The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age

The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age Analysis

The Cyberiad is science fiction, which means that the stories will be speculative in nature. An author might become a sci-fi writer if they ask a lot of "What if?" questions, so in order to bring out the meaning of this humorous short story collection, that's a great place to start. And in this case, the "What if?" question behind much of the speculation of the work seems to be, "What if science doesn't answer our questions about the meaning of human suffering?" This is not unusual by the way—most lighthearted science fiction works deal with broad philosophical questions.

That might sound like a reach, but take a closer look at the central irony of the plot structure. Instead of transcending our silly animal ways, the robots merely enact the same rituals we do. They dress in armor and fight dragons to save maidens from danger. That is the same meaning system humans have used for centuries, so one important feature of the text is that it seems to affirm the mythological views of someone like Joseph Campbell, who argued that myths follow the same basic format. Instantly, the robots adopt our assumptions about meaning. In other words, the fundamental answer to the question of the meaning of life and the existence of God might be this: Well, basically, it's as if we're the robots and God is like the omnipotent engineer. This is shown plainly in the two creators, Trurl and Klapaucius.

Another meaningful aspect of the stories is their treatment of Utopia. The discussion of the perfect civilization started with Plato's Republic, and has continued since. This is a lighthearted version of the same discussion, and the commentary provided by the stories is basically that a society of perfect order would be lame.

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