In Karel Čapek’s play, Rossum’s Universal Robots, Robots are mass produced on assembly lines by other Robots. These Robots have no capacity for creative thought, pain, or emotions. Helena Glory, a representative of the League of Humanity, believes Robots should be protected and guaranteed good treatment as they have souls. Old Rossum, who wants to take on the role of the Creator, meticulously designs these Robots to be no different than Man. Young Rossum, Old Rossum’s son, is a much more pragmatic and economical version of his father and wants to produce simpler versions of Man to be sold as inexpensive workers; these workers are coined the name “Robots”. Helena Glory believes some Robots show signs of an emerging soul by gnashing their teeth …show more content…
“Robot” is derived from the Old Church Slavonic “rabota” which means “servitude”. “Servitude” comes from the word “rabu”, meaning “slave” (“Where Does the Word Robot Come From?”). The very creation of the word “Robots” was to create a word with the meaning of a ‘biological being created solely to do work for humans’. However, the word “Robots” is not the only form of symbolism insinuating Robots are slaves. Robots are seen as slaves because of how they’re cheap, denied emotions, feelings, and a capacity for abstract thought, taught to be docile/have no needs, and are treated inhumanely. In one instance, Domin asks Helena “What is the best kind of worker?” and he responds “…it’s the one that’s the cheapest. The one with the fewest needs” (Čapek 9). All of the human in Robots is “…pretty much discarded,” (Čapek 9) from the start, and with this the dehumanization of Robots is evident. Dehumanization can only take place once a person truly sees another as inhuman— a mere object with no emotions or feelings. Therefore, dehumanization is seen within the chief engineer of the Robots, Fabry, who says “Nothing is farther from being human than a Robot.” Fabry creates a basis where all of the buyers of the Robots, and people on Earth, feel justified to also believe Robots are far from being human. At first, the belief that Robots are not human is mostly true as “…nothing makes …show more content…
is a vision of dehumanization; however, its most important theme is Man’s redemption of their injustice towards the Robots. Man’s dehumanizing nature towards the Robots began with the Robots’ creation. Old Rossum was the first person who conjured the idea of creating Robots, but he only wanted to dethrone God of his position. Young Rossum took Old Rossum’s idea to dehumanize the Robots with the intentions of creating stripped-down, dehumanized version’s of Man. Man had dehumanized the Robots by denying them a capacity for abstract thought, free will, emotions, and feelings; however, Man did eventually introduce feeling to the Robots in the form of pain and suffering. With the Robots’ introduction of mere pain and suffering, they knew only the bad of the human experience. Dr. Gall’s more superior Robots used their capacity for pain and suffering to develop a hatred for Man, which caused Man’s extinction. Alquist, being the only human left alive, is the only person left who can redeem Man of his actions. Alquist discovers Primus and Helena with a profound capacity for love, sends them out as Adam and Eve with Man’s final blessing, and in consummation, Man’s ultimate