ENL 003 Post #6

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Rossum’s Universal Robots by Karel Capek both portray the darker side of progress. The character’s Victor and Domin become obsessed with rearranging the natural order of life. The primordial soup of genetic material created by Old Rossum draws parallels with the genetic pool of cadavers procured by Victor. Spiritual evolution appears in both as Victor realizes his folly in trying to seize a role reserved for the divine whereas Alquist assumes that privileged position on Earth in assigning the new world a prototype romantic pair. Both novels also illustrate that humans can become slaves to their ideas, metaphorically and literally as Victor serves his creation out of fear of reprisal and Radius declares Alquist a potential builder in the new world.
The role of women in both works is bias or at least socially commentary since both principle females, Elizabeth and Helena, are rather submissive and only work to make the artificial life more menacing. This is seen in Elizabeth’s vulnerability to the creature and Helena’s instigation of free will in the robots. The potential for a new race of monsters is considered by both principle characters, although Victor only briefly entertains the idea whereas Domin’s vision seems to ironically be the only hopeful conclusion. Both catastrophes begin with our leading male character attempting to recover a sense of innocence, Victor trying to undo the pain of loss by resurrecting a body composed of death and Domin trying to restore the blissful freedom humanity enjoyed in the Garden of Eden.
The achievement of humanity in the creature and the robots is reversed as the creature can at first only understand the world surrounding him on bodily experiences but later learns to absorb, repeat, and elaborate on knowledge; while the robots began with the impressive capacity to recognize and repeat vast amounts of information yet finally understand it only after Dr. Gall’s tampering allows them to ponder there experiences. During certain parts in both pieces, the proprietors decide to negotiate with their creations since they now have a noticeable foothold on the situation, as the creature proves to be a virtual immortal and the robots realize their physical superiority. The exact science of how Victor’s creature was imbued with life and Old Rossum’s formula concocted are only vaguely touched upon, implying that it is forbidden knowledge. These tie in with the notion of the cautionary claims.