Character Clues

Character Analysis

Names

R.U.R. has some aspects of an allegory; that is, the characters are often types rather than individuals. As such, Čapek often uses names to tell you what role the characters fill, or what kind of people they're supposed to be. The most obvious example here is Domin, whose name is a shortening of "dominate" or "domination." So you know that Domin is a guy who… likes to dominate things.

Another example is Robot Primus. Primus comes from Prime, or first, and Primus is the first of the new breed of robots with souls. Like Adam before him, we're to understand, he will go out and populate the world.

Occupation

R.U.R. is all about workers working—"Robots to work!" as Radius says (2.394)—so it's not a surprise that a big part of characterization is work too. Busman, the financier of R.U.R., is almost entirely defined by his job. You see him doing figures to distract himself as the robots revolt, and then he dies trying to pay the robots off. He's a financier; he's interested in money. That's his character.

This goes for other characters, too. Alquist is head of construction, and he's all practical and opposed to Domin's big schemes:

"The real crime was producing Robots in the first place!" (2.53)

And of course the robots themselves, like Radius, have little personality outside their jobs. Part of what's terrifying about Radius, in fact, is his ruthless commitment to efficiency and work—oh, and to killing humans, too, of course. Don't forget that.

Speech and Dialogue

As you'd expect in a play, much of the characterization is achieved through dialogue. You know that Alquist is an excitable, melodramatic doofus because he keeps launching into excitable, melodramatic speeches (see "Characters: Alquist" for more). For his part, the eerily efficient, emotionless Radius speaks in an eerily efficient, emotionless staccato:

"You will work. You will build. The Robots will build a great deal." (2.338)

In fact, all the robots speak in flat bursts, except for Primus and Helena, who talk with more expression. When you have a soul, you get to say more flowery lines like, "Are these winking eyes beautiful? These lips that you bite till they hurt?" (3.171). Robot Helena talks about winking eyes and bitten lips and she also talks a lot about puppies. You have to have a soul to talk about puppies, right? It's a rule.