R.U.R. and the Mechanization of Humanity

Karel Capek, the playwright of R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots (1921), wasn't a scientist like Issac Asimov or Arthur C. Clark, both of whom came along later to redefine and streamline the modern concept of robotics in fact and fiction, but he was still a concerned intellectual living in a changing world. He was the first to coin the term "robot", but his concept of the word differs slightly from what modern audiences associate with it. To Capek, the term merely meant an artificial human, almost a golem from Jewish mythology, created by humans through rapidly growing knowledge of science and technology and destined for a short lifetime of servitude and dismissal. To a modern audience, a robot is an entirely mechanized creation, lacking organic substance and composed entirely of artificial elements. The creation of robots in his play borders on the mystical, the alchemical, and the unknowable, which may have been how the advent of science looked to those people living in the early part of the century. Science was taking humanity to new and frightening places, and the increasing mechanization of the workforce and the rise of military technology in World War I gave the future a grim face. To Capek, the ability to create a life solely through the use of new technology was a terrifying prospect, both for what it meant for humanity's future and for what it would mean to the things which were to be brought to life. Capek feared that humans would become both neglectful tyrants and ineffectual antiques if a new class of inhuman worker drones was to be created, and he was deeply concerned about what it would mean to the everyday human to be replaced by this new class.

Modern robots are mechanical structures formed of inorganic materials and pre-determined programming. Most modern robots cannot perform tasks or learn new skills unless they are programmed with the ability to learn. Most robots are not programmed to do this, or are programmed to learn in a very limited way, and science fiction films and books are full of examples of robots and computers gaining sentience and taking over the world. Capek's robots are organic constructions, supposedly made of the same or similar biological substances as human beings and seemingly lacking in what a computer-age scientist would recognize as programming. To modern eyes, Capek's robots are closer to clones or androids than to mechanical robots, and are really more frightening because of it. Helen, upon her arrival on the island, cannot distinguish the robots from the human workers and scientists who live on the island. He deliberately leaves the process behind the robots' creation vague, letting neither the audience nor the robots themselves know what the source of life really is. Left in ignorance of their origins, the robots have no history, no culture, and no way to find autonomy from human rule. They are forced to obey their human creators and exist in a state of almost feudal serfdom and dependency. Capek did not believe that such a society, where the underclass relied so exclusively on the upper class for protection and procreation and where the upper class relied so heavily on the lower class for consistent productivity and obedience, could function efficiently for long. This is especially true for a society in which the oppressed underclass, in this case a very inhuman and dehumanized underclass, begins to grow a very strong, and very human, desire for autonomy and the right to exercise free will. By claiming the right to enjoy basic human freedoms, Capek's robots move themselves up to be equals with their human creators. In fact, the robots are almost humanity's superior in that they are faster, stronger, and smarter than the average human. However, without the ability to procreate without human ingenuity, the robotic race has little chance of survival. This almost complete dependence on humanity prevents the robots from fully achieving autonomy. Even in the ending scene where the robots Primus and Helen discover love, it is uncertain whether they will manage to find the secret to propagating their species. Capek leaves their fate vague, allowing the pair to journey into the future beyond the play either to die alone in a wilderness devoid of humanoid life or to found a new Garden of Eden for future generations of artificial life.

Though Capek may not have feared the robots themselves, either of his own brand of or the mechanical variety that followed, what he did fear was humanity's reaction to the creation of robots. He believed that the invention of robots would make it far too easy for humans to give up toil and struggle, which have classically given humanity its definition. Human society is not equipped to deal with a majority of humans who have no jobs, no need for work, no jobs at anything approaching a 'lower level' and nothing to do with copious amounts of spare time and energy. These elements have sparked countless labor strikes and protests, and have led to violence against the offending class on many occasions. Robots may make a life of luxury possible by taking the detestable, unwanted jobs no human should condescend to do, but without a severe restructuring of human society those humans who would normally be forced to take those jobs would have nowhere to turn to, no one to help them, and nowhere to place their frustrations except on the class of cheap, efficient, inhuman workers who replaced the more 'deserving' human laborers. The same arguments have a long history of creating violence and hostility toward Irish American immigrants, people of African descent, or in contemporary politics against Mexicans and Mexican American laborers, as well as many other groups around the world. Perhaps Capek was attacking capitalism by highlighting these growing frustrations in the human community. When a business cares more for cutting production costs than for creating a job market for human workers, humans are placed out in the cold so robot laborers can produce more items faster and for less money than the old outdated model of humanity. The robot underclass is just one more victim of human prejudice in this case, one more instance where greed, fear, and resentment come together to spark a war not of ideology or resources but of hatred and desperation.

