Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

*Note: This was my term paper for a class. Decided to post it here because I have no idea what my grade was for this paper.

Introduction

Solaris is considered a philosophical science fiction novel by some readers because it explores the dilemmas following a contact with an alien life-form that does not conform to our idea of a sentient being.

Some of its themes are ideas of identity and otherness, human memory and the reality of our experiences.

Stanislaw Lem

Stanislaw Lem was born in Ukraine and died in Poland. He grew up in a Jewish family to well-to-do parents. Later in life, he said he was a Roman Catholic but he became an agnostic and then an atheist at some point.

His family survived the Nazi occupation through false documents. He worked as a welder and mechanic. He even helped the Polish resistance by stealing munitions for them. After his family moved to Krakow, he took up medicine but did not become a full-fledged doctor.

He was controversial at one point in his writing career when he lambasted the science fiction genre, despite being ironically a science fiction writer himself. His skepticism and sometimes indifference to the science fiction genre is reflected in Solaris.

His book Solaris is available in English translation mostly as a French translation of an abridged Polish version.

Questions
To understand Solaris better, the following points must be considered:

1) What are the symbols used in the novel?
2) What themes are explored in the novel?

The Setting

Solaris is made up entirely of an ocean. The planet does not have other features and does not seem to harbor plant and animal life. A section of the book is dedicated to the studies done over the years on the planet Solaris. Observers have debated whether the ocean covering the planet is alive and perhaps even intelligent. Scientists have observed complex patterns of behavior, including an orbit that seems to correct itself. But since nothing of the ocean resembles human biochemistry and psychology, its sentience is hard to establish.

Summary

When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrived at the Solaris station onboard Prometheus, he found it in a chaotic state. He later learned that the scientists had tried to expose the ocean to high-energy X-ray. The experiment was unauthorized. Its aftermath resulted in to the crew being traumatized by visitations and the recollections of their past that left them unable to function.

He meets Snaut (sometimes written as Snow in other translations) who told him that Gibarian had committed suicide before his arrival. He encountered a strange woman in the hallway who ignored him. He later learned that it was Gibarian’s “visitor.” He also learned that the others are in a state of nervous collapse.

A section of the book then details the history of Solaris and the studies done by the scientists over the years. Kelvin read some of the books but in the end he concluded that nothing useful has been learned of the nature of the planet. There were observations however that point to a possibility that the ocean itself is sentient.

Kelvin will later meet the other resident in the station, Sartorius. Apparently, the station is haunted by apparitions that correspond to aspects of each of the researchers' fantasies. The sentient planet examined the humans aboard the station by revealing something of themselves. Ironically, this probing does not reveal anything about Solaris except expose the inability of the humans to understand life and the cosmos. The scientists think the ocean was testing them or perhaps it was a form of revenge for their earlier experimentation. Each of them was battling their own demons. The ocean has managed to conjure images of each of their past, painful memories that made them re-examine their feelings.

Solaris brought out the most important memories by recreating them in a visually and physically  accurate replicas. Kelvin himself soon becomes a victim. Kelvin sees his dead lover Harey (sometimes written as Rheya in other translations) and feels guilty all over again for her suicide. Kelvin had left her and that became the cause of her sadness. He tried to get rid of the visitor, knowing it was not the real Harey. First he launched her into outer space in a shuttle.

Harey reappeared but this time she was confused by her identity and Kelvin has fallen in love with her. She knew she was not real and that she was only a manifestation of the planet that is used to get to know the humans, but even she cannot explain her origins. One evidence that she was created by the ocean is that her behavior changes when she Kelvin is out of her sight for some time. She discovered she possessed superhuman strength that frightened even her.

This relationship makes Kelvin’s feelings about her more complicated. When she learned from a recording by Gibarian about her origin, she attempted suicide. She could not die however because she was made of neutrinos. She was able to regenerate. Later, she convinced Snaut to destroy her using a device that disrupts her sub-atomic structures.

In the end they failed to understand what Solaris was trying to do. They even tried exposing the ocean to microwaves and brain waves but it responded by making waves as well. However, they didn’t know how to interpret those. They do not even know how to communicate with it. After Harey disappeared, the ocean stopped sending apparitions.

The final scene shows that Snaut has decided to stay at the station and that Kelvin was waiting for a ship to pick him up. He still thinks about Harey and waited for her to return.

Analysis

To analyze the novel Solaris, the following questions must be answered:
1) What are the symbols used in the novel?
2) What themes are explored in the novel?

I. Symbolism
The novel seems to have used a lot of symbols in the story. These are the melted tools, the studies on Solaris, the black woman apparition, the mimoids on the ocean and the planet itself.

A.Melted Tools

One of the symbols used are the melted tools that Kelvin found early in his exploration of the station. They were never explained in the book and there was no other mention of them later. It can be inferred that the tools symbolized the unknowable. Like Solaris, the melted tools cannot be explained. They are as alien as the planet itself.

B. Studies on Solaris

When Kelvin read the books detailing the researches on Solaris, he concluded that even after everything that was written, they still don’t know anything about the planet. It can be considered an attack on science that does not really explain anything. This perhaps reflects the author’s views on science fiction books which he said were “a joke.”

