Analysis

In this section, we will highlight the elements of our analysis of John Wyndham's “Compassion Circuit”.

The story follows a traditional linear plot structure, centred around a single event taking place in the lives of Janet and George: The arrival of a household robot, which has a compassion circuit-feature integrated into its system.

The most important characters in the story are a married couple – Janet and George – and their household robot, whom Janet names Hester. A secondary character is the doctor who recommends that Janet and George get a household robot.

The events take place in the future. The story mostly takes place in George and Janet’s home and in the hospital. The social setting presents a future society in which the robots’ presence in human lives is more complex than it looks.

The events are described through a third-person narrator. Dialogue is used extensively, and aspects of the narration are left ambiguous. The narration and dialogue are written using simple language, even though the story comes from the science fiction genre.

The overall theme of the story is the possible unintended consequences of technological advancement, looking at the difference between robotic and human understandings of emotions and health, and at the dangers of designing machines to replicate human beings.

You can read the full analysis in the following pages.