War may have been another of Capek's concerns. He wrote the play shortly after the end of World War I, where new advances in modern technology were put to use on the battlefield, leading to devastating results for the human combatants and even those people who never saw a killing field. Medical technology had also advanced to a point where soldiers could survive the infections that would usually follow an injury, so they were able to walk, or crawl, off of the battlefield and tell tales of the new horrors of war, tales of machine guns and air raids and miles upon miles of entrenchments, bare fields, and barbed wire with an enemy on the other side. War had reached a new brutality unmatched by the bloodletting of the past, and to Capek and his contemporaries technology was to blame. Capek's robots may look human, but at least initially they really were little more than machines, built with a specific purpose in mind. Among the various reasons why robots could be desired is the possibility of sending the robot to war rather than a human soldier. Not only is a commander assured of obedience, but an artificial soldier would not feel fear, nor pain unless it was the pain warning of injury, nor anxiety about preserving its own life. A robotic soldier is the perfect soldier, and the perfect replacement for the human soldier. However, if that perfection was to be turned on a civilian human populace, the devastation would be incalculable and, of course, perfect. Capek, along with a number of other writers in the early and mid part of the century, feared that humans were creating technology they would not be able to control and would ultimately be the undoing of humanity. By replacing human soldiers with robotic ones, humanity would be saving generations of young men and women from shell-shock, death, and battle scars, but without some element of humanity in the robot warriors, war would become even more horrific and devastating. Even if warfare should avoid conflict with humanity at all, the havoc caused by battle would disrupt daily living for humans. Travel, food distribution, even politics would be affected by the creation of a war that has no need to end. When all of the soldiers can persevere despite conditions that would break down even the heartiest of human warriors, and when the soldiers can be replaced with relatively little difficulty or expense, whatever forces and motives behind the war effort can push on more or less indefinitely. With no human cost, the only issue is acquiring the resources to continue the manufacturing of robot soldiers to throw at the enemy's gates, possibly for the reason of acquiring the resources to create even more soldiers. Such warfare would begin a dangerous cycle of violence that would be exceptionally difficult to break, especially in a world of growing technological capability where the manufacture of these robots would become easier with every successive year.

Capek's concerns did not come to pass in the way he feared they would. Many factories switched to mechanized labor with relatively little violence from disgruntled workers, and human soldiers still fight and die on the frontlines of a dozen different wars every day. Modern robotics has provided humanity with a number of comforts as well as inconveniences, but adaptability to an ever changing environment is merely another part of humanity's ability to survive almost anything, including, mostly, itself and all its clever ideas. Capek's play addresses humanity's attitude toward itself as much as to any burgeoning relationship toward advancing technology. He believed technology, while dangerous in the wrong human hands, would ultimately rely on human goals and ambitions to actually be dangerous. After all, robots must be programmed for their tasks, and if a robot cannot learn how to program another then it is up to a human creator to set forth a robot's tasks and goals. Now the field of robotics has advanced to the point where there are robots building other robots, but there are humans involved in manufacturing every step of the way. Perhaps this isn't quite the future Capek envisioned when he sent Primus and Helen into the unknown in R.U.R., when he foresaw either robots wiping themselves out along with humanity or robots surviving alone after the destruction of the last human. Rather, it is a future where humans and their robotic creations live more or less harmoniously, at least for the time being, and few of Capek's fears have truly come to fruition. Nonetheless, his play still stands as a formidable warning to those who care to think about what human abuses of technology could lead to.

