The Cold Equations By Tom Godwin

The Cold Equations is a short story written by Tom Godwin in August 1954. Within the short story, Godwin is capable of presenting a story that represents a theme of “cold equations”. It puzzles the plot of two characters placed on the space frontier where one has to demise their lives in order to save the other willingly or both die due to the spaceship only acquiring a specific amount of fuel to carry one individual only. The storyline begins as the pilot of the space ship discovers a stowaway. According to the law, the stowaway must be ejected from the shuttle. Barton learns the stowaway is an eight-teen year old girl trying to reunite with her brother Garry on planet Mimir. However, Marilyn also learns she must arrive at her final breath due to the equation

As Marylin first learns about the situation she’s in, readers can easily observe her denial. In paragraph sixty-seven, Marilyn displays her denial as she states, “No! You’re joking — you’re insane! You can’t mean it” when learning the consequences of the cold equations because she stowed away on an EDS. This marks the denial stage of grief. Immediately afterwards, Marylin displays the second stage of grief, anger as she feels they want her dead even though she didn’t do anything wrong, stating “You’re going to make me die and I didn’t do anything to die for — I didn’t do anything —. They’re waiting for you to kill me, aren’t they? They want me dead, don’t they? You and everybody on the cruiser want me dead, don’t you?”. As readers continue, they will eventually stumble upon Marylin trying to bargain afterwards if there is a way that they can get both individuals safely to the destination without her being jettisoned. She arrives at this stage after overcoming the anger of the reasons why everyone wants her dead and that everyone does want her