane. Before this they were living in state of utter ignorance of the fact that their planet and suns were the only celestial bodies in the universe. 

 With the Nightfall, Asimov explores the psychological effects on human mind when we plunge into an atmosphere which is unnatural or foreign to our body. The human mind becomes desperate under such circumstances causing psychological imbalance. Even seconds of darkness can feel like eternal darkness as it is unnatural to the landscape of the planet. The exposure to total darkness degrades the mind and body which results into insanity.

In the story, the tunnel of mystery was a psychological experiment done on the people of Lagash to know the effects of darkness of their mind and body. It was revealed that the tunnel of mystery can lead to breathing problems, claustrophobia, insanity, and even death. This is because, the people of Lagash are sensitive to darkness and any kind of darkness put them into a state of panic.

The dark and desolate landscape of Lagash parallels the deteriorating human psyche thus highlighting the effect of the environment on man and the connection between the individuals and their landscapes. The issues of human mortality versus galactic forces, failure of human consciousness to fully understand these forces are central to the theme.

Faro and Yamot’s experiment to construct a little house which looked like stars shining through dark in order to immunize them tells us a lot about the nature of darkness of the universe. Total Darkness makes you feel as if the walls and ceiling are crushing in on you.

 Also, the religious beliefs of the cult will lose their significance as soon as there is some scientific proof backing it and it will just come a natural phenomenon, instead of a religious marvel. The cult will lose its identity, significance and the book of revelations would become useless. 

 All the living beings live in a symbiotic relationship with their environment. Human beings are bound to the mundane boundaries of the atmosphere in which they live in. Light is a biblical symbol of divinity, enlightenment and truth but according to me, Light had been continuously deceiving Lagash for thousands of years. It was the ‘darkling of the sky’ which disclosed the vast knowledge about the universe to the people. However, the knowledge contrasted with their biological body function. Darkness leaves a catastrophic effect on their states of mind. The fact that the darkness will be gone in few hours but they will become insane, tells us about how light keeps their lives sustained but also holds them back from the acknowledging the vast heavens of the universe.