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.
Themes
Newspapers and the Uses of Information
Newspapers are an important part of the novel. People discuss newspapers and some minor characters work at newspapers. Also, there are newspaper headlines set apart with different formatting (font size, bolding, etc.) throughout the novel, especially in Book 2. Karel Čapek, quoted in the introduction to War with the Newts, writes, “I consider it a matter of immense importance to a people how newspapers are produced” (viii-ix). In this novel, Čapek illustrates that often newspapers are not produced simply to inform the public, but also with an eye to entertain, which can take away from the context or truth of information.
In the novel, Čapek mentions that Lidove Noviny (a reference to a real newspaper that Čapek used to write for) rejected an important scientific discovery about the newts. This detail conveys an attitude of news editors toward their readers, whom they see as either being uninterested in the scientific information about the newts or unable to understand information when given in this way. Although audience awareness is a factor for anyone providing information, the newspaper’s decision not to print something based on its entertainment value is just one example of a newspaper’s unwillingness to inform the public about an issue. Indeed, the editors and journalists identify certain subjects or information as either “[s]omething” or not “[a]nything” (30). Although there is plenty of information about the world, and many events that could be reported on, the concern remains on “if only something happened…” (30). When the editors and journalists look to the ceiling of the newsroom to try to find, “[s]omething to [r]ead,” Čapek slyly depicts the men as imagining “[s]omething,” which critiques the trustworthiness of the newspaper industry.
Čapek continues his critique of newspapers and the uses of information through his intertextual style that inserts newspaper headlines, letters to authors, and old newspaper clippings alongside traditional descriptive paragraphs and dialogue expected in a novel. Yet, while the insertion of these various media give the novel a real-life feel—especially as font style and size change throughout—Čapek still manages to challenge the way such documents are used. One old article is depicted in a gothic style font but, “No title or year was given” (133), meaning that the recipient of the letter and article, Professor Uher, can only guess when it was printed. The lack of cataloging details—date and publication name—comes up again in reference to Povondra’s collection of newt clippings. He lacks education in “bibliographical methods” (167), so even as Povondra has accumulated a fair archive of the history of the newts, such information is unorganized and uncontextualized. Further, while he would collect “anything in print about the Newts” (166), his wife would randomly throw out parts of the newspaper collection when it became too large. Povondra’s archive is incomplete, and, at a certain point, information comes to resemble trash. Čapek illustrates that information may only be as good as how it has been contextualized and preserved.
Ultimately, newspapers are a mirror of the society that produces them. As newts became commonplace, and somewhat popular, newt “neologisms, their pronunciation and grammatical simplicity were picked up rapidly, partly by [...] the daily Press” (208). The language of newspapers reflects the language of the people that produce them. As humans pick up the newt style of speaking, their newspapers publish writing in that style. So while precise dates and information may be lost with improper document management, any document can offer a reader insight into a specific time and place through the content and the style. For example, a diverse group of political activists use newspapers to publish manifestos trying to get newts “to join as a large Newt body this or that ideal, political, or social programme of human society” (229). One of these is reprinted in full in the footnotes of Book 2, beginning with “Comrade Newts!” (227). In this way, newspapers offer information about the evolving relationship between humans and newts as well as shed light on how newspapers become a political medium. At the political conference in Vaduz, Čapek notes that there are “journalists” (320) covering the event, which is important given the conference’s global influence. Čapek points how political groups will latch onto the latest issue and try to use the press in furthering their aims, but also how much politics depends on the media to gain any traction at all.
The Horrors of Slavery
Book 2 of War with the Newts focuses on the horrific enslavement of the newts, which is a parodic critique of chattel slavery. Bondy forms the Salamander Syndicate whose “task will be the rational production and exploitation of the newts” (149). This includes managing farms where newts are grown, dividing newts into different kinds of workers, selling newts, and transporting newts on ships. This is a shift from using the newts to obtain a commodity, pearls, to the newts becoming the commodity: “Salamanders were nothing but a legal object, chattel” (218). Humans buy and sell newts for underwater construction projects, such as creating new islands. Unlike human construction workers, “Newts were not paid wages in money” (223), a core element of enslavement—being forced to work without compensation.
The enslavement of salamanders not only includes breeding salamanders on farms, but also pirating salamanders. In other words, some human pirates steal newts that were born in the wild and sell them into enslavement. Some of the horrific descriptions of capturing newts involve dismemberment of newts, which reflects the bodily violence endured by enslaved people. The ships transporting enslaved newts across the Atlantic allude to the ships used in the transatlantic trade of enslaved peoples. The newts were transported in tanks that previously held oil and were not very clean. The contents of the tanks are called “macaroni soup” (186), where macaroni is used as a word for the newt. These characterizations reflect the use of language to dehumanize enslaved people. The large number of newts that die during transport reflects the real-world numbers of people who died being transported for chattel slavery.