The Crucifixion of Bartley in Riders to the Sea

The final three pages of Synge's Riders to the Sea depict a scene which portrays an uncanny resemblance to a much older work of literature- the Biblical record of the Crucifixion of Christ. Synge achieves this through invoking echoes of the tradition of the Crucifixion in his dialogue, his stage setting, and his selection of prop pieces. Synge does not necessarily push the imagery of the sacrificial ceremony to the audience, but he leaves enough creative space for the director and actor to explore various possibilities of depicting this final scene. Bartley's death and the ceremonies devised to mourn his passing play a vital role in solidifying Christian custom in Maurya's household, and in turn the entire spiritual tradition of Western Ireland.

There are a number of things a director can do in this play to emphasize the visual idea of a crucifixion on stage. Lighting would play an enormous part, as would the positioning of the characters. Certain props could also permit a certain emphasis on the ritual sacrifice of Maurya's youngest son. Lighting permits the director to focus the audience's attention on certain actions or props, such as the approach of the mourners in the final scene or the white boards in the background throughout the play. A low, mellow light with a slowly increasing intensity as they get closer would go a long way in directing the audience to follow the procession's movement. As for the white boards, a steady white spotlight would prevent the boards from fading into the background while still permitting the action around the boards to continue uninterrupted. Staging the characters' movements would also be key, especially during the keening ceremony in the last scene. Ranging the characters, under half light, in a half circle around the drowned Bartley, with the spotlight still emphasizing the white boards in the background, would invoke neoclassical paintings depicting the crucifixion of Christ without requiring much exaggeration in the set itself. By allowing a certain simplicity in the set, the director would find more room to work with the props permitted by the play's stage directions. The red sail, white boards, and forgotten nails all provide creative fodder here. The red sail, besides being a memorable color, acts as a classic shroud and also coordinates with the red skirts of the mourners. Red has the advantage of being associated with blood and violence, which works exceptionally well with the concept of a sacrificial crucifixion. The white boards would, of course, play the stand-in of an actual cross, warranting the constant spotlight. The nails would be a bit trickier to emphasize, since they are never shown on stage. Bringing the audience's attention to these non-existent bits of metal would rely on a certain stress on the dialogue which would depend on the relative acting abilities of the performers.

It may seem that Bartley deviates from the standard Christ mold, as he does not die with any sort of blatant promise to pave a path to safety and security for his family. His death instead appears to leave his mother and sisters stranded in a dangerous world without any sort of protection and without anyone to provide for them. However, Maurya's last, mourning speech gives a few clues into the truth. Instead of bewailing her sudden bereavement, Maurya views the death of her last son as a step toward reuniting her family, emphasizing the connectedness of the Irish family over the isolating experience of living and dying. As she stands over the corpse of her youngest son, Maurya states that her children are "all together this time, and the end is come…Michael has a clean burial…Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely…No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied" (p 67). Though the physical bodies of her children are scattered through the world, in death they have rejoined one another and reinforced the bonds of the family. Bartley's death offers hope, in a way, of an eternal life where the family cannot be separated again. However, until she and her daughters die as well, the family will indeed be separated, which is where her final "we" comes in. Her concern in providing her sons with a proper Christian burial, though purportedly for her sons' sakes, is in actuality simply a way for Maurya and her daughters to come to terms with the loss of Bartley and his brothers. Maurya's love for her family and her belief in the Christian God are closely intertwined, even in the face of overwhelming grief, and through Bartley's death Maurya's family is able to prepare for eternity. Throughout the play, the family is concerned with providing a proper Christian burial to each of the fallen sons in order to ensure that Maurya's family will be guaranteed a place in eternity with the family members who have already died.

