In Caves of Steel, it showed the building trust of human (Elijah Baley) and robot (Daneel Olivaw). The passage I chose was as follows from the Ending of Chapter 1:

“No, Commissioner.” He drew a deep, sighing breath. “What’s my Partner’s name?”

“R. Daneel Olivaw.”

Baley said, sadly, “This isn’t the time for euphemism, Commissioner. I’m taking the job, so let’s use his full name. Robot Daneel Olivaw.

In the beginning of the story, the Commissioner hired Lije for the job which he didn’t want to accept at first only because of one specific thing. His partner, was a robot. Lije couldn’t trust that robot anywhere near his family or even around him thinking that Daneel would end up backstabbing in the end. From a rough start where even Lije’s wife told him that she scared of Daneel (when at first she was okay with him since she never realized he was one till the news report). Lije began to lighten up a bit about having Daneel as a partner. Being with someone for a long time no matter what they do would make the trust grow and seeing as to how Daneel was almost like a human even when he wasn’t but was trying his best to be for Elijah, made Lije think that he shouldn’t judge someone right away because they’re different. Just give it some time and it’ll eventually work out. Especially when Daneel didn’t understand something such as the bible, Elijah took the time to explain it to him. In the end, they both learned each other’s customs from one another, solved the murder case and walked arm in arm.

The novel “Caves of Steel” is written by Isaac Asimov and the story takes place in the future. The protagonist lives in a more advance and polluted planet earth. There are robots in this future that work and are very utile to society but are despised by humans. Most humans blame robots for everything wrong with the environment and for the working man’s inability to prosper. In this world similar to ours there’s an overpopulated human crisis just like our crisis but the only difference is that they have come to a conclusive way of dealing with by how many kids you are allowed to have based on your I.Q. In this world everything is more limited you can’t live on the dome’s that hover up in the skies because they belong to spacers or robots. There’s an iconic dome known as “Spacetown”. In Spacetown the air is ventilated to be cleaner than the earth’s air. Spacetown is more cleansed than planet earth; any outsider is forced to be cleansed by taking a shower. In Spacetown humans are considered to be creatures carrying infectious diseases. In planet earth food is limited and its good customs to deny food to a stranger in your home. Technology is much more different with simple drop blood a machine can see if you have any health issues or any psychological issues such as depression. Robots look like human beings and are built with a postronic brain that prevents them from hurting humans in any way. Robots are built with this conscious ability to make decision on their own and are able to interact with humans in a much superior form compared to our Iphones.

When I read “Caves of Steel”, I encounter much of an oppressed society that had many conservative views on the way things should be from the character having his own religious philosophical views making man the foundation of everything that exists. Many side characters such as the Elijah’s wife had a view of where humans place is and where robots position is uphold.Elijah the protagonist of the story has a hard time working with his partner based on the fact that he looks entirely human, it upsets him the most because he’s afraid to think differently about robots from the way other people portray robots of being more than just machines. Elijah recites a bible verse in page (77) to R of a bible story about mercy, R then explains to him that he could show mercy as well is he no different from humans. The theme of the story is overcoming oppression, it was the only way Elijah solved the case. Julius Enderby tried to break Elijah by putting him in a scenario that Elijah would have troubles overcoming such as going to Spacetown and being treated differently knowing that R’s creator looks just like him, an insane scenario with much confusion and doubt.  When Elijah overcame oppression he learned to more merciful towards Julius Enderby in order to make some prominent good of his altercations. In Elijah’s oppressed society the constant threat for survival, Elijah almost shot R because he came close to believing that a robot could hurt humans when R held his blaser to a pedestrian, only to realize that R’s blaster wasn’t loaded.

In the first 100 pages of “Caves of Steel”, I realized how rich it was with themes that actually made me want to read it till the end. One of the most important things I read was when R. Daneel was explaining to Baley his actions after the incident at the shoe store, when Daneel said, ”… My briefing on human characteristics here among the people of Earth includes the information that, unlike the men of the Outer Worlds, they are trained from birth to accept authority. Apparently this is a result of your way of living.” (38). This passage shows exactly the human way of life throughout the history. It reflects how a force called the law, which people are scared of, rules the world. That’s why they follow and respect it. If anybody breaks the law, they get punished. So the author wanted to show the reader how the colonized people were ruled and that it wouldn’t happen in any other way.

In the other half, another passage caught my attention is when Dr. Fastolfe was talking to Baley about him carrying a disease from the City, and that the spacers have no antibodies against any of the germs. He said, “Earth is riddled with diseases to which we have no defense, no natural defense” (118). The author here wanted to show why the spacers are afraid of the humans, and why every human entering has to be cleaned and checked for germs and diseases. This incident reminds me of the Ellis Island incident that happened years ago here in the United States. This island was the base of the first federal immigration station. Immigrants used to be taken to this island and checked for any disease that could be fatal, before entering the states.