Cybernetic Bodies appear in literature quite frequently and have been present in many examples of literature ranging from plays, to novels, to television shows throughout the last century. When one considers a comparison of example, he or she must first fully understand what a cybernetic body truly is. Hayles suggests that “…cybernetics signaled that three powerful factors – information, control, and communication – were now operating jointly to bring about an unprecedented synthesis of the organic and the mechanical.” (Hayles, 18). Hayles goes on to say, “Cybernetics combines control theory and the nascent theory of information to show how humanity communicates with the machines that will inevitably replace us one day.” (Hayles, 18). With Hayles’s definitions, one can begin to understand that cybernetic bodies are a meld of the human and robotic sense of life and a combination of the aspects of both. With the definitions given to the audience, one can now begin to construct a comparison of cybernetic bodies. Three examples of Cybernetic bodies in three different mediums of literature are Rossum’s Universal Robots in the form of a play, Stepford Wives in the form of a film, and Black Mirror in the form of a television show.
Regarding the first example, R.U.R., cybernetic bodies are introduced to the audience in the form of “robots”. In R.U.R., the robots are genderless, but still follow one of two gender stereotypes; the robots are either warriors and soldiers “like a man should be”, or docile and less important like women were treated in the time the play was written. In R.U.R., Capek has a dialogue between robot Helena and Primus, another robot. This dialogue is, “Primus: They are formulae, Helena: I don’t understand.” (Capek, 3.147-148). Capek is trying to make a statement to the audience- he is trying to show how society thinks of women. In this scene, two robots are conversing and any formulae should be easily understandable from either party. Even though both parties are robots, the “woman” robot cannot understand complex math and algorithms. He tries to explain in this scene that the way the world thinks of women makes no sense and should be changed.
Like R.U.R., Stepford Wives portrays a stereotypical feminine role for some of the females in the film. In this movie, a couple moves to Stepford, Connecticut and finds that the people living there a somewhat strange. The main character Joanna, is a strong female character and tries to empower the women of the town, but they all seem brainwashed. As the movie progresses, more female characters get all of the sudden turned to this mentality, and eventually so too does Joanna. The real reason the previously brash and independent women turn to be the stereotypical housewives is they are being replaced by fembots. Like the gender differences in the previous piece of literature, these fembots, or female robots fulfill all the stereotypically female roles and are meant to show the dangers and horrors of a society where women have no free will. Davis Perfectly describes what is occurring in Stepford Wives when he says, “. . . this ideal body, is not attainable by a human. . . These models individually can never embody the ideal since an ideal, by definition, can never be found in this world.” (Davis, 4). By saying this, Davis shows how the movie is a satire on the “Perfect Family” ideal that populates literature. Also, in the movie, Bobbie describes the horrors and confusion of the other wives in her statement, “I can’t figure out this burg. It’s like maids have been declared illegal, and the housewife with the neatest place gets Robert Redford for Christmas.” Here, Bobbie remarks on how the women of Stepford are very peculiar and do not act as normal humans should; this is a remark on dystopia and the same attack on gender found in R.U.R.
Most recent of the three examples is the Television show Black Mirror. In the episode seen in class, a woman tries to replace her deceased partner with a cybernetic body. She succeeds in recreating a cybernetic body that is absolutely identical to the lost partner in almost all aspects, but were the robot lacks is in the nonphysical mannerisms of the person it is replicating. The new body cannot take on the personality of the person because no person can put all of his or her feelings about every specific situation online; therefore, the replacement cannot learn how to respond in every situation. Though this piece of literature did not display the same level or type of gender stereotyping, it does hint at it slightly. Stereotypically, the men in the relationship are the ones making the decision and are more stubborn, but because this clone has to listen to its human creator, it must always be subservient. This subservience causes a strain in the relationship because Martha, the main female character, desires the old relationship she had with Ash, even though it is a robot and not actually still Ash. This piece of literature differs from the other as it essentially does a role reversal. The woman has the controlling power and the “man” is the subservient robot and must listen and do whatever the woman wishes.
A common theme that occurs in all three works is the danger of cybernetic bodies and that they would be nearly impossible or totally impossible to implement in society properly and safely. All three pieces of literature warn against the use of cybernetic bodies for the seemingly utopia it will bring will quickly become a dystopia if not careful. Haraway argues that cyborgs are a “condensed image of both imagination and material reality” (Haraway 292), and it is through this argument that one knows cyborgs cannot exist in the manner depicted in literature. All the pieces of literature show that cyborgs should not exist, but it is Haraway that explains they cannot exist. Because the cyborgs of literature are partly figments of imagination, existence in that sense is futile, and that is shared among all cybernetic literature, not just the three examples.
Works Cited
“Be Right Back.” Directed by Owen Harris, written by Charlie Booker. Black Mirror, season 2, episode 1, Netflix, 11 Feb. 2013.
Čapek, Karel. R.U.R. (Rossums universal robots). Wildside Press, 2012.
Davis, Lennard J. The Disability Studies Reader. 2nd Ed. Routledge, 2006.
Haraway, Donna. “Cyborg Manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism late twentieth century.” Routledge, pp. 291-316.
Hayles, N. Katherine. “How We Became Posthuman.” 1999, doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226321394.001.0001.
Stepford Wives. Produced by Edgar Scherick, directed by Bryan Forbes, Palomar Pictures, 1975.
