|
Tik-Tok is a fictional character from the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum.〔Jack Snow, ''Who's Who in Oz'', Chicago, Reilly & lee, 1954; New York, Peter Bedrick Books, 1988; p. 213.〕 He has been termed "the prototype robot,"〔Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich, eds., ''The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction'', Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1982; p. 85.〕 and is widely considered to be the one of the first robots (preceded by Edward S. Ellis' Huge Hunter, or The Steam Man of the Prairies, in 1868) to appear in modern literature,〔Raylyn Moore, ''Wonderful Wizard, Marvelous Land'', Bowling Green, OH, Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1974; p. 144.〕 though the term "Robot" wouldn't be used until the 1920s by the play Rossum's Universal Robots. ==Baum's character== Tik-Tok (sometimes spelled Tiktok) is a round-bodied mechanical man made of copper, that runs on clockwork springs which periodically need to be wound, like a wind-up toy or mechanical clock. He has separate windings for thought, action, and speech. Tik-Tok is unable to wind any of them up himself. When his works run down, he becomes frozen or mute or, for one memorable moment in ''The Road to Oz'', continues to speak but utters gibberish. When he speaks, only his teeth move. His knees and elbows are described as resembling those in a knight's suit of armor. As Baum repeatedly mentions, Tik-Tok is not alive and feels no emotions. He therefore can no more love or be loved than a sewing machine, but as a servant he is utterly truthful and loyal. He describes himself as a "slave" to Dorothy and defers to her. Tik-Tok was invented by Smith & Tinker at their workshop in Evna. He was the only model of his kind made before the two disappeared. He was purchased by the king of Ev, Evoldo, who gave him the name Tik-Tok because of the sound he made when wound. The cruel king also whipped his mechanical servant, but his whippings caused no pain and merely kept Tik-Tok's round copper body polished. Tik-Tok first appears in ''Ozma of Oz'' (1907) where Dorothy Gale discovers him locked up in a cave, immobilized. He becomes Dorothy's servant and protector, and, despite his tendency to run down at crucial moments, helps to subdue the Nome King. That novel also introduces Tik-Tok's monotonic, halting mode of speech: "Good morn-ing, lit-tle girl." Later Baum published "Tik-Tok and the Nome King," a short tale in his ''Little Wizard Stories of Oz'' series (1914). In this story, the Nome King, angered by Tik-Tok's calling him a "fat nome", smashes him to pieces. Kaliko secretly reassembled Tik-Tok, but does not tell his master. Ruggedo then mistook the rebuilt Tik-Tok for a ghost. Ever after, he was colored whitish-grey in color plates, apparently a mistake. ''The Tik-Tok Man of Oz'' was a stage musical loosely adapted from ''Ozma of Oz''; and the play was adapted back into a novel called ''Tik-Tok of Oz'' (1914). Although Tik-Tok is a major character in that latter book, he in no way drives the plot. Tik-Tok also appears in most other Oz novels as a notable inhabitant of the Emerald City, most prominently in ''The Scalawagons of Oz'', in which he operates the production of the Scalawagons. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tik-Tok (Oz)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|