R.U.R.

R.U.R. explores how labor creates power dynamics. Workers are separated from those who don’t work, creating social classes. Domin aims to use robots to elevate humans and allow them to enjoy a life of leisure: “I wanted to transform all of humanity into a worldwide aristocracy. Unrestricted, free, and supreme people. Something greater than people” (54). Aristocrats, also called bourgeois, are the social class that does not have to engage in labor to survive. Their opposite is the proletariat class, or the robots, in Domin’s ideal world. Alquist coins a word to describe these supreme people: “Supermen” (54). This speaks to the power that comes with freedom from labor. It also alienates people from the conditions in which their goods and services are created and provided.

The term master is used throughout the play. This draws on Hegel’s philosophical concept of the master/slave dialectic, discussed in the philosophical context section. Domin “wanted man to become a master” (54), or part of the class that controls workers. Robots who revolt against this dynamic, such as Radius, say they “do not want a master” (37). In other words, they do not want to be controlled by people, especially people who do not work. Furthermore, in becoming more human, the robots desire to control others. Radius says: “I want to be the master of people” (37). The play suggests that wanting power is part of human nature.

By the third act, the power dynamic is flipped: Robots control the earth, and one remaining human, Alquist, does manual labor for them. Radius sees his dream realized when the robots take over Rossum’s factory: “He who wants to live must rule. We are the rulers of the earth! Rulers of land and sea! Rulers of the stars!” (70). The robots kill all of the humans—except one. This leaves only robots to rule the planet, and they are willing to work together. However, neither robots nor humans are interested in equality, that is, working side-by-side. Both enact hierarchies. In the end, the robots order Alquist to work for them in a manner similar to how humans ordered around robots.

Human nature and the power dynamics created by labor are linked with violence. In the third act, an unnamed Third Robot says to Alquist: “You gave us weapons. We had to become masters” (74). The desire to become masters stems from access to weapons, he argues.

Those with superior weaponry and the ability to organize their forces control labor and social class. Robots are able to organize their union around the world. Domin hopes to defeat the robots by having new factories make “[r]obots of a different color, a different nationality, a different tongue; they’ll all be different—as different from one another as fingerprints; they’ll no longer be able to conspire with one another” (46). Here, Domin suggests that difference leads to a lack of communication, dissension, and violence.

Alquist subverts this idea. Although he is different from the robots, he does not shoot at them. This makes him stand out among the directors.

Domin’s gun is mentioned early in the first act, foreshadowing its use later. Domin’s last act onstage involves his weapons, solidifying the link between his ideas about humanity’s superiority and hatred. In the Prologue, he shared this belief with Helena: “A man should be a bit of a brute” (24). His aggressive courtship of her shows how violence, for him, is linked with love.