In Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations,” the main character, Barton, internally struggles with coping when he must jettison an innocent girl, Marilyn, off of his Emergency Dispatch Ship. If he does not jettison Marilyn, not only will they both die, but seven others waiting on the serum Barton is to deliver will die as well. Godwin paints Barton’s character as compassionate, dedicated, and conflicted throughout the story.
Barton proves to be an empathetic character countless times throughout the story. The author displays this trait through Barton’s thoughts when he is dealing with Marilyn. His sympathetic side demonstrated when he begins to ponder the unfortunate chain of events:
He scowled at the viewscreen and tried to force his thoughts…show more content… Godwin shows the reader Barton’s tangled emotions through his thoughts. After Marilyn emerges from her hiding spot and the unexpected twist of the stowaway being a girl is made known, Barton holds an indecisive battle in his head: “Now what? Had it been asked in the deep, defiant voice of a man he would have answered it with action, quick and efficient….It would not have taken long; within a minute the body would have been ejected into space - had the stowaway been a man” (Godwin 3). When Barton discovers the female stowaway, he does not know how to go about taking care of the scene. If it were a man, he would have immediately forced him into the airlock and sent him into space without hesitation, but it is an innocent teenage girl. Barton knows what he must do, but the circumstances make his job much harder considering the sweet, youthful persona of Marilyn. He is originally so tortured by the plot twist that he desperately tries to find a way to save Marilyn, but ultimately there is only one way for the problem to be taken care of. Later on, the author portrays the same disagreeing emotions from Barton using his thoughts, yet again. Barton has another war in his head, but this time it is not about the gender of the stowaway, it is about the reputation tied to the stowaway. Barton asks himself, “Why couldn’t she have been a man with some ulterior motive? A fugitive from justice, hoping to lose himself on a raw new world; an opportunist, seeking transportation to the new colonies where he might find golden fleece for the taking; a crackpot, with a mission-” (Godwin 4). He struggles internally with how he should handle the incident because of the innocence and gender of Marilyn. A situation like this has never come about, so Barton must commit a tough action. Ultimately, he is not able to let the distressing detail of Marilyn being a female deter him from delivering the