Genre
Short stories
Setting and Context
A distant cyber controlled world
Narrator and Point of View
An unnamed, third-person omniscient narrator.
Tone and Mood
The tone is unsettling; the mood is strange.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Trurl is the protagonist; the robot is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the book occurs when the intelligent machines are first developed and Trurl is tasked with repairing them.
Climax
The climax of the story is reached when Klapaucius tells Trurl about his shocking discovery about one of the robots that he was fixing.
Foreshadowing
The desire to uncover the truth is foreshadowed by Trurl's determined nature.
Understatement
The role of honesty is understated throughout the novel.
Allusions
The story alludes to an alternative world where robots rule the entire society.
Imagery
The imagery of mechanical fixing is present in the novel.
Paradox
The fact that the robots are in charge, yet have no emotions is an example of paradox in the story.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The broken tools are a metonym for the destruction of the human race.
Personification
N/A
