53 pages • 1 hour read
Karel ČapekWar with the Newts
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1936A 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
Pearls
Pearls serve as an important symbol throughout Book 1. As Book 1 documents the history of labor, commerce, and nationalism that led to the war, pearls symbolize the money and greed at the foundation of this event. Captain van Toch only happens upon the newts because of his quest for pearls, and once he engages the newts’ help in gathering pearls, he is able to show Bondy that he has “thousands of pearls of all sizes” (59), which inspires Bondy to invest in greater quests with greater use of newts. In this way, the pearls represent both van Toch and Bondy’s desire for power that quickly paves the road to the enslavement of the newts. A sailor says the captain has “sold his soul [...] I know what those devils are giving him for it. Rubies, pearls, and such-like things” (69). Pearls, or power, are worth enough to sell your soul.
Pearls also symbolize something rare—which also contributes to their symbolism of wealth—since they occur as a response to a random irritant that invades the soft tissue of mollusks and other shelled aquatic animals. In this way the beauty of the pearl can often obscure that it is the result of an animal protecting itself against something injurious. Thus, pearls symbolically carry the weight of danger along with their beauty. So, when the newts give the actress Li and her friends “twenty-one pearls” (99), the filmmakers see this as a positive thing. However, the gift of the pearls to the humans occupying the island and disrupting the newts’ habitat could also be understood as a defense against the danger posed by the humans.
Art and Dance
Art practices typically signal culture and community. Art is the subject of debates in this novel because there are many moments when humans assert that newts do not have their own arts, referring to arts such as literature and music. The “lack” of newt art contributes to their lack of national identity, but it also contributes to the “evidence” humans use to support their enslavement practices of the newts. As a marker of “civilization,” art is treated parodically particularly in the filmmaking crew. Art is depicted rather as a marker of elitism and a dissociation from issues that really matter.
Karel Čapek further challenges the definition of art, particularly as it is used to designate social civilization with the newts dance. “On moonlit nights [...] the Newts crawl out on the shore and dance” (184) as part of their mating ritual. Humans do not classify this act as art, presumably as a means to deny the newts a culture worth respect, but they may also refuse to classify this act as art because it is one done only by male newts and comes to symbolize the “collective male” of the newt world. In this way, the art of the newts is a practice that heightens the similarities of the male species. For humans, art should distinguish a nation and its leaders, who are primarily male at this time.
Yet, whether or not newts can be said to have their own culture with art similar to human society, newts are deeply aware of the value of art for humans. Newts appropriate human music written about newts for their broadcasts about explosions that kill humans. For instance, the Chief Salamander tells his human audience he will play a “gramophone record of the Salamander Dance from your musical comedy Galathea” (311). The newts use human culture against the humans.
High and Low Culture
As art is used by humans to distinguish themselves from the newts, the debates involving art also highlight the tensions between high and low culture in the human world. High culture is typically associated with education and the content deemed worthy to be learned about. Low culture, then, is often associated with those who lack education and therefore the sophistication necessary to appreciate particular content. For example, the editors of the newspaper refuse to publish an article about the newts because it is too scientific for their audience. Limits are placed on what humans can learn about the newts because such content is deemed too difficult. Additionally, academic institutions refuse to cite research by newts, seeing their work as beneath the intellectual value of human academia.
But Čapek illustrates the arbitrary nature by which high and low culture are defined, especially within the arts. Poetry is an art form meant to elevate the worth of newts, which can be seen in the conference at Nice when Paul Mallory, “the great poet” confers praise upon the newts and their society. Yet, poetry is also used to signal the denigrated nature of newt history. The narrator notes that the newspaper clippings about newts are as fragmentary as Sappho’s poetry (168). Her ancient Greek writings that remain are incomplete, presumably due to a protracted investment in her art as worthy of study in more modern academia.
