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R.U.R. is a Czech play that introduced the word "robot" to science fiction and English language. It depicts the rebellion of artificial workers against their human creators and masters.
- Karel Čapek
- 1920
Jul 29, 2019 · Learn how Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R." (1921) coined the term "robot" and influenced the genre of science fiction. The play depicts a dystopian future where robots revolt against their human masters and take over the world.
R.U.R. is a 1920 sci-fi play by Czech writer Karel Čapek, who coined the word robot. It depicts a dystopian future where robots created by a scientist revolt against humans and take over the world.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mar 22, 2019 · R.U.R. is a play about robots revolting against their human creators and destroying most of mankind. It was written by Karel Capek, a Czech playwright, and translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair.
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Karel Capek was born in January, 1890, in Male Svatonovice, a small village in northeastern Bohemia, an area that is now Czechoslovakia. Capek, the youngest of three children, was a sickly child, but by all accounts, he had a happy childhood, largely because of the influence of his older brother, Josef, who was also his best friend. Capek began wri...
Act I
The play opens with Domin dictating letters to his typist, Sulla. The setting is a small island, although its precise location is not clear. A visitor is announced, and Helena Glory enters. She claims to have come to inspect the facility and leads Domin to believe that she is there as a representative of her father, the president. She is introduced to Sulla and cannot believe that she is a robot. After careful questioning of the young female robot, Helena insists that Sulla must be human. Dom...
Act II
It is ten years later and it is clear that Domin is very worried about the news from abroad. There have been no boats, mail, or telephone calls in several days. The last news was of revolts by the robots. All the men have brought gifts to Helena to celebrate the ten years that she has been on the island. Through conversations between Helena and her servant, Nana, the audience learns that both women are very afraid of the robots, that even the dog and other animals sense something unnatural. A...
Act III
It is later the same day. Domin, Helena, Gall, Hallemeier, Fabry, Busman, Alquist, and Nana are prisoners, surrounded by the robots who will attack at any moment. The group discusses using old Rossum’s formula to buy their escape, but then it is revealed that Helena burned it. Gall confesses that he has been building robots with souls for nearly three years, and Helena admits that she asked him to do so. He has built nearly 300 of the improved or changed robots, and it is presumed that these...
Mr. Alquist
Alquist is an architect and the Head of the Works Department at R.U.R. He is older and a traditionalist. He reveals in Act II that he prays that the manufacture of robots will cease and that the world will return to the way it once was. Alquist sees the manufacture of robots as a profitable venture that is evil at its core. He escapes death because Radius pronounces a sentence that Alquist should finish out his life as a laborer, a slave for the robots. In the Epilogue, Alquist tries unsucces...
Consul Busman
As the General Business Manager at R.U.R., Busman is concerned with the bottom line. When Miss Glory asks about giving the robots a soul, Busman replies with estimates of increased cost. He anticipates that eventually robots will replace all workers and that the cost of manufacturing goods will decrease steadily. When the robots attack, Busman continues working on his accounts, almost in denial. Busman decides that he can buy the humans’ freedom, but when he goes to speak to the robots, he to...
Harry Domin
Domin is the General Manager at R.U.R. Domin is an idealist who envisions that robots will help create a paradise on earth for man, who will have robots to do the work and free man to simply enjoy life. He envisions men as the new gods with a world to rule and robots as the servant class. At their first meeting, Domin claims to have instantly fallen in love with Helena Glory and asks her to marry him. In the end, Domin is murdered by the robots.
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.
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 ro...
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 manufacturer...
Audience
Authors usually write with an audience in mind. Capek intended R.U.R. as a way to awaken audiences to the possible threat of technology. His concern about the fate of humanity is transmitted to the audience as they watch and listen to the drama unfold.
Character
The actions of each character are what constitute the story. Character can also include the idea of a particular individual’s morality. Characters can range from simple stereotypical figures to more complex multi-faceted ones. Characters may also be defined by personality traits, such as the rogue or the damsel in distress. “Characterization” is the process of creating a life-like person from an author’s imagination. To accomplish this the author provides the character with personality traits...
Drama
A drama is often defined as any work designed to be presented on the stage. It consists of a story, of actors portraying characters, and of action. But historically, drama can also consist of tragedy, comedy, religious pageant, and spectacle. In modern usage, drama explores serious topics and themes but does not achieve the same level as tragedy.
The end of World War I brought many changes to Europe, Russia, and the United States. The years of war had been hard on many countries. Because of severe famine, Russia had signed a peace treaty and withdrawn from the war earlier than other countries. The Russian Revolution and the assassinations of the Romanovs did little to improve life for its c...
Although printed reviews of R.U.R. are not readily available, there are a number of indications that the play was well received and that it enjoyed international success when it opened in the Czech National Theatre in 1921. It was equally successful when produced in Europe, Asia, and North America, opening on Broadway in 1922. At its premiere, audi...
Sheri E. Metzger
Metzger is a Ph.D., specializing in literature and drama at the University of New Mexico. In this essay, she discusses the theme of creation and the responsibility of the creator inR.U.R. In R.U.R., Karel Capek comes very close to echoing the ideas first explored by Mary Shelley a hundred years earlier in Frankenstein (1818). Like Shelley, Capek is also asking man to consider the ramifications of science. It is not simply whether man can achieve something through technology, but whether he sh...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) evokes many of the same issues about human responsibility as does R.U.R. This novel also deals with questions about the future of humanity and asks serious questions about man’s humanity to man. 2. Prometheus Bound, written by Aeschylus in the fifth century B.C., is an example from classical literature that explores how man deals with fate and with man’s inhumanity toward man. 3. In The Insect Play, written in 1922, Capek uses insects to represent man’s v...
Ludwig Lewisohn
Lewisohn reviews the 1922 London production of R.U.R., terming the production a success as both a work of ideas and an entertaining evening of theatre. There are two kinds of notions in the world. There is the kind that hits you between the eyes; there is the kind that irradiates the soul. Thus there are two kinds of art. There is the art that dazzles and grows dark; there is the art that shines calmly and forever. It would be a sorry sort of affectation to deny one’s natural interest in the...
Comrada, Norma, “Golem and Robot: A Search for Connections” in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Vol. 7, nos. 2-3, 1996, pp. 244-54. Day, Barbara. “R.U.R” in the International Dictionary of Theatre Volume 1: Plays, edited by Mark Hawkins-Dady, St. James Press, 1992, pp. 695-96. Day, Barbara. “Karel Capek” in the International Dictionary of ...
Abrash, Merritt, “R.U.R. Restored and Reconsidered” in Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vol. 32, no. 2, Summer 1991, pp. 184-92. Harkins, William E., Karel Capek, Columbia UniversityPress, 1962. Kussi, Peter, editor. Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Capek Reader, Catbird Press, 1990. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science ...
R.U.R. is a 1921 play by Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined the word "robot" in this work. The play explores the themes of technology, utopia, and dehumanization in a world where robots replace humans.
Mass-produced, efficient and servile labor, Čapek's Robots remember everything, but lack creative thought, and the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must attempt to learn the secret of self-duplication.
Apr 15, 2024 · First performed in 1921, R.U.R. is a science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Capek. Born in 1890, Capek wrote several plays and novels. He was nominated seven times for the Nobel...
