David Defeats Goliath to be Recognized as a Boy

                In this futuristic tale David, a cybetronic “mecha”, is abandoned by his mother and hopes to win back her affection by becoming a real boy. David’s ability to love appears unquestionable when watching the movie. His unending love for his mother is the vehicle through which the entire story takes place. A central question in the story, though, is not whether David can love, but whether David can truly be loved as a mecha. Although initially skeptical of keeping David, his mother Monica warms to him and programs him to view her as his mother which triggers his unending love for her. As Dr. Hobby postulated when he said, “Didn’t God create Adam to love him?”, soon after David’s programming, Monica begins to reciprocate her motherly love back. Her love for David was clear and distinct from how he’s treated throughout the rest of the film because Monica, while aware David is a mecha, still makes no distinction in how she treats him compared to a “real” boy. For example her continually referring to him as “just a boy” and beginning to treat him as if he was a newly adopted son is starkly in contrast to how any other human will treat David once aware he’s a mecha.

                In general, most viewed David as an unbelievable Science Project to be marveled at with no recognition of David himself. He’s never treated as just a boy once his true identity is revealed, as made evident by the pool scene. Even the childlike naivety wasn’t enough to allow for the children to view David as David upon learning he was a mecha, instead he is immediately put under the figurative microscope to be dissected by the children. Even his own creator, after seeing the undeniable success his creation was, is far more interested with the intricacies of how the circuits work than David himself; meaning in this case God created Adam to love him, but did not love Adam back himself.

                A question this all beckons, though, is what is love and is it distinctly human? A great scene in the movie is when one of the mechas is asked to describe what love is. She gives a very quantitative description of love that amuses Hobby and the other scientists. But in reality can any of us truly define what love is in words? Whether love is viewed scientifically or mystically, the sensation we all ascribe to it is beyond comprehension in words alone. In science, as we discussed in class, the mechanism of love that   David has boils down to electrical impulses through circuitry, which is analogous to humans. Not only this, even our maternal imprinting functions similar to the codes Monica entered into David, upon his birth as her son, making the scientific definition not a true distinction at all. As far as the religious definition, as a Hindu I believe in the Aatman, or God, within all of us, and it is thought that the indescribable feeling that we ascribe to Love is a subtle connection of the Aatmans of two people that make them interconnected. In this sense, too, David clearly displays love towards Monica and vice versa; when things got bad, Monica recognized David as more than a mecha and believed the entity within him was worth saving.

                Although Monica was able to love David, she was the only one. If the Aatman was a lamp that was covered by dust, only Monica’s light would be able penetrate the dust to gleen through her preconceived notions of what’s real.