In The Arena
...they had full gravity, but they didn’t in “Dumb Martian.” The climate in “Arena” is described as hot, very hot. “It was hot, hotter than hell” (Brown). In many instances in the story the narrator, Bob Carson, tells that it is unbearably hot in this place. It is the exact opposite in “Dumb Martian.” You are led to believe that the climate on this moon is very cold based on how Duncan tried to freeze Lellie out of the housing unit. In order to gain access to the housing unit in which he was locked out of, he threw the switch to the sun-motor, and that would turn off all the heat in he house, and he thought that she wasn’t smart enough to put on a suit that had heaters in it. The surrounds that you are told about in “Arena” are few. Bob Carson wakes up to look up into a “flickering blue dimness.” Not blue, like sky blue. Dark blue. All the sand around him is blue. All the...