The Stars My Destination is a fast-paced novel about a taste for vengeance leading its protagonist on a path of emotional and spiritual growth. Gully Foyle, a 'common man' whose pursuit of revenge against the ship which abandoned him after being shipwrecked in space, becomes a "great man" figure in history who, by the novel's end, hopes for an awakening of the masses. In this sense, The Stars My Destination can be read as a reworking of The Demolished Man. Instead of the protagonist initially being a "great man" whose decisions rocks the world, only falling to the lowest point possible, Gully Foyle begins as a low, uneducated common man whose unhealthy obsessions drive him to abominable behavior and great stature. Perhaps Bester, after witnessing the impact of World War II and the inability of leaders to trust the masses, hoped that, in this distant future of war, jaunting, and neo-Victorian gender roles, taking a chance on giving the responsibility of the world to the people themselves would be the only solution to corporate monopoly capitalism and inter-planetary genocidal battles. Thus, in a strange way, one can see a common thread uniting both novels and their protagonists, for endeavoring to envision a way for those movers of society to recognize the same in others.
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