Arthur is the novel's point of entry and its comic engine. He is deliberately unremarkable — a man in a dressing gown who wants a cup of tea and keeps not getting one. His function is to ask the reasonable questions (what is happening? why is it happening? can someone please explain?) that the universe refuses to answer reasonably. Adams uses Arthur to explore how ordinary human desires — comfort, routine, home — look from the outside: small, touching, and entirely inadequate to the scale of existence.