Reading Journal #1

The world of Caves of Steel and our world are pretty much different from one another in almost every way. In the world of Caves of Steel, Men have a more dominate role in the community to make income compared to the women who stay home and take care of the children. The robots pretty much also replace humans in the labor force such as running a shoe store for example. The humans (referred to as “Earthmen”) think that one day the robots will take over and there will be no way in obtaining money since the owners of the shops would want to have someone working with no pay. Second, is the overpopulation that the earth has and not being able to find a way to keep the number down. Another thing that I realized when reading the book was the fact that Elijah had no idea of the changes that go on in the outside world (such as rain or what not). Maybe since they’re always in the chambers that he hasn’t seen the phenomena called rain. When traveling to another area (in the book’s case the area is called Spacetown), it’s a custom that you take a shower in order to remove the city dust from you. Also, you’re not allowed to carry a weapon when in the area. I can understand this, but in Elijah’s case, he’s a cop. A cop should always have a gun in his possession.

Reading Journal #2

The scene that really stood out to me the most while reading this book was the last part of Page 97 (this was of course before reading ahead) but out of everything I read, I just keep going back to this scene non-stop. It was the scene where Elijah and R. Daneel Olivaw was having a meeting with Dr. Fastolfe as well as commissioner Enderby over the trimensional personification about the murder of Dr. Sarton. This was where Elijah stood up from his seat and mentioned that Dr. Sarton wasn’t dead and he points straight at R. Daneel and stated that he was in fact Dr. Sarton, that there was actually no murder case. This was where so many thoughts kept rushing into my head. The one specific thought that came to my mind was the fact that he was using this as an excuse just for his wife. He probably said this so that way the case can be solved and that way he wouldn’t have to worry his wife anymore because of the fact that they won’t be living with a robot in the house anymore. As well as that he can stop his wife from trying to talk him out of his job to find a new one and lose his current position. Another thing is the fact that the Earthmen can stop spreading rumors about the fact that Elijah was cooperating with a robot ever since the scene at the shoe store. The theme and motif this would probably relate to is the Spacer/Human Relations, because everyone is scared about a robot living in the environment, and since Elijah wants to get this case out of way as quickly as possible shows that he doesn’t want to be working with any robot.