The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass: An Analysis

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Humanity has always been attracted to the concept of an artificial being that has the potential to make life easier and more enjoyable was well as the ability to use other humans as labor sources. In Čapek’s R.U.R., mechanical beings made to be slaves for humanity, rebelled and killed their creators and in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slavery led to the destruction of figurative humanity during that time. Though it can be argued that man’s development of institutions to work for him have been detrimental to humanity as a whole, through R.U.R. and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, it is shown clearly that man’s evolution through time provides stronger evidence that the institutions that work for man have simply …show more content…
exemplifies ways which the development of feelings can lead to love, hatred, and other qualities that come along with the simple meaning of humanity. Throughout the book, robots develop souls and the drive to survive which ultimately ended human life on Earth. Radius, a robot, once said, “We wanted to live. We are more capable. We have learned everything. We can do everything.” This demonstrates how the robots needed survival to substantiate their existence as well as fortifying their dominance over humans. The robots spoke to Alquist and tried to learn the secret of Rossum’s Formula in order to survive and the interaction showed their disparity for existence as well. This concept all returns to the original idea of the humans giving robots souls and how it led to the eventual disaster of humanity. The robots quest for survival proved to be a key motivator for Alquist as he searched for the answer of robot reproduction. He originally tried to perform experiments on the robots, but those failed and he realized that the robot’s development of affection and feeling was all they needed. Alquist informed Primus and Helena that what they needed to reproduce was not a secret formula, but each other. That situation supports the argument that with the development of feelings such as love and hatred, the robots were able to destroy humanity’s existence as well as …show more content…
paved a road straight to sterility which caused the eventual destruction of humanity as well. The characters provide a solid argument that supports the destruction of humanity came from humans and the fact that they did not need to reproduce anymore because there was no need for more humans to reap the benefits of the overabundant robots. Alquist pointed out to Helena that human sterility occurred because “human labor became unnecessary because they created a paradise for themselves.” He shows that because of humans ultimate quest to eliminate poverty were so great, they simply forgot the need for children and the idea that the future is a thing. The quotation exemplifies how humans have a bad habit of living in the present and not planning for the future. Sterility in R.U.R. served as the downfall of reaping the benefits that robots could offer and if it had not been for the robots decimating the human population, it would have spelled the end for humanity anyway. This idea of sterility adds to the argument that the design of machines resulted in the destruction of humanity because a couple of the more significant reasons that humans are on earth is to reproduce and live everyday expressing love towards others. Overall, humans set their fate even before the robots decided to exterminate the human population by building up to the