RUR Love Quotes

This is the one moment in the play where Helena knows more than… well, really than anybody. Domin thinks Marius and Sulla were lovers, but really they were opposing Roman generals. The suggestion is that Domin doesn't know anything about love—and maybe that he doesn't know as much as he thinks about violence and power either.

Helena has faith in love. It can change robots! And it can change robots, just not yet. Otherwise the play would be over too soon.

The robots cannot love; they exhibit no traces of attraction. Helena thinks that's horrible (though, are you horrified that your computer doesn't fall in love with another computer?). Helena is confusing machines for people. Though, that confusion seems intentional, since Domin says they make female robots to perform jobs associated with women. The robots are supposed to fulfill sexist expectations without having any desire of their own. Yeah, that is somewhat dreadful when you think about it.

Domin expresses his love for Helena by grabbing her, hurting her, and marrying her against her consent. Does the play think this is sexy? Funny? Cool? The way things should be? No wonder the robots have such trouble with love when their creator, the playwright, seems to be unclear on the concept as well.

Dr. Gall is upset because he tried to give Robot Helena a soul and failed. But he moves instantly, from "you can't love" to "you can't have a baby." The play insistently conflates the two—love means children; children mean the ability to love. Of course this isn't true; people often love each other without being able to have kids (or without wanting to have kids). The play though doesn't seem to like that idea; it wants very traditional domestic roles and families, which may be why the robots (who aren't made in traditional familial ways) seem so scary.

Dr. Gall agreed to try to give the robots a soul because he loves Helena, supposedly. But why do they all love her? Is it just because she's the only woman in the play? Again, it seems like, in the play, it's not only the robots who are confused about this love business.

This is Alquist in one of his whining soliloquies at the end of the play. Here he almost seems to be praying to Helena as a kind of goddess of love. And she is sort of a goddess of love; it's she who made Gall give the robots the power to love, we suppose. Still, Alquist is irritating.

Robot Helena reminds Alquist of his love for Helena. Robot Helena is only an image of a woman though. But then, Helena, too, is made up; she's also the image of a woman. And she really is just an image—she never exactly feels real. She's just someone there to love and to perform the role of "woman" for all the supervisors. Helena is a kind of Robot Helena all along; a machine to generate love.

Primus feels his heart struck with a feeling. The robot can love (woot!). This is the moment for passionate bleeping, and an ecstasy of bloops.

Love is the greatest invention, greater than robots and mechanics. But, if love is so great, who invents that? You could say God… but you could also say, "Hey, Karel Čapek is the dude who thought up the love between Primus and Helena." The trumpeting of love and humanism ends up being an argument that playwrights are cooler than engineers—which is just the sort of thing you'd expect a playwright to say.