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.
Further Reading & Resources
Further Reading: Plays
R.U.R. Rossum's Universal Robots original printing (Czech) (1920) via Internet Archive
This scan of the original printing of the play includes the original cover, drawn by Josef Čapek, Karel Čapek’s brother. The play’s age is apparent, the play protected by a modern folio, yet broken and worn in places. Distinctions appear between the original and translations. For instance, Helena Glory is named Gloryová in the original.
This original also gives insight into an often-lost aspect of the play: It is one of the only pieces of Czech literature commonly referenced in English. The Nazis and Soviet regimes targeted Czech peoples, with Josef Čapek dying in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Czech art and literature of the interwar period was suppressed after the collapse of democracy in the recently-Soviet Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. However, the play in translation endured.
Further Reading: Beyond Literature
Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang, hosted on YouTube
This silent movie portrays a world of mechanized labor, ruled by aristocrats far above. When an aristocrat discovers that the workers are being killed by the extremely dangerous factory machines, he descends into the factories to aid a growing revolution. As a result of his involvement, a robot is created with the appearance of the woman he loves, the beautiful Maria. The Maria robot inspires a violent uprising against the ruling class. This results in the destruction of the factory machines, which endangers all the city’s children. Metropolis’ themes— robots being mistaken for humans, the Hegelian dialectic of two distinct classes, and the threat to the future represented by the endangering of the city’s children— closely parallel R.U.R. Furthermore, Metropolis was released in 1927, only seven years after R.U.R.; it reflects the interwar period’s concern about the destructive capabilities of technology and an anxiety toward technocratic inequality.
The Second Renaissance hosted at The Matrix 101
This page summarizes and analyzes one of the short films that make up The Animatrix, an anthology of works that explore The Matrix trilogy. “The Second Renaissance” details the origins of the conflict between humanity and robots, which began with the creation of robots as slaves. Machines “know” humanity’s nature, and are therefore capable of both understanding and hurting them. Just like the Robot Council’s imprisonment and control of Alquist, the machines imprison and control humanity in the Matrix, in order to reproduce themselves. One particularly graphic scene involves an android (a robot who looks like a human) being beaten to death. She reveals her nature as a robot as she declares “I’m real!”
The Legacy of Rossum's Universal Robots (2019) by Michael Ahr on Den of Geek
This article breaks down some of the more prominent pop-cultural references that R.U.R. has inspired, including from Dr. Who, Star Trek, Westworld, and Batman. R.U.R is believed to have invented the term “robot” to describe an autonomous, human-shaped machine, and has contributed much to the way culture talks about machines; as a play, it has also contributed to science fiction’s popularity as a visual medium. The article points out that the play, when televised on the BBC in 1938, was the first science fiction produced on television ever. This demonstrates the work’s impact, not just on depictions of machines, but also our ability to imagine the future.
