The Children of Men

Content Warning: The following Themes section contains references to suicide, which is discussed in the source text.

Once people know that the human race will end with the death of the Omega generation, questions of meaning and existential purpose become urgent. Many in the novel no longer feel that life is worth living, collapsing existence at both sides of a life span. On one end, adults dismantle playgrounds and stop maintaining elementary schools because there are no children. On the other end, the Quietus—State-sponsored mass suicides—claim to give a legally valid way for the elderly to end their lives. The novel opens with a painful summary of global grief: “In our universal bereavement, like grieving parents, we have put away all painful reminders of our loss” (10).

Those who choose life are often consumed by despair and ennui. Theo often feels the heavy burden of pointlessness: “despair dragged at his mind and limbs, leaving him physically weakened so that the instinct to sink to the earth almost overpowered him” (227). The prospect of a life without meaning weighs on the characters. One of Theo’s history students asks him, “What is the point of all this?” (13), to which he can only give an unsatisfying answer.