34 pages • 1 hour read
Karel ČapekR.U.R.
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1920A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Mirror
In Act III, in the factory laboratory, the prop of a mirror symbolizes how the nature of robots is beginning to reflect human nature. A stage direction notes how Alquist looks in the mirror alone. Later, the Robots Helena and Primus look in it together. This underscores Alquist’s line: “If there are no people at least let there be Robots, at least the reflections of man, at least his creation, at least his likeness” (73). Robots are like the images in mirrors—reflections of humans. They reflect what Alquist believes is the most important human characteristic, falling in love. The scene where Robots Helena and Primus flirt mirrors how Helena and Domin flirt in the Prologue.
Flowers
Flowers are another prop that take on symbolic meaning. Helena implies that the flowers reflect the way that human women have become sterile. When referring to the flowers made by Hallemeier, she laments: “Oh, sterile flower!” (36). Later, she explains that she burned Rossum’s manuscript because “people had become sterile flowers!” (65). To Helena, humans losing the ability to procreate is “d-r-readful” (65) and requires drastic, violent action. Unlike the men, she does not harm another living being—robotic or human—but enacts violence against a manuscript. This act of destruction contrasts with birth, designed to halt the creation of robots.
The Bible
A biblical or Christian motif runs throughout R.U.R., and develops the theme of The Purpose and Nature of Human Existence. The most religious character is Helena’s nurse, Nana. She believes that robots have “[n]o fear of God in ‘em” (26). When the fearless robots surround the factory and close in on the directors, Fabry says: “Oh, God, a flood, a flood, just once more to preserve human life aboard a single boat” (62). This is a reference to the biblical story of Noah building an ark to preserve animals when God flooded the earth.
The most frequently used Biblical reference is about the Garden of Eden. Nana says—“as God drove man out of paradise, so He’ll drive him from the earth itself!” (32). The paradise that God exiled Adam and Eve from was Eden. Nana believes that creating robots is similar to eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. To her, it is the sin of playing God. Alquist’s final monologue contains a direct quote from Genesis that begins: “So God created man in his own image” (84). As the last human, Alquist sees Robots Helena and Primus as a new Adam and Eve, made in the image of humans. After humans are driven from earth by robots, earth becomes a paradise for robots.
