The Great Automatic Grammatizator Summary, Theme, Critical Appreciation by Roald Dahl
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Summary
Mr. John Bohien was the Head of an Engineering Firm where Mr. Adolph Knipe worked as his subordinate. A talented technocrat, but Knip’s penchant for literary writing was much above his professional zeal. His frustration owing to repeated rejection of his literary contributions to periodicals by the editors of those publications, even when he felt that his skill and ability were well ahead of most of those renowned literary contributors, urged and propelled him to design and invent a gizmo which would produce every form of literary art in a jiffy simply by pressing a button here and a pedal there.
The machine had no artificial intelligence. It had a huge memory and was pre loaded with English Grammatical rules, vocabulary, human emotions, passion, and the styles of a few renowned authors whose literary contributions were in demand. He published a few stories in his name and in the name of Mr. Bohien as well, through his machine. Some of those were accepted by the famous periodicals and some of course, were rejected. But they got paid for the accepted ones.
Then Knipe opened up an Agency proposing to take up the franchise of the renowned and not so renowned writes. The Agreement detailed how such writers would stop contributing directly to periodicals. Instead, the machine would write using their names and contribute to those periodicals. Of course, there was a handsome compensation for the authors under Agreement.
The renowned authors rejected the agreement outright whereas the not-so-renowned and those with exhausted creativity readily signed the Agreement Thus, Knipe’s dual purpose of emulating over the authors all by himself and creating a monopolistic market for machine-generated literature became successful. He became a nouveau riche.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator About the Author Roald Dahl
Roald DahI (1916-1990) was born in Wales. A son of Scandinavian parentage, Dahi served as pilot in the British Royal Air force during the Second World War. He is not much valued for his academic excellence although achieved great popularity for his novels and short stories.
His best known works include ‘James and the Giant Peach’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (Since filmed), ‘Matilda’, The ‘Witches’ etc. He received quite a number of awards for his contribution to English Literature. Those include ‘World Fantasy Award for Life Time Achievement’-1983, the British Book Award,’ Children’s Author of the Year on 1990’ etc.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Theme
The theme of Roald Dahi’s short story,” The Great Automatic Grammatizator” is simple but a little bizarre. Mr. Knipe, a successful technocrat and failed literary contributor, with a zeal to excel and emulate over the writers in demand, designed and created a gizmo with extraordinary memory storage capacity to preload it with English Grammar, vocabulary, human emotions, passions, and styles of some renowned authors who were on demand in the literary circle.
Inspired by initial success in getting his machine-generated stories accepted by some editors of reputed magazines, he opened up an Agency and having failed to bait the top literary notches, offered agreements to less renowned authors who would get a handsome compensation in lending their names to his Agency and not write directly in the magazines. His writing machine would write for them.
The theme thus deals with commercialization of the literary art through automation to create a monopolistic capitalism. In other words, the story deals with the possibility of replacing human creativity by way of automation and probable profitability of the monopolistic capitalism.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Critical Appreciation
Roald Dahi’s “The Great Automatic Gammatizator” impregnates within it a general apprehension of the writers of the ‘50s and even the ‘60s that the advent of computers was akin to the advent of artificial intelligence. In a relevant manner therefore, he satirizes in the story a machine complete with almost a memory bank- stacked with vocabulary, plot, English Grammatical rules; and all those elements that are needed to write in one of the forms of literary art.
Knipe, a technocrat as well as a failed aspirant in the field of literary art, invents such a machine that can, with a press on a switch here and another press on a pedal there, print all kinds of literary art like stories, novels and so on. His techno-commercial acumen propels him to sell the idea to the not-so renowned and the exhausted authors to lend their names to his Agency which would publish literary contributions in their names in different eriodicals and pay them handsomely and they wouldn’t have to write a single line anywhere.
Knipe was successful because his targeted people needed money, and himself became a nouveau riche by way of his innovative monopolistic financial strategy. Dahi hasn’t spared the editors of famous magazines or periodicals. Knipe curses on the very word, “Editor” and says to Mr. Bohlen, when his literary contributions are compared with those that are usually published in renowned magazines; his seems to be much better. Well, it was his conviction.
Dahi always dealt with the bizarre, fanciful and the impractical. His description of the machine is reminiscent of the cockpit of a Second World War fighter plane, one of which he once flew. The mutual distaste between Mr. Bohlen and Mr. Knipe has produced some humerous soliloquies; especially when they talk about their appearances and that of course, brings some comic relief.
Like a host of people in those days, Dahl misunderstood the difference of rationale between a computer and an artificial, self propelling intelligence. In case of a computer, it’s a “Garbage in, Garbage out” syndrome. It will give its output according to the quality of the input. It can’t THINK! It can neither monitor or sensor whatever it is fed with! It works algorithmically, and can’t breach out its given limit. It is preprogrammed.
But the noetic quality of human mind or artificial intelligence cannot be used in a machine as an input simply because nobody can fathom the bottomless depth of human mind and its variations. Dahi wrote many short stories, novels and even the script of the James Bond movie,” You only twice”. Unfortunately, he never remembered the Shakespearian adage, “Brevity is the soul of wit”. Whereas the ideal canvass of a short story is necessarily short, his stories are unusually long, the crux of which is just minuscule. However, his satire of the literary world in general is well-avowedly clear. The present story is no exception.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Characters
Adolf Knipe:
Adolf Knipe was a technocrat by profession and was exceedingly creative. He designed and made a Computing Machine that could calculate and do all mathematics in a jiffy. But his penchant for literary art was almost an obsession. He thought himself a litterateur and then realized that neither the editors and nor the readership understood anything like literature since none of his contributions saw the light of the day in one of the periodicals.