In addition to the “S-Trade” (177), aka the salamander trade, or the “Slave-Trade,” newts are subject to violent attacks, notably lynching. In reaction to this, Black people stand in solidarity with the newts, fighting for an end to lynching. The “movement against lynching the Newts originated [led by] Negro, Rev. Robert J. Washington [...] supported by hundreds of thousands of members, almost all of whom of course without exception were Negroes” (222). Čapek’s comparison between the newts and the racist abuses suffered by Black people is explicit in his framing of this protest.
The uprising of the newts, which occurs in Book 3, is also comparable to the history of people subjected to chattel slavery. The first major conflict between newts and humans is when the newts revolt against the raiding boat Montrose. This is a moment when the newts immediately and directly respond to the violence enacted on them. However, their revolts are driven not only by a right to be free from physical violence, but also a right to live freely. The newts want more coastline for their growing population—they claim a right to take up space. As the war progresses and the newts do begin to take up space and establish something of a society, Čapek depicts them as completely different from humans who, once they gain power, typically repeat the cycle of oppression. Enslavement is not something that newts will participate in, argues philosopher Wolf Meynert. He asks, “Do you imagine that they will repeat the historical mistake that man has eternally committed by making slaves of defeated races and classes instead of exterminating them?” (288). Rather than enslave humans, as humans did to newts, newts would simply destroy all human existence. In a critique of utopia, Čapek suggests that only with mass destruction is a world possible where “[n]obody will be a master or a slave” (289).
The Problems With Nationalism
In Čapek’s own words, nationalism “is quite simple: the destruction of the world and its people. It’s a loathsome chapter based solely on logic [...] what destroys us will not be a cosmic catastrophe but mere reasons of state, economics, prestige, and so on” (xxi). As much as War with the Newts is a critique of the newspaper industry and enslavement, it is also an indictment of nationalism. Čapek contrasts the warring sides of the humans and the newts. The humans, unlike the newts, are divided by nationalist loyalties, which causes them to lose during the war. Specifically, the humans cannot place their broader cause over their individual national benefits. As the narrator archly notes, “It was, of course, difficult to expect a State to disarm unless it was quite certain that another maritime Power was not secretly arming its Newts, and by so doing intensifying its military power to the detriment of its neighbours” (298-99). Humans are unwilling to disarm the newts even after the newts start setting off deadly and destructive explosions because they are more concerned about other human nations potentially retaining newt mercenaries than they are about disarming the largest threat to their existence as a species.
Čapek is clearly opposed to the nationalist practices of colonialism, particularly as it manifests in chattel slavery. England is the target of much of Čapek’s disparagement as the newts gradually gain ground in the war. England bans trade with newts as well as trade of enslaved newts, but notably does not ban newt labor in their colonies. As a result of England’s distrust of newts, even as they exploit them in their colonies, the newts set up a blockade of the British Isles and prevent all communication and trade. The military action of the newts reflects their dislike of England. This sentiment is shared by other human nations. When the British try to get around the ocean blockade through the air “[g]overnments of the other European Powers intervened” (315). Further, the newts draw attention to the distinction between England and Ireland in their blockade. At the beginning of the war, the newts form a blockade “on the British Isles with the exception of the Irish Free State” (312), the region currently occupied by the English. War with the Newts depicts England as particularly notable in the history of colonialism, specifically in how the country manages to obscure its colonialist practices through its staunch attachment to its national identity.
The animosity between the English and the newts causes the English delegate to be excused from the conference as Vaduz that includes newt representatives. Even without England present, the representatives of the western nations demonstrate their prejudice against Eastern nations at the conference. For instance, the “Chinese delegate rose to speak, but unfortunately no one could understand him” (326). None of the politicians present care to learn Chinese, and they decide to sell China to the newt to try to delay their own demise. When the author speaks to himself in the final chapter, he asserts, “men against men—that, my friend, can’t be stopped” (343). In this way, Čapek opposes a specifically Western nationalism, which is also parodied with the “Baltic Salamander [being] the best soldier in the world” (279). While the Germans try to make a case that the “Baltic newt” is the “ur-newt,” and thus bolster their own national identity through their newt population, the novel is clear that newts don’t have national identity or any organization that could be called “nations.”
Newts may not have nations or national identity, but they do speak different languages. The narrator notes, “In the end, of course, it so happened that in every nation a different Universal Language was propagated” (206). The newts learn the language of whichever nation educates them. Yet, despite this linguistic marker of a potential national identity, newts are still able to organize globally against humans, which critiques the notion that one’s language correlates explicitly to one’s nationality. While newts may not use language as a means to distinguish their identity from humans, a nationalistic practice, Čapek does parody the way that language becomes a tool of nationalism rather than a tool of communication. There is a funny newspaper article collected by Povondra that describes someone running into a newt who spoke Czech due to the publication of a book called “Czech for Newts” (209). Czechoslovakia does not have any coastlines, so it does not have a large newt population. The book about the Czech language had to travel to distant locations to reach newts, hence not only the Czech reporter’s astonishment at a Czech-speaking newt, but also the evidence of a nationalistic motive for language instruction.
