Setting

Here, we will dicsuss the time, physical, and social setting of “Compassion Circuit” by John Wyndha…

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Time and physical setting

Although the time setting is not clearly stated in the story, the events reveal that the action takes place somewhere in the future, in a society in which robots are an accepted part of everyday human life. As George states, robots have been part of the society he lives in for more than ten years: “ ‘The newest that any of our friends has is ten years old at least, and most of them are older than that.’ …

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Social setting

The social setting presents a future society in which the robots’ presence in human lives is more complex than it looks. At first, we find out that almost every household owns a robot that can help around the house and do chores that were once done by people. Besides helping around the house, robots also act as waiters (l. 14), mannequins (l. 15), and hospital reception-robots (l. 246) something which shows that they are used for multiple purposes and that people trust them even with key matters regarding human lives.

The story also shows how robots have been developed so as to mimic human judgement and discernment through the compassion-circuit feature:

‘It’s something…