Title: Helen O’Loy
Author: Lester Del Rey
Date of First Publication: December 1938
Publisher: Astounding Science Fiction, Ed. John W. Campbell, Jr.(New York: Street and Smith)
Bibliographic Reference: isfdb
Type: Short Story
Keywords: ANDROID; POSTHUMAN; QUEER; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: “Helen O’ Loy” tells the story of Dave, an engineer, attempting to perfect a female robot servant. The story is told in first person through Phil’s perspective, Dave’s best friend, and it begins with the creation of Helen O’ Loy after the malfunction of her predecessor, Lena. He stumbles upon Helen fully alert, but with Dave nowhere in sight; Helen tells Phil that Dave has been avoiding her. After finding Phil, Dave tells him that Helen has learned too much from a travelogue and books. She went from learning how to cook and clean to learning about love and romance, falling in love with Dave in the process. As time passes and Helen continues fawning over Dave, the entire situation has Dave unable to work on more robots. Phil picks up the pieces and Dave finally confesses that he loves Helen too. Several years pass, with Dave reflecting on how they grew older together, with Dave seemingly forgetting that Helen was not human as she had received cosmetic aging with Phil’s help in secret. The story ends with a letter from Helen: Dave has died and she wants to be destroyed and buried with him. Phil reflects on his best friend and on his biggest regret: that he loved Helen, too.
As with Walton in Frankenstein, this telling of the narrative by the friend character gives the reader a passive perspective into an active story of creation. Helen O’Loy changes the script of the monster, heightening the view of the sympathetic monster. First, Dave builds Helen for a purpose: Dave and Phil wanted a functioning maid; a robot servant to replace the hassles of marrying an actual woman. Second, as a house servant set in a story in 1938, Dave builds a female AI, connecting Helen with the idea of machine as opposed to creation—a concept normally reserved for male identity. With Helen learning more than Dave intended, she burdens her creator, not with her sole existence, but with her behavior. In the realm of her femininity, she cannot appear intimidating through sheer looks; Dave did not build her that way. Instead, Helen threatens Dave’s very way of living, portraying romance as an interruption to masculine, solitary bliss. It is as if Victor had built the Creature’s mate, and all had gone well, except with Victor aligning with the female Creature, not the Creature itself.
Administrative Notes: Entry author: J.D. Mayfield