How is Barton's internal conflict resolved in "The Cold Equations"?

In Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations," the pilot Barton resolves his internal conflict by doing all he can to save Marilyn while also accepting the fact that one person must die to save the lives of many.

Barton's first step to resolve his internal conflict is contacting Commander Delhart on the Stardust. Commander Delhart gives Barton the answer he was expecting: The Stardust cannot turn around and retrieve Marilyn because doing so is too costly and will disrupt their scheduled stops, which could cost many colonists' lives and be very expensive. Commander Delhart orders Barton to go through with jettisoning Marilyn from the ship. Barton calculates, based on her weight, that if he reduces his deceleration speed to .10, he can keep her on-board and alive a bit longer. He gets permission from Commander Delhart to do so for 57 minutes. Barton's final step in doing what he can for Marilyn is permitting her to write goodbye letters to her family members and making contact with her brother on Woden to say goodbye. When asked by her brother if Barton did all he could to save her, Barton assures him he did, which shows he has resolved his internal conflict:

Yes—do you think I could ever let it happen if I wasn't sure? I did everything I could do. If there was anything at all I could do now, I would do it.

Barton knows the right thing to do and does it, showing he has resolved his internal conflict by the end of the story. That doesn't mean he does not still grieve for Marilyn. The final paragraph of the story depicts his grief by describing Marilyn's continued presence as her words echo through Barton's head: "I didn't do anything to die for. . . I didn't do anything."

How does Barton change in Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations"?

In the opening of Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations," the narrator describes the pilot Barton as so used to the sight of men dying in the new frontier that he no longer feels any emotion when witnessing death. Yet, by the end of the story, he is not as desensitized towards the sight of death as he thought.

We see his initial cold, objective view of death described in the following passage:

He was an EDS pilot, inured to the sight of death, long since accustomed to it and to viewing the dying of another man with an objective lack of emotion, and he had no choice in what he must do.

Although barton continues to be convinced he must carry out his orders of taking the stowaway's life to save the lives of many more people, his emotions soften once he sees the stowaway is a young girl.

Barton displays his change in emotion when he drops the deceleration speed to save fuel and radios the commander of the Stardust to see if Marilyn might be rescued in some way. He best shows his change in emotion when, after Marilyn realizes what will happen to her, he says to her, "I'm sorry. . . You'll never know how sorry I am. It has to be that way and no human in the universe can change it." Though Barton remains convinced of the rightfulness of the law, it is clear by the end of the story he is no longer "inured to the sight of death." It is evident he is grieving for Marilyn, as he continues to feel her presence in the ship and hear her words echoing through his head.

What action does Barton take at the climax of "The Cold Equations"?

Quite simply, the text tells us that Barton releases Marilyn into space at the story's climax. The main conflict of the story (whether Marilyn will live or die) provides suspense.

As for Barton, he is shown to be reluctant in the performance of his macabre duty. In the story, he is an EDS pilot, faced with a difficult problem that tests his humanity to its limits. When he discovers Marilyn, he is ambivalent about releasing her into space. If she had been a fugitive from justice or an avaricious opportunist (these were the usual stowaways he came across in his line of work), he would have had no problem in immediately ejecting the stowaway into space.

However, Marilyn is a friendly, pretty, and unassuming teenager. Her only reason for boarding the Stardust as a stowaway is to see her brother, Gerry, whom she has not seen for a very long time. Marilyn tells Barton that she and Gerry are the only children their parents have. This makes Barton's task even more difficult.

In the end, Barton has little choice (according to the story, anyway) but to order Marilyn into the airlock and to eject her into space.

What is Barton like at the start of "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin?

At the beginning of Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations," the narrator describes pilot Barton as a very desensitized person.

As a pilot of an Emergency Dispatch Ship, Barton is one of those the government sends out to tend to emergency situations, such as deliver emergency medical supplies or other emergency assistance, just like our emergency medical technicians (EMT). As one who takes care of emergencies, Barton is described as being very used to seeing men die, and he has become so desensitized to death that he can now watch death take place without feeling any emotions:

He was an EDS pilot, inured to the sight of death, long since accustomed to it and viewing the dying of another man with an objective lack of emotion, and he had no choice in what he must do.

Since he has become able to see death very objectively, he feels perfectly capable of jettisoning the stowaway he has just discovered; however, he hates the thought of having to do it, as we see when the narrator describes him as taking a "deep, slow breath" to prepare himself for what he had to do early in the story, just after discovering he had a stowaway. Once he has steeled his nerves, he feels prepared to "walk across the room and coldly, deliberately take the life of a man he had yet to meet."

However, by the end of the story, Marilyn has softened him. He is very opposed to killing an innocent girl and knows her death will haunt his memories for a long time. In fact her presence haunts him and her words of innocence echo in his mind long after she is gone. Therefore, he no longer views death with the cold, objectivity his job requires.