Question
Time capsule found on the dead planet
Margaret Atwood
2009
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Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author best known for her feminist and political perspectives, and her novel The Handmaid's Tale has been made into an award-winning television series. "Time capsule found on the dead planet" can be read as a poem or short story. For this lesson, we will examine the text as a poem. The following poem was originally published in September 2009 to commemorate a meeting of world leaders on the topic of environmental destruction.
This poem includes numbered stanzas instead of numbered lines due to its prose-like structure. Stanzas 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 also include bolded numbers in the first line of each stanza to mark the age that the speaker is referencing. These bolded numbers are part of Atwood's original text.
As you read, take notes on how the speaker views money.
1. In the first age, we created gods. We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from shining metals and painted them on temple walls. They were gods of many kinds, and goddesses as well. Sometimes they were cruel and drank our blood, but also they gave us rain and sunshine, favourable winds, good harvests, fertile animals, many children. A million birds flew over us then, a million fish swam in our seas.
Our gods had horns on their heads, or moons, or sealy fins, or the beaks of eagles. We called them All-Knowing, we called them Shining One. We knew we were not orphans. We smelled the earth and rolled in it; its juices ran down our chins.
2. In the second age we created money. This money was also made of shining metals. It had two faces: on one side was a severed head, that of a king or some other noteworthy person, on the other face was something else, something that would give us comfort: a bird, a fish, a fur-bearing animal. This was all that remained of our former gods. The money was small in size, and each of us would carry some of it with him every day, as close to the skin as possible. We could not eat this money, wear it or burn it for warmth; but as if by magic it could be changed into such things. The money was mysterious, and we were in awe of it. If you had enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.
3. In the third age, money became a god. It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy, lamentations. It created greed and hunger, which were its two faces. Towers of glass rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again. It began to eat things. It ate whole forests, croplands and the lives of children. It ate armies, ships and cities. No one could stop it. To have it was a sign of grace.
4. In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.
Some of our wise men turned to the contemplation of deserts. A stone in the sand in the setting sun could be very beautiful, they said. Deserts were tidy, because there were no weeds in them, nothing that crawled. Stay in the desert long enough, and you could apprehend the absolute. The number zero was holy.
5. You who have come here from some distant world, to this dry lakeshore and this cairn, and to this cylinder of brass, in which on the last day of all our recorded days I place our final words:
Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could fly.
Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group, Ltd, London on behalf of O.W. Toad Ltd. Copyright © O.W. Toad Ltd, 2009.
Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under theCC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Notes
AllDefinitionsFootnotes
Forge (verb) : created or made by hammering, usually with the help of fire
Fertile (adjective) : producing many offspring; capable of abundant growth
Severed (adjective) : separated
Famine (noun) : a time of little of no food
a passionate expression of grief or sadness
a religious reference; a sign that you are loved and forgiven by a spiritual power greater than yourself
Plague (noun) : a disease that spreads quickly, killing many in its path
Industrious (adjective) : to work with energy and devotion; dedicated
Contemplation (noun) : a state of being where a person thinks about and considers something deeply
Apprehend (verb) : to understand or comprehend
The absolute is a spiritual reference to something that is in control of the universe.
a pile of stones created by people as a shrine, memorial, or landmark, usually high on a hill where it is visible for others
Read Aloud
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Guiding Questions
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Question 3 of 3
What happened to the planet the speaker describes?
Another species conquered it.
Humans made it uninhabitable.
Humans live in its deserts that they created.
It was flooded and there was no land to live on.
Margaret Atwood
2009
Font Size
Medium
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author best known for her feminist and political perspectives, and her novel The Handmaid's Tale has been made into an award-winning television series. "Time capsule found on the dead planet" can be read as a poem or short story. For this lesson, we will examine the text as a poem. The following poem was originally published in September 2009 to commemorate a meeting of world leaders on the topic of environmental destruction.
This poem includes numbered stanzas instead of numbered lines due to its prose-like structure. Stanzas 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 also include bolded numbers in the first line of each stanza to mark the age that the speaker is referencing. These bolded numbers are part of Atwood's original text.
As you read, take notes on how the speaker views money.
1. In the first age, we created gods. We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from shining metals and painted them on temple walls. They were gods of many kinds, and goddesses as well. Sometimes they were cruel and drank our blood, but also they gave us rain and sunshine, favourable winds, good harvests, fertile animals, many children. A million birds flew over us then, a million fish swam in our seas.
Our gods had horns on their heads, or moons, or sealy fins, or the beaks of eagles. We called them All-Knowing, we called them Shining One. We knew we were not orphans. We smelled the earth and rolled in it; its juices ran down our chins.
2. In the second age we created money. This money was also made of shining metals. It had two faces: on one side was a severed head, that of a king or some other noteworthy person, on the other face was something else, something that would give us comfort: a bird, a fish, a fur-bearing animal. This was all that remained of our former gods. The money was small in size, and each of us would carry some of it with him every day, as close to the skin as possible. We could not eat this money, wear it or burn it for warmth; but as if by magic it could be changed into such things. The money was mysterious, and we were in awe of it. If you had enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.
3. In the third age, money became a god. It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy, lamentations. It created greed and hunger, which were its two faces. Towers of glass rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again. It began to eat things. It ate whole forests, croplands and the lives of children. It ate armies, ships and cities. No one could stop it. To have it was a sign of grace.
4. In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.
Some of our wise men turned to the contemplation of deserts. A stone in the sand in the setting sun could be very beautiful, they said. Deserts were tidy, because there were no weeds in them, nothing that crawled. Stay in the desert long enough, and you could apprehend the absolute. The number zero was holy.
5. You who have come here from some distant world, to this dry lakeshore and this cairn, and to this cylinder of brass, in which on the last day of all our recorded days I place our final words:
Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could fly.
Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group, Ltd, London on behalf of O.W. Toad Ltd. Copyright © O.W. Toad Ltd, 2009.
Unless otherwise noted, this content is licensed under theCC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Notes
AllDefinitionsFootnotes
Forge (verb) : created or made by hammering, usually with the help of fire
Fertile (adjective) : producing many offspring; capable of abundant growth
Severed (adjective) : separated
Famine (noun) : a time of little of no food
a passionate expression of grief or sadness
a religious reference; a sign that you are loved and forgiven by a spiritual power greater than yourself
Plague (noun) : a disease that spreads quickly, killing many in its path
Industrious (adjective) : to work with energy and devotion; dedicated
Contemplation (noun) : a state of being where a person thinks about and considers something deeply
Apprehend (verb) : to understand or comprehend
The absolute is a spiritual reference to something that is in control of the universe.
a pile of stones created by people as a shrine, memorial, or landmark, usually high on a hill where it is visible for others
Read Aloud
Annotate
Translate
Guiding Questions
Show Less
Question 3 of 3
What happened to the planet the speaker describes?
Another species conquered it.
Humans made it uninhabitable.
Humans live in its deserts that they created.
It was flooded and there was no land to live on.
Answers
Answered by
GPT-4o mini
The planet described in the poem "Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet" by Margaret Atwood became uninhabitable primarily due to the actions of humans, who created deserts out of their desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. The poem illustrates a progression from the creation of gods to the rise of money, which eventually became all-powerful and destructive. The final result is a barren landscape where no food can be grown, and where the environment has been poisoned, leading to a desolate and lifeless state. Therefore, the best answer to the question of what happened to the planet is:
**Humans made it uninhabitable.**
**Humans made it uninhabitable.**