Reflection #5

Almost Human

by: Robert Bloch    


        1.  The protagonists of this story are Professor Blasoman, the thug Duke, his girlfriend Lola 
             and the robot Junior. Duke and Lola desires are to steal Junior from the professor and to  
             teach the robot to become a criminal. The character traits to note about Duke and Lola are  
             greed and destructive. The reason why is because Professor Blasoman was nice enough to take
             Duke and Lola in as his apprentices for making Junior knowing their history. Yet they still
             betrayed him because they knew they could get away with it and they wanted to get rich fast.

        2.  The antagonist in this case would be the police because Duke commanded Junior, the boy
             robot, to kill the professor and he did. The police would basically try to stop the robot, Duke  
             and Lola from commiting anymore crimes and putting them in jail.

        3.  The theme of this story would be the destruction of the humans by the monster that they had 
             created or the victory of the robot.The robot works for everybody. The robot does not,
             however, overpower suddenly. Humanity surrenders its functions gradually and willingly to
             the machine.  The techniques used to present this message for the story are machines are   
             becoming more and more human, more refined, more complicated, more sensitive in their 
             reactions, until they may even begin to feel emotions. Bloch used this techinque to help the
             reader understand Junior better, to understand why he did what he did.

         4.  Bloch tone within the story offers a science-fictional spin on the hardboiled crime tale, in
             which criminals not only plot and commit felonies, but betray and double-cross each other,
             only in this case, one member of the gang is made of metal, not flesh and blood. The most
             intriguing theme of the story concerns the 'love' the android develops for the main female
             character. Given the period, this was never going to develop into anything very explicit, but  
             there is a clear sexual subtext to the scene in which the android asks her to oil him.

         5.  The crisis action would be when Junior decides to betray Duke and kill him. So that he could
              have Lola and the money to himself. Duke, did at some point achieved what he wanted, but
              he lost that power when Junior wanted the samething and wanted Duke out of the picture, just
              like Duke wanted the professor out of the picture. Just like most criminals never think that
              far ahead in their plans, something was bound to happen eventually to Duke. whether it was
              the police catching him or in this case being betrayed by his partner, something was  
              eventually going to happen to him.

          6.  What I enjoyed most about this story is the robot seems to remain innocent while it is the
               humans who are the real monsters. You could after all teach a child to be a monster just as  
               easily as this robot if you made the effort. As you might suspect from this type of story in
               the end it is the destruction of the humans by the monster that they had created.