<P> Taking the allegory further, MacLeod argues that the final scenes in which Bowman appears to see a rapidly ageing version of himself through a "time warp" is actually Bowman witnessing the withering and death of his own species . The old race of man is about to be replaced by the "star child", which was conceived by the meeting of the spaceship and Jupiter . MacLeod also sees irony in man as a creator (of HAL) on the brink of being usurped by his own creation . By destroying HAL, man symbolically rejects his role as creator and steps back from the brink of his own destruction . </P> <P> Similarly, in his book, The Making of Kubrick's 2001, author Jerome Agel puts forward the interpretation that Discovery One represents both a body (with vertebrae) and a sperm cell, with Bowman being the "life" in the cell which is passed on . In this interpretation, Jupiter represents both a female and an ovum . </P> <P> An extremely complex three - level allegory is proposed by Leonard F. Wheat in his book, Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory . Wheat states that, "Most...misconceptions (of the film) can be traced to a failure to recognize that 2001 is an allegory--a surface story whose characters, events, and other elements symbolically tell a hidden story...In 2001's case, the surface story actually does something unprecedented in film or literature: it embodies three allegories ." According to Wheat, the three allegories are: </P> <Ol> <Li> Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical tract, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which is signalled by the use of Richard Strauss's music of the same name . Wheat notes the passage in Zarathustra describing mankind as a rope dancer balanced between an ape and the Übermensch, and argues that the film as a whole enacts an allegory of that image . </Li> <Li> Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, which is signalled in the film's title . Wheat notes, for example, that the name "Bowman" may refer to Odysseus, whose story ends with a demonstration of his prowess as an archer . He also follows earlier scholars in connecting the one - eyed HAL with the Cyclops, and notes that Bowman kills HAL by inserting a small key, just as Odysseus blinds the Cyclops with a stake . Wheat argues that the entire film contains references to almost everything that happens to Odysseus on his travels; for example, he interprets the four spacecraft seen orbiting the Earth immediately after the ape sequence as representing Hera, Athena, Aphrodite and Eris, the protagonists of the Judgment of Paris, which begins the Epic Cycle events of the Trojan War that conclude in Homer's Odyssey . </Li> <Li> Arthur C. Clarke's theory of the future symbiosis of man and machine, expanded by Kubrick into what Wheat calls "a spoofy three - evolutionary leaps scenario": ape to man, an abortive leap from man to machine, and a final, successful leap from man to' Star Child' . </Li> </Ol>

Explanation of the ending of 2001 a space odyssey