‘’…he had only to put the corpse where he had left the new baby at the last quarter of the Moon and the hyenas would do the rest.’’
This quote appears at the beginning of the novel when Moon-Watcher buries his father. The description of the burial reveals the fact that for the primitive man, there was no place for compassion. Their sole purpose was survival and everything that did not have any connection with their efforts to survive was considered as being useless and a waste of energy. While the ape-men are presented as being cold and emotionless, this trait was essential for their survival.
‘’Floyd found himself back in the familiar environment of typewriters, office computer, girl assistants, wall charts, and ringing telephones.’’
The novel has a very sexist view on women. They are put on the same place as household appliances and are not given too much importance. Women are there to help the men fulfill their important tasks and also to serve as a form of entertainment. Apart from that, women do not really have a purpose and their purpose in the year 2001 resembles the purpose they were attributed in the year when the writer wrote the novel.
Though he had come back safely from the furthest borders of sleep, and the nearest borders of death, he had been gone only a week.
In the 15th chapter, one of the characters wakes up from a long time spent in hibernation. Hibernation, along with space travel and artificial intelligence, is one of the elements associated with the future and with human development. But this quote also shows what happens when humans try to change the natural course of things: the characters were near death and when they woke up, they felt disoriented and confused because they did not realized how much time has passed.