C. The Black Woman Apparition

The apparitions that followed the researchers in the station also point to meanings. The black woman who was Gibarian’s visitor show the stereotype given to the black woman. Kelvin described her as wearing a yellow skirt of plaited straw, with thick thighs and arms and enormous breasts. Kelvin considered her alien because she was a black woman. The author may have been taking a shot at how other authors have portrayed non-white peoples in other parts of the world.

D. The Mimoids on the Ocean

When Solaris was exposed to microwaves and brainwaves later in the novel, it conjured images on the ocean waves called mimoids. A researcher had discovered the phenomenon earlier and he claimed that the formations imitated objects that the ocean came into contact with. He even suggested that the mimoids might be a form of writing. This confirms the ocean’s ability to create replicas of the people the researchers knew and who were “haunting” them at the station. The problem however is that the scientists do not know what to make of the mimoids. If Solaris was trying to communicate with them, the effort is futile because they don’t know how to begin understanding each other.

E. The Planet Itself

The description of Solaris as a planet of a vast, alien ocean will remind the reader of the vast, unknowable universe. The researchers, although brilliant, were insignificant and so fragile compared to a planet that does not want to reveal its secrets. Solaris represents the universe that we still don’t understand. The scientists represent humanity as a whole. Despite advances in science and our collective history, we are just specks in the universe.
 
Themes

I. The Identity and the Other

The book challenges the reader to evaluate what Harey’s nature must have been. Sure, Harey was created by the ocean to test Kelvin, but Harey seemed just as human as the others. She was even horrified to find that she was a “monster” and not real. But her reaction, which seemed genuine, can make the reader pause. If Harey thinks she is not real, then who is she? Can she be considered the real Harey even if another Harey that Kelvin knew committed suicide?

Even Kelvin himself gradually developed feelings for the Harey in Solaris even when he knew where she came from. If that is the case, then is his feelings for her also real?

The appearance of these apparitions make the reader question what identity means. If Harey is just a replica of someone else, then why does everything seem genuine? Kelvin loved the Harey of old just as much as he loved the new Harey. The Harey of Solaris also loved Kelvin and is quite aware of her origins. If she was a mindless thing, then why was she horrified and even asked Snaut to destroy her?

It also begs the reader to ask another question about the ocean. Is Harey part of the ocean or another separate, sentient being capable of loving, feeling hurt and experiencing loneliness?

With Kelvin’s encounter with the supposedly dead Harey, the challenge of evaluating the nonhuman intelligence of the ocean suddenly becomes, for Kelvin, emotionally tangled.

The researchers’, especially Kelvin’s, ideas about what constitutes a person is undermined.

II. Memory and Reality

When Kelvin developed feelings for the Harey on Solaris, the reader might also ask, is he in love with Harey or just the memory of Harey? Because the new Harey seemed so real, it is difficult to tell what Kelvin felt for her. Sure, she loved the old Harey but he also left her and that was why she committed suicide. Perhaps Kelvin felt guilty for her death. But that also is questionable because he sent the first apparition of Harey to space to try to kill her. If it was guilt he felt, then he should have been firm in his belief that the new Harey was just an imitation. At the end of the novel however he missed the new Harey and even went to the ocean to wait for her.

If he fell in love with the new Harey then that opens up more questions. Which version of Harey is more real to him? He loved the first but left her. He also tried to kill the second but when she disappeared, he waited for her. Her origin did not bother him anymore. Dreams in Solaris become reality. The planet examined the researchers and created for them what was the most precious or painful of their memories. There were also instances when Kelvin thought he was dreaming. He remembered falling asleep many times that he was no longer able to establish if he was awake or still sleeping.

Conclusion

The novel challenges the reader to rethink the ideas of identity, memory and reality. It does not explain why the ocean conjured up those images for the researches and for what purpose. In the end, the humans gained nothing from their studies. Maybe it tried to torment the humans as a response of the experiment with the X-rays. Or maybe the experiment was able to communicate with the planet what the humans were trying to do and that the humans just did not know how to interpret the planet’s response. It can also be said that the planet may have been trying to make the researchers face their most painful and precious memories. If it was done to make them stronger or maybe give them another chance by creating a new reality, there is no definite answer. The novel leaves it to the reader to interpret what Solaris was trying to tell the humans.

It wasn’t clear if the planet tried to communicate with them and then decided to give up when it stopped creating apparitions at the end of the novel when Harey didn’t reappear. Perhaps it had given up or maybe it was toying with Kelvin’s feelings of longing and guilt by not letting him reunite with Harry.

If there is an important lesson imparted in the novel, it is that humanity’s understanding of the universe is so limited. The planet Solaris was able to expose the weakness of the supposedly brilliant minds. They were educated and intelligent indeed, but their knowledge was limited. They could not even come to terms with a sentient ocean. They even passed off the apparitions as ghosts, monsters or agents sent by the planet to attack them. It should serve as a reminder that in order to conquer the universe, an achievement always dreamed of by humanity, we need to rethink all our ideas beginning with ourselves.

The planet Solaris represented the unknowable universe. Our paltry knowledge about our origins and our supposed purpose of exploring space are so insignificant compared to what the entirety of the universe holds for us. The human society in Solaris was technologically advanced, but the humans were limited by their narrow views about intelligence, life and the meaning of the universe.

Reference

Lem, Stanislaw. Solaris. MON, Walker (US), 1961.