His talent and aggression, coupled with tenacity and enterprise to emulate and even excel over the established authors, propelled him to devise a machine with memory-stacked with vocabulary, English Grammatical rules and usages, human sentiment, passion, emotion, style and all those elements that were pre-requisites for literary writing that included stories, novels etc.
The machine had different gears, levers, switches, press-buttons, and pedals and so on. It was reminiscent of the cockpit of a Second World War Fighter Plane (Dahi was once a Fighter Plane Pilot). A press on a switch here, and a press on the pedal there, would print out a particular form of literary art like story, novel etc. The quality of such machine-printed matters would be as good as the stuff that was printed in the standard magazines.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Title of the Story
Roald Dahi’s “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” deals with the possibility of supplanting human creativity by way of automation and the probable profitability of the monopolistic capitalism. Knipe, a technocrat as well as an unsuccessful literary contributor, invented a machine complete with almost a memory bank which was stacked with English grammatical rules, vocabulary, human passion, piots, emotion and style.
A press on a switch here and a press on a pedal there would print out a story or a novel or other forms. of literary art. Then he took franchise of different mediocre and exhausted authors against a standard monetary compensation to print literary contributions Using their names for different periodicals. Thus he monopolized the literary circle by way of automation. The title is justified.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Setting
Setting in the story is all but gizmos, engineering drawings, clatters of machines, printing of rims of papers, interspersed with a few conservations between Mr. Bohien and Mr. Knipe. Knipe’s weird imaginative faculty also adds to the setting. Wiring of the machines, their faults and repairs, Mr. Bohien’s initial frustration – all add to the setting for the material purpose. Roald Dahi’s “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” deals with the possibility of supplanting human creativity by way of automation and the probable profitability of the monopolistic capitalism.
Knipe, a technocrat as well as an unsuccessful literary contributor, invented a machine complete with almost a memory bank which was stacked with English grammaticalmies, vocabulary, human passion, plots, emotion and style. A press on a switch here and a press on a pedal there would print out a story or a novel or other forms of literary art.
Then he took franchise of different mediocre and exhausted authors against a standard monetary compensation to print literary contributions using their names for different periodicals. Thus he monopolized the literary circle by way of automation. The title is justified.
Adolf Knipe: Adolf Knipe was a technocrat by profession and was exceedingly creative. He designed and made a Computing Machine that could calculate and do all mathematics in a jiffy. But his penchant for literary art was almost an obsession. He thought himself a litterateur and then realized that neither the editors and nor the readership understood anything like literature since none of his contributions saw the light of the day in one of the periodicals.
His talent and aggression, coupled with tenacity and enterprise to emulate and even excel over the established authors, propelled him to devise a machine with memory- stacked with vocabulary, English Grammatical rules and usages, human sentiment, passion, emotion, style and all those elements that were pre-requisites for literary writing that included stories, novels etc. The machine had different gears, levers, switches, press-buttons, and pedals and so on.
It was reminiscent of the cockpit of a Second World War Fighter Plane (Dahi was once a Fighter Plane Pilot). A press on a switch here, and a press on the pedal there, would print out a particular form of literary art like story, novel etc. The quality of such machine-printed matters would be as good as the stuff that was printed in the standard magazines.
His machine worked out successfully and then his techno-commercial acumen led him to open up an Agency. His Agency solicited Agreements with the renowned authors to lend their names to his Agency. The Agency would machine-print literary contributions to different renowned magazines in their names and earn their bit.
Of course, the name lenders were to be handsomely rewarded. After the renowned authors rejected his witty proposal outright, he opted for the mediocre, not-so-renowned and the exhausted authors, and they readily accepted the proposal. Needless to say that Knipe created a monopolistic machine-controlled literary culture and himself became nouveau riche. Knipe’s character and the character of the gizmo are well defined.
The Great Automatic Grammatizator Annotations and Vocabulary
Sloppily — Badly or carelessly
Drooping — Bend downwards limply
Untidy — Not arranged neatly or in order
Astonishment — Great surprise
Wonder — Amazement or admiration
Queerly — In a strange perplexing way
Stumper — A puzzling question
Exultation — Jubilation, rejoicing
Prowling — Move about restlessly, especially in search of a prey
Imprecations — A spoken or pronounced curse
Ingenious — Clever, inventive
Darndest — Utmost, best
Scribbling — Writing or drawing something carelessly
Distending — Swell or cause to swell
Smacks — A sharp slap or blow, typically one given with the palm of hand
Musing — A period of reflection or thought
Epexegetically — Additional explanation
Breviped — Having short feet or legs
Lewd — Crude and offensive in a sexual way
Mollified– Appease the anger, anxiety
Prolific — Producing much fruit, foliage or many offspring
Prodigious — Remarkably great in extent, size or degree
Profundity — Great depth or insight or knowledge
Clatter — A continuous rattling sound as of hard objects falling or striking each other
Dismayed — Concern or distress caused by something unexpected