Primary Source 2

For my second primary source, I switched over to the fascinating TV series of Star Trek for some ideas. I recently watched the first episode of season two. This episode started out very slow with Spock acting particularly strange and no one could figure out why. It turns out that he was losing control of his emotions and needed to get back to his home planet. If he failed to return in eight days, he would die so this urged Captain Kirk to not wait for Star Fleet’s approval to reroute the Enterprise to planet Vulcan. Spock must return to his home planet to fulfill his marriage commitment with his wife whom he has been married to since age 7. When Spock arrives on Vulcan along with Dr. Bones and Captain Kirk, he is welcomed by what seems to be the ambassador of Vulcan and a crowd of people for his wedding. Spock’s wife wants Spock to prove his true love for her and have a fight to the death with whomever she chooses. She ends up choosing Kirk, which puts the whole situation into a lose-lose. Spock goes into an uncontrollable state of madness and tries to kill Kirk. A long story short, Spock appears to have killed Kirk, which releases him from his state of madness and he ends up divorcing his wife. Kirk only seemed dead because Dr. Bones injected him with a substance that makes him seem dead for a short period of time during the break in the fight.

So now that I gave you a little synopsis, here’s what I found interesting. The important scene had to be the whole marriage and fight to the death thing. There was a lot of good stuff in this epic scene and it gave you a different perspective on different cultures (or planets) marriage laws. For one, I found it very dated that on planet Vulcan, your wife is chosen for you at a young age by your parents. I also found it interesting that sometime in Spock’s life that he would have to return to his home planet to renew his marriage commitments to someone he hasn’t seen in years. I was confused how in fact he would die if he didn’t get back to his hoe planet. I also wondered why this ceremony seemed like such a big deal. It could have been the entertainment value of a fight to the death or maybe because Spock’s family was high up in the rankings it called for a lot of attention. Spock was also became in a state of madness where he was prepared to kill is captain and best friend Kirk, in order to save his wife. After he realized that she didn’t want him back anyway, Spock seemed to have snapped out of his state of madness. My guess is that this represents the fact that men will do just about anything to get a girl including killing their best friend. Once Spock realized that his wife didn’t want him anymore, he was released from under his wife’s love spell and could think, as the Vulcan’s say, logically. I think there is a lot of important stuff here about marriage and love and how other cultures do things differently. Let me know what you think please!