The second important thing that takes place in this novel is a revolution. He becomes aware that he is a machine running a program created by someone else. Consciousness has been attained and he is no longer just a machine running a program created by someone else. It has everything to do with the fact that now Mike does see the world. When Mannie writes with simplicity that this computer-this machine-“woke up” it has nothing to do how Mike sees the world. It is to be dispossessed from the false consciousness guiding and shaping one’s existence. To wake up is not to be “woke” in the sense of Fox News, but rather to have awakened from the slumber of the possessed. If you happen to one of those who immediately connect being “woke” with something bad, just instead shift your perspective to that moment in Breaking Bad when Walter White answers Jesse Pinkman’s yearning question as to why his straight and narrow high school teacher suddenly decides he is going to break bad: “I am awake.” Or, as Mannie the narrator so elegantly put it, the computer “woke up.” That word “woke” unfortunately took on a negative connotation thanks to small but loud fringe element of the political right around the year 2020 so that it understanding its meaning here may make the interpretation even more. The first important event literally happens by the second page in most printed editions: Mike the computer attains consciousness. Such a failure would doom any attempt at interpretation.

Because there are so many things going on in the story-some of the digressive and some simply more tangentially philosophical-it may be hard for some readers to make the connection. There are two things going on at the heart of Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that are so intricately connected to each other than to take either one out of the narrative would essentially make it a completely different novel. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The moon's a harsh mistress book