Bartley makes for an unusual Christ. The audience is only exposed to him as a living character for a short period of time, so his death relies heavily on cultural familiarity with Christian tradition in order to carry the concept of crucifixion. He never stands before the audience to preach about universal love or proper Christian behavior or even the importance of a decent burial. He merely asks one sister where a bit of rope is and tells the other sister to get a good price for the pig, before he goes off to die at the hands of his ghostly brother. Left to fulfill a role which has been traditionally unusual for women, Maurya is left to teach her daughters and the audience the importance of observing traditions and holding tight to family connections, because to Maurya there is nothing in this world worse than being left alone. Her identity is the group identity, and the idea of undergoing something like death by herself is unbearable. Now she faces the isolation she so fears, and she turns to the traditions of her culture to empower her and her family in their time of need.

Auden and the Politics of Creativity

W.H. Auden's "The Novelist" reads both as an assault on the militarism and conformity of mainstream popular fiction and as a guide to his fellow writers who may be seeking something more from their work than simplistic popularity and shallow gratification. Auden's dismissal of 'hacks' from the ranks of his contemporaries is followed closely by a description of what a writer actually is and what he or she seeks to accomplish, with or without the adoration of either an audience or even the approval of other writers. To Auden, mainstream success does not connote immediate status as a 'real' writer as to him a writer exists to write, even if the book or poem never sees publication. Creation, creativity, and maturing as an artist are far more important to Auden than public recognition and success. "The Novelist" explores Auden's idealism and details his perception of what it truly means to be a worthy, creative writer.

The first two lines of the poem introduce Auden's seemingly negative attitude toward his fellow poets and artists:

Encased in talent like a uniform,

The rank of every poet is well known.

By invoking this regimented, militaristic image of his contemporaries, Auden implies that most poets of his day seem more interested in mass producing acceptable, popularized and 'safe' works than in breaking ranks and exploring unmapped territory. The public that consumes his contemporaries' works has come to expect a certain product from each writer, and now that these writers have discovered these expectations, they pander shamelessly to them in order to maintain popularity. It is interesting that Auden uses the work "rank" to describe the standing of these poets, as the word could have two readings here. In one sense, it indicates that the writers march along in perfect lock-step with one another, producing the same book or poem again and again in a bizarre sort of production line until authorship is irrelevant as the works are inseparable clones of one another. The other reading would imply that as though authorship may be irrelevant, brand-naming of popular authors creates a kind of hierarchy with writers 'ranked' by their popular status and financial success rather than by actual talent and real creativity. As each writer in these ranks is "well-known" to create a certain product, and the product itself is "well-known" for being a certain type of novel or poem, any deviation would frustrate readers and publishers and would ultimately be detrimental to the writer's rank. By sacrificing creativity for marketability, poets deny both themselves and their audience a chance for growth. It would be an unfair and untrue generalization to accuse all of Auden's contemporaries as lacking originality and creativity, but as with every generation of writers there were certainly a fair number of pretentious, derivative hacks and 'popular' writers with little interest in enlarging the literary canon and a great deal of interest in financial gain and public notoriety. Auden's lines would appear to be a shot at these poets, a challenge to take off those encasing, imprisoning uniforms and step out of the tightly regimented lines in order to create something worthwhile. It may also be something of a warning to these poets to get out of the way of those writers who have the will and the talent to break formation.

The next two lines seem to act as a bridge between Auden's stern-faced warning to his declaration on what a poet should be:

They can amaze us like a thunderstorm,

Or die so young, or live for years alone.

Here, Auden precludes the idea that a poet must live a certain way in order to be a poet. He dismisses the concept that in order to write, one needs to be an emotionally sensitive, opium smoking odd-man-out with an overwhelming sense of doom and injustice. This stereotype does nothing to help a poet actually accomplish any noteworthy work, and Auden sees it as little more than a self-harming lie that inhibits creativity and originality. Some writers may find comfort in this cycle of self-creation and self-destruction, but others may find it to be a hindrance which interferes with creative productivity. The idea that every artist must suffer for every piece of his or her art has no hold with Auden and contrasts sharply with his view of how writers behave. What is ultimately important isn't the way a writer behaves or what he or she does when not writing. The only thing that matters is the art the writer produces, and biography and personality are secondary elements in the creation of poetry.

