THEMES

2. THEMES
• Anger and Hatred
When the robots rebel and attack, it is revealed that at
Helena’s suggestion, Dr. Gall has given the robots a soul
and has given them the ability to appreciate their
condition. But in making them more human-like, Gall
has also given them the ability to hate, just as humans
are capable of hating. Since the robots are treated like
insignificant and expendable creations, they soon learn
to hate their creators and all humans. They are without
a conscience and can hate and kill at will.

3. • Class Conflict
With the creation of robots, the earth is divided into
two classes: those who have control and those who are
controlled. The robots form this latter class, which is
designed to be exploited. The robots are little more
than slaves who are expected to work until they can
work no longer, a period of about twenty years. They
are designed and treated as though they have no
feelings, no needs, and no expectations. The robots’
builders envision the humans as a kind of aristocracy,
superior to the robots they control. As is the case in all
feudal societies, eventually the peasants or slaves
revolt and murder their masters.

4. • Duty and Responsibility
As the creators of a new life form, the robot creators
have a responsibility for how their creations are used,
but in this case, the builders see the robots only in
terms of exploitation and greed. The builders will sell
their robots to whomever orders them and has the
cash to pay. They ignore the moral implications of what
they have done, preferring to isolate themselves on the
island. When the robots rebel, rather than stop selling
the robots and explore possible solutions, the
manufacturers continue to sell robots. When it
becomes clear that humanity is in real danger, their
only thought is for their own escape

5. • Man as Robot, Robot as Man
One man, Alquist, is left by the robots because “He is a robot. He works
with his hands like a Robot” (70). So in fact, he turns out to be the least
helpful human to leave alive as he cannot reveal the secret of robot
production, which the robots so desperately require.
At the end of the play, it appears that robotics like humanity is destined
for total death. But a glimmer of hope emerges, as two robots, one of
whom is called Helena, and the other Primus, seemed to manifest human
qualities in their behaviour towards one another. In brief, they are in love,
which prompts Alquist to see a future of redemption for robots and
humanity as a hybrid form of the two has emerged and promises a certain
fertility. These two robot-humans also represent an reversal of Alquist
himself, as they are the robotic becoming human (where he was described
as the human who is robotic) and their duality (manifested by a need for
one another) overcomes Alquist’s incapacitating loneliness. The future of
Capek’s R.U.R. is thus a return to “nature” where love replaces labour, and
the robot as dualistic unit replaces the robot as an individual agent of
labour. Hybridist of man (manifested as a dynamic) and a machine (a
physical ideal) is the realization of a future.

6. • Producing Artificial Life
The production of robots is another example of perverting
nature. Rather than existing as a mechanical objects
(automaton) Capek’s robots are biotechnological, literally
objects of flesh and blood, but factory produced flesh and
blood. Like Herr Virek in Mona Lisa Overdrive, this biology is
vat based, a chemical process that begets a humanity which
is engineered not born. Several times in the text, the
humans re-iterate the fact that robots are not born, they are
produced.
Eventually, the production of robots is subverted to enable
their liberation. Helena, who is still interested in the
liberating of robots despite (or perhaps because 0f) her
marriage to Domin, pressures the scientists to begin giving
the robots a soul. This is where everything starts to go
wrong, as the addition of a soul finally makes the robots
“aware” of their situation, and their rights to agency not
slavery.

7. • Domin(ance) - Male Power
Eventually, Helena’s attempt to liberate the
robots is subjugated by her semi-forced marriage
to Domin, the boss of the factory. As an
individual, Domin is as his name suggests,
dominating. He continually lords himself above
Helena, often by treating her as an object of a
chivalry, who must be honoured and venerated
like a piece of art unable to be involved with the
actual world. He is also introduced to us at the
beginning of the play as a personality who
channels (and thus controls) knowledge. He alone
has access to the secret manuscript of “Old
Russom” which contains the secret of producing
robots.

8. • Helena, the Natural Human
Helena, a particularly sentimental human, is the play’s object
of attention. Helena’s humanity is manifest in her
pronounced emotions is continously contrasted with the
robots to emphasize the gap between what appears to be
human (as the robots look like people) and what it is to be
human. Helena is preoccupied with liberating the robots, but
is rebuffed by their lack of receptivity. Frankly, it seems that
Capek is being cynical about revolution in his characterization
of Helena, as she represents a romantic revolutionary whose
ideals cannot penetrate practice (embodied by the laborious
existence of the robots).
As a woman, Helena also operates as a sort of ideal, a
feminine ideal to be exact, that works as a sort of symbol for
nature (mother nature) in the text. Disgusted by which she
percieves as an injustice to the natural order of things,
Helena sees the robots as human rather than other. The male
humans, by contrast, see the robots as commodities (the play
is a pretty satirical treatment of capitalism, but not explicitly
communistic in its indictment of labor for labor’s sake).