Yet humanity proves to be resourceful. George Antrobus, who represents the ingenuity of man, manages to invent the wheel, multiplication and beer despite Sabina’s complaints. Likewise, man survives ice ages, floods and wars, each time picking himself again. The fortune teller suggests this cycle of death and renewal is a part of man’s experience, and she chides those who doubt Antrobus. “Some of you will be saying: “Let him drown. He’s not worth saving. Give the whole thing up.” I can see it in your faces. But you’re wrong. Keep your doubts and despairs to yourselves…Again there’ll be the narrow escape. The survival of a handful. From destruction-total destruction,” (173) she says.

The fortune teller’s words foreshadow the war in the third act, where nearly everything falls apart. Yet the Antrobus family manages to thrive in the aftermath of disaster; just as the war ends, Mr. Antrobus invents a “grass soup that doesn’t give you diarrhea” (226). Likewise, Antrobus understands that a unified humanity is better for the future of the race itself, and he finds a way to reconcile with Henry, even though the stage directions describe his son as “strong unreconciled evil” (235). The play’s ending is a strong vote of confidence in humanity – cranky Sabina hates to admit that “We have to go on for ages and ages yet . . . The end of this play isn’t written yet” (250).

Issac Asimov’s The Last Question, embraces the theme of hope and takes it to the logical extreme by asking: how does one survive the end of the universe? Asimov’s story, while initially bleak, suggests there can be no end for humanity.

Throughout The Last Question, man and machine attempt to stop the universe from ending. “What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying, We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” (Asimov 207) a drunken engineer asks his equally intoxicated coworker. “Maybe we can build things up again,” (208) the coworker replies. For a time, technology allows man to expand across the cosmos, but even on distant worlds, humans feel uncomfortable about the universe expiring. “Don’t let the stars run down,” (211) Jerrodette I cries to her father. Yet the universe’s destruction appears inevitable – by the end of the story, humanity has practically merged with a galactic computer, but it still asks, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?” (218).

Yet even the mightiest computer is befuddled