Following this pair of lines is Auden's description of what a poet is, rather than his attack on the popular notion of what it means to be a poet:

They can dash forward like hussars: but he

Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn

How to be plain and awkward, how to be

One after whom none think it worth to turn.

Auden knows how important it is for a writer to grow through his or her work. Though some might read these lines as reinforcement of the very stereotype of the struggling, agonized artist Auden spent the previous lines shooting down, it is possible to instead see them as both clarifying and expounding on the first two lines of the poem where Auden attacked false poets and writers. Here, Auden contrasts a truer definition of the creative writer against those authors with little sense of art. Auden's ideal poet does not seek adulation for writing his or her works, unlike the fashionable poet with a great deal of nothing to say. Auden would say that a poet would not care if any audience found him or her worth turning to, as popularity is not this poet's goal. Publication and recognition are always welcome to the writer who deserves it, but if achievement alone is the writer's mission than the work will suffer and fail to take root in order to grow into a larger, more complex form. To leave the childish need for attention behind while still remaining accessible to the reader is a worthy though likely difficult goal for any writer, and to complicate that goal still further is Auden's declaration that the writer must also change as he or she matures. To write the same first novel over and over again must be a kind of purgatory for any writer who wishes to accomplish something beyond mediocrity, though it may be a satisfactory existence for a writer with few desires beyond popular acceptance and notoriety.

Auden's final stanzas continue his examination of what it means to write as a creative form of art, but on a more personal level with the writer:

For, to achieve his lightest wish, he must

Become the whole of boredom, subject to

Vulgar complaints of love, among the Just

Be just, among the Filthy filthy too,

And in his own weak person, if he can,

Must suffer dully all the wrongs of Man.

Here Auden dances again with the Romantic stereotype of the poet, and this time the purpose behind the writer and his or her work is called into question. A common belief holds that a writer's job is to explore humanity and enrich the human experience, but this task is far more complex than it may seem on the surface. Every human experience is the human experience, and to express them all has taken lifetimes of work from talented individuals and will continue to do so, as this mission to encompass every human story is an impossible one to finish. Auden surely knows this, yet he recognizes that there may be something to it all the same. However, here he seems to advocate something a little different from the usual frivolity and sentimentality usually associated with the fiction or poetry commonly associated with writing about the all-important 'human experience'. He seems to advocate a kind of normality in the writer's life, going back again to his declaration that a poet or novelist does not necessarily need to feed back into the unhealthy and unproductive cycle of the damaged artist in order to experience the best and the worst offered by the gamut of average human emotions and come out on the other side with something to show for it. In this way he gives permission for the writer to be a normal human being, and for the normal human being to be a writer. There is nothing for a writer to fear in undergoing the everyday trauma of human living, and if the ultimate goal of writing is to portray the human experience, then there is no reason to avoid human life. The writer is and should be no different from other human beings, and this is what makes the writer's work possible in the first place.

Auden's "The Novelist" spans a wide array of topics without ever really leaving one. Altogether, the fourteen lines of "The Novelist" read as a manifesto of what a writer can expect from a creative lifestyle in a modern context. In a world of shallow bestselling lists, print-on-demand vanity presses, and ever-increasing competition from both worthy contemporaries and the ever-present derivative hacks, no imagination, no creativity, is needed to see why poets, novelists, and writers of every other description might struggle with the pressures of creating meaningful work and finding meaning in creation. As a poet and a devoted conversationalist, Auden knows the importance of creativity and expression and knows the impact that being a writer can have on an individual. Over the course of his life, he also saw how that impact could alter his fellow writers, leaving them encased in uniforms of conformity or perhaps outgrowing boyish talents into fully fledged artists. He acted as a mentor and a friend to dozens of writers of many types and interests, most of whom were either already respected or would achieve some status as worthy creators. Some, of course, never made it as household names, but Auden still saw real talent where real talent wrote and certainly wouldn't have held any lack of fame against his cadre of 'true' poets.