68 pages • 2 hours read
Adam HigginbothamMidnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Bio-robots
There are few labels more apt at describing the dehumanizing conditions of the Chernobyl relief effort and the Soviet Union in general than “bio-robots.” This is the term General Tarakanov uses to describe the 3,828 men who work for 12 straight days in three-minute shifts shoveling some of the most radioactive material on the planet off of the roof of Unit Three.
All technical and automated means to clear the debris field had failed. Radiation levels were enormous. But the roofs had to be cleared before the Sarcophagus was sealed and the sole repository chosen for the most contaminated pieces of reactor debris was thus closed forever. Every other option had been exhausted. It was time, he said, to send in men to do the job by hand. There was a heavy silence. The campaign of the bio-roboty–the bio-robots—had begun (288).
Despite the label, the work done by the bio-robots is not only some of bravest and most heroic of any of the Chernobyl relief workers—it’s also some of the most effective. Moreover, there is simply no other way to accomplish this task except through sheer human exertion and bravery. “Even the machines intended for use on the surface of the moon were no match for the inhospitable new landscape they encountered on the roof of the ruined plant” (288). And unlike most of the relief efforts—often coerced, sometimes at gunpoint—the work of the bio-robots is voluntary. Tarakanov permits any of the men to back out of the task if they don’t feel up to it. Like the machines of their namesake, none of the loyal bio-robots breaks ranks.
The myth of Prometheus
Higginbotham repeatedly invokes the myth of Prometheus as a metaphor for the Soviet Union’s reckless nuclear program. In Greek mythology, the titan Prometheus steals fire from Zeus, “bringing light, warmth, and civilization to mankind—just as the torchbearers of the Red Atom had illuminated the benighted households of the USSR” (23). Indeed, nuclear scientists often receive treatment as gods both across nuclear society and within the walls of the Politburo. “In a society where the cult of science had supplanted religion, the nuclear chiefs were among its most sanctified icons—pillars of the Soviet state” (276).
But Prometheus’s theft does not go unnoticed by the powers that be:
Zeus was so enraged by the theft of the gods’ most powerful secret that he chained Prometheus to a rock, where a giant eagle descended to peck out his liver every day for eternity. Nor did mortal man escape retribution for accepting Prometheus’s gift. To him, Zeus sent Pandora, the first woman, bearing a box that, once opened, unleashed evils that could never again be contained” (23).
To Higginbotham, this box of uncontainable evils is a clear metaphor for the Unit Four Reactor at Chernobyl, which once blasted open unleashes a torrent of radiation that renders the surrounding area uninhabitable to this day.
The Sarcophagus
The Sarcophagus built to contain the severe levels of radiation emanating from the ruined reactor core appears in vivid terms that highlight the evil housed inside.
When Slavsky arrived to survey the project once more, on November 13, the Sarcophagus was all but complete—a terrible edifice of black angles, still and ominous, which perfectly expressed its purpose, like a medieval fantasy of a prison to hold Satan himself. It was an extraordinary achievement, a technical triumph in the face of horrifying conditions, and a new pinnacle of Soviet gigantomania (297).
Though Russia has since replaced the Sarcophagus with a new confinement structure, it stood for many years as a monument both to the Soviet Union’s scientific ingenuity and the terrors it birthed.
