The narrator’s new car, a Robur, symbolizes the dangers of technology in “How It Happened.” With its polished brass exterior, bright headlights, and 30-horsepower engine, the narrator’s car is designed to be flashy and fast but not necessarily safe. Not only do its fancy new gears prove difficult to control, but both of its brake systems fail in a moment of crisis. Thus, while it is aesthetically pleasing, it proves unreliable, ultimately killing the narrator. While technology is usually seen as useful to humans, then, the narrator’s new car suggests that this might not always be the case.
In this way, the car also symbolizes the relation between aesthetics and danger. While the failure of the car's safety is in part responsible for the crash, it is arguably the aesthetics of the car that first tempt the narrator to drive it—in other words, the car appeals to the narrator’s vanity, tempting him to act against his better judgment. Though he knows he is unfamiliar with its controls, he is seduced by its new, flashy features, resulting in his death. This relationship between aesthetics and danger is further illustrated by the narrator’s admiration of the car’s beauty during its descent down Claystall Hill. Even as it sends him to his death, he cannot help but appreciate the car as one would appreciate a piece of art, thinking of it as a "great, roaring, golden death." In turn, he romanticizes his own demise, allowing the car to play into his own arrogance as somebody who would like to think of himself as just as flashy and impressive as a new and enviable piece of technology, regardless of what this might mean for his own wellbeing.
The Robur (The Car) Quotes in How It Happened
Then I remember the big motor, with its glaring headlights and glitter of polished brass, waiting for me outside. It was my new thirty-horse-power Robur, which had only been delivered that day.
“I’ll try her myself,” said I, and I climbed into the driver’s seat.
“The gears are not the same,” said he. “Perhaps, sir, I had better drive.”
“No; I should like to try her,” said I.
It was foolish, no doubt, to begin to learn a new system in the dark, but one often does foolish things, and one has not always to pay the full price for them.
“I’ll keep her steady,” said he, “if you care to jump and chance it. We can never get round that curve. Better jump, sir.”
“No,” said I; “I’ll stick it out. You can jump if you like.”
“I’ll stick it out with you, sir,” said he.
I remember thinking what an awful and yet majestic sight we should appear to any one who met us. It was a narrow road, and we were just a great, roaring, golden death to any one who came in our path.
“Here I am,” I answered, but they did not seem to hear me. They were all bending over something which lay in front of the car.
The Robur (The Car) Symbol Timeline in How It Happened
