Title: The Soul of the Robot

Author: Barrington J. Bayley

Type: Novel

Characters: No Character

Themes: ANDROID, POSTHUMAN, QUEER FRANKENSTEIN, SYMPATHETIC MONSTER

Critical Summary: Brought into this world with the memory of his creation, Jasperodus, the robot, willingly leaves his creators’ home in the rural countryside, in search of a better life for himself. Programmed with certain worldly knowledge, Jasperodus first encounters a group of bandits, led by a man named Craish, who attempts to control Jasperodus, demanding him to expose his command language. To their dismay, Jasperodus begins to rationalize with them, explaining that his command language is his own; a will to choose freely. It is here, in a disturbing scene of exploitation, where the notion of sexuality is introduced to him as a foreign concept, rather, a more human concept, in which he cannot fully participate. Escaping Craish and his gang, Jasperodus walks along the train tracks and into the tiny kingdom of Gordana, a farming town, led by King Zhorm. Attending a trial to escape royal servitude, Jasperodus struggles to convince the king and his court that he is a sentient being, and, therefore, cannot be enslaved. Mocking his reasoning, Jasperodus ends up in King Zhorm’s palace, where he fights a behemoth robot named Gorga, for the amusement of the king and his guests, including Prince Okhramora, the king’s half-brother. After a strategical win, Jasperodus then finds himself with Padua, the palace robotician, engaging in conversation over the possibility that Jasperodus is a conscious self, thus setting up for the turn of events. After a near-death experience in the furnace, Jasperodus begins his work with Major Cree Inwing, in the attempt to capture Craish and his gang, who have been terrorizing and raiding parts of the kingdom. Beginning his plot against the king, Jasperodus succeeds in this task, then goes on to manipulate his self-image, acting in the scheme of the king’s half-brother as a ploy, simultaneously controlling Craish to obey the orders he, Jasperodus, gives him. Employing this dominating skill set, Jasperodus is effectively able to take control of the kingdom, becoming good friends with Major Inwing. After these introductory events, Jasperodus continues to develop as an entity, unfolding into different leadership positions throughout the rest of the novel, each progressively more difficult and/or destructive than the last. Experiencing pain, pleasure, and drunkenness, Jasperodus is still unfulfilled with who, and what, he is, returning full circle to his creators. Learning the truth of his existence, and the love his creators, parents, display towards him, Jasperodus leaves his home again, only this time, feeling completely content.

Offering readers a chance to explore what it means to be a conscious being, Bayley’s piece constantly questions the human definition and associations of consciousness, through the experiences, and relationships, of a robot. Paralleling to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jasperodus is comparable to the Creature, experiencing an abnormal birth, existing outside of the boundaries of set definitions of personhood, and in search of a feeling of completion. One difference between Jasperodus and the Creature occurs with the notion of sexuality, in that Jasperodus attaches a robotic, fully sensational, phallic piece onto the bulge of his body piece, allowing him access to certain sexual experiences, whereas the Creature is denied this access. Regarding a different type of relation, similar to the friendship of Victor Frankenstein and Henry Clerval, Jasperodus and Major Cree Inwing’s friendship ultimately ends up in the demise of the latter, due to the primary’s situational creations. In fact, Mary Shelley and Jasperodus’ creators encompass similar characteristics, themselves, where each creator has a feeling of producing an offspring that has an unnerving potential; a possibility of destabilizing the set structures of a patriarchal humanity.

Administrative Notes: Jessica Padilla, CSUF