Robots in Myth and Literature

Robots in Myth and Literature

ROBOTS IN MYTH AND LITERATURE

By

Tala Bar

 Robots (a word which includes here androids as well) are part and parcel of modern science fiction literature; robots appear in stories (s. link) by Peter Philips, Philip K. Dick, Idris Seabright, Algis Budrys, Cordwainer Smith, J. T. Macintosh, Alfred Bester, Walter M. Miller, Robert Bloch, Keith Roberts, Richard Bowker, Clifford Simak, Lester del Ray, William Campbell Gault, Richard Matheson and Robert Presslie; the robot stories of all these authors were written in the 1950s. Ray Bradbury wrote between 1951 and 1976 five robots stories, and Isaac Asimov made a career of writing robots stories, and a series of detective novels circling round the idea of robots as part of futuristic human society.

Robots seem to be such a modern idea, part of advanced technology and the notion of putting machines to work in place of human beings, that it is difficult to grasp how ancient their idea is, which actually forms part of long gone mythology. As a matter of fact, the idea of man-made creatures who should replace humans in some hard or dangerous tasks has existed for hundreds of years in literature, from fairy tales to science fiction.

The word “robot”, together with its modern idea of replacing humans at work, appeared in 1921 in a play by the Czech author Karel Capek, called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots – s. link). The word “robot” comes from the Czech word “robota”, which means “drudgery” or “servitude”, and a robotnik is a serf who performs menial labor. The purpose of such mechanical men was to be the cheapest workers, those who had fewest needs. Such beings “remember everything, while at the same time thinking of nothing new.”

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The first robot-like being known from literature is the giant bronze man Talos of Crete. This mechanical man was supposedly created by the smith god Hephaestus and given as a gift to Minos, king of Crete, for the purpose of protecting and defending the island and the city of Knossos from attacks and invaders. In this capacity, it threw rocks at any approaching ship, as it did at the Argonauts on their voyage to get the Golden Fleece. It was the sorceress Medea who managed to a get near it so she could extract the nail that blocked its one vain and release its ichor of molten lead, which was its life source, and thus kill it.  

The function of protection assigned to the mechanical man appears also in a story of a Scandinavian “robot”. In a Hebrew book of Scandinavian Mythology written by Yaakov Sarig (2005), a story is told of the giant Rungnir, who fought against the god Thor. Seeing that he could not win that fight, Rungnir had another giant made in his image out of clay, equipped with armor and shield, to fight at his side against the god. Together, they managed to wound Thor, although they were defeated just the same.

Made of clay was also the Golem of Prague in the 16th cent., made by the Maharal (an acronym for the name of Rabbi Lowe, the Jewish leader of his time), for the purpose of protecting the Jewish community against pogroms. Unlike the Slav word “robot”, which is connected with the idea of work, the Hebrew word “golem” refers to a creature without a brain; in modern language, it is used for the stage of chrysalis in the cycle of insect life. The Hebrew root actually means “unfinished”, as in the expression homer golmi, meaning “raw material”.

An interesting approach to the protection function of robots appears in Philip K. Dick’s story The Defenders (1953 – s. link). In it, as is told on that site, robots are created to continue a war against invaders of a decimated Earth, while the humans live safely underground. However, while the humans believe that the robots are still fighting, these have actually rebuilt Earth and live on it in peace. The idea of the possible difference between the war-like humans and the peace loving robots has appeared in