HAL's camera 'eye'.
A correspondence exists between the HAL computer character in A Space Odyssey, and William Shakespeare's character, Prince Hal, from the play Henry IV. To illustrate the correspondence, we first look at the description of Shakespeare's Hal, in literary scholar Harold Bloom's book, Genius: "[Falstaff] has one prize pupil: great, cold, unloving, hypocritical, Machiavellian Prince Hal - a student of authentic genius. Before Henry IV, Part I begins, Hal's course of study is complete, and the outrageous professor Falstaff - irrepressible and omnipresent - needs, in the Prince's judgment, to be terminated. Hal passionately desires and indeed needs to get Falstaff off the stage, for until Falstaff ceases to distract us, Hal cannot be a star turn."[a] One could reword Bloom's passage to fit 2001's HAL character: '[Man; HAL's creators] have one prize pupil: the cold, unloving, Machiavellian computer, HAL - a student of authentic genius. Before the [space voyage; movie] begins, HAL's [programming] is complete, and [the Discovery One crew members] need, in HAL's judgment, to be terminated. [HAL] desires to get them off the stage, for until they cease to distract us, HAL cannot be a star.' If HAL gets rid of all five men aboard Discovery One (David Bowman, Frank Poole, and the three astronauts in hibernation), he will be the only 'crew member' remaining on the ship, and he will be the only remaining 'actor' on the movie stage.
Well-respected stage actor Douglas Rain, who was the voice for HAL in the movie, had played Prince Hal many times in past performances of Henry IV.
a. Bloom, Harold. Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. New York: Warner Books, 2002. p. 22.
