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jstilts's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
In short: surprisingly funny critique of capitalism with a sharp awareness of the societal upheaval the arrival of genuinely useful robots could present.
This Czech play from the 1920s is famous for coining the term "Robot" from the Czech words for serf labour. The titular Robots (human in appeance but much simpler on the inside) are being manufactured with the lofty goal of entirely freeing humans from labour - while making a lot of cash for the manufacturer, and saving lots of cash for the purchasers in unpaid labour. However, as this social revolution is set to take decades, the human workers faced with suffering unemployment through this lengthy change take arms against the robots - and so both Industry and Goverments arm the robots against the humans.
The play covers before, during and after the war - all from the perspective of those running Rossum's Universal Robots, and some of the robots themselves. It's a darkly comical play that critiques Capitalism, Industrialisation, Slavery, and to my surprise Misogyny - although it could be mistaken as only a reflection of the times it was written in depending on how the play is performed (however playwright Karel Čapek' politics point to it as a critique).
The epilogue is fascinatingly dark, and while the last lines became a mid 20th Century sci-fi cliche hoary enough to make my eyes roll, be aware this play was probably the very first to do it - and probably only did so to rescue the play from being utterly bleak, although I imagine people at the time found it so anyway!
This Czech play from the 1920s is famous for coining the term "Robot" from the Czech words for serf labour. The titular Robots (human in appeance but much simpler on the inside) are being manufactured with the lofty goal of entirely freeing humans from labour - while making a lot of cash for the manufacturer, and saving lots of cash for the purchasers in unpaid labour. However, as this social revolution is set to take decades, the human workers faced with suffering unemployment through this lengthy change take arms against the robots - and so both Industry and Goverments arm the robots against the humans.
The play covers before, during and after the war - all from the perspective of those running Rossum's Universal Robots, and some of the robots themselves. It's a darkly comical play that critiques Capitalism, Industrialisation, Slavery, and to my surprise Misogyny - although it could be mistaken as only a reflection of the times it was written in depending on how the play is performed (however playwright Karel Čapek' politics point to it as a critique).
The epilogue is fascinatingly dark, and while the last lines became a mid 20th Century sci-fi cliche hoary enough to make my eyes roll, be aware this play was probably the very first to do it - and probably only did so to rescue the play from being utterly bleak, although I imagine people at the time found it so anyway!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Slavery, Misogyny, Sexism, War, Classism, and Death
ran_sophia's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The play is brilliantly written and I loved reading it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Violence
Minor: Medical content and Slavery
sherbertwells's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
In the play that invented the word ‘robot,’ a team of scientists and businessmen struggle to hold out against the AI apocalypse of their own making. Caught between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War, with ties to the Bible, Shelley’s Frankenstein and the changing face of industrial capitalism, Čapek’s work is more literature than early science fiction.
“DOMAIN: Perhaps we’ve been killed this hundred years and are only ghosts. Perhaps we’ve been dead a long, long time, and are only returning to repeat what we once said…before our death. It’s as if I’d been through all this before. As if I’d already had a mortal wound—here, in the throat” (75)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Infertility, and Violence
Minor: Slavery
The human characters mostly consider robots to be slaves. It's not American chattel slavery, but it's a major theme.
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