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Kelvin
Rheya, an attractive, dark-haired 19-year-old girl with a “low-pitched” voice and a “preoccupied” demeanor, died by suicide after a fight with her lover Kelvin 10 years prior to the novel’s main events. When Kelvin journeys to the exoplanet Solaris, Solaris’s mysterious living ocean—which has been sending human scientists “visitors” in the form of people drawn from the memories or imagination—creates a replica of Rheya that appears in Kelvin’s cabin on Solaris station. This first replica strikes Kelvin as extraordinarily similar to the original Rheya, yet it is also somehow “stylized” and “reduced.” When separated from Kelvin, the replica becomes violent and begins speaking in an inhuman shriek. After Kelvin tricks the first replica into a space shuttle and shoots her into orbit, a second replica of Rheya appears. Perhaps because Kelvin interacts more with this second replica of Rheya, she becomes more fully realized and more “human” than the previous one. After she finds out that she is a creation of Solaris, not the original Rheya, she attempts suicide in despair—but her inhuman body mysteriously regenerates itself. Perhaps out of love for Kelvin, as she believes herself to be an instrument created by Solaris to experiment on him and cause him pain, Rheya eventually conspires with Snow to die permanently. After her death, a devastated Kelvin, who had come to love her, waits hopelessly for Solaris to recreate her.
Rheya Quotes in Solaris
The Solaris quotes below are all either spoken by Rheya or refer to Rheya. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5: Rheya Quotes
As I watched her moving about the room, now smiling, now serious, talkative one moment, silent the next, sitting down and then getting up again, my terror was gradually overcome by the conviction that it was the real Rheya there in the room with me, even though my reason told me that she seemed somehow stylized, reduced to certain characteristic expressions, gestures, and movements.
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Kelvin (speaker), Solaris/the Ocean, Rheya
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58
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The first night that Kelvin goes to sleep on the exoplanet Solaris’s research station, he wakes to find what appears to be his ex-lover Rheya, who died by suicide ten years prior, in his cabin with him. Once Kelvin determines that he is not dreaming, he decides that this Rheya cannot be the original Rheya. Yet, as he observes her, he feels that she’s “the real Rheya” despite his “reason” indicating to him that she is “stylized” and “reduced to certain characteristic expressions, gestures, and movements.”
The scientists on Solaris station will later hypothesize that the replica of Rheya and their other “visitors” are creations of Solaris’s mysterious living ocean based on the scientists’ own memories or imaginations. Given this hypothesis, Kelvin’s contradictory initial reaction gets to the heart of the Rheya-replica’s ambiguous status. On the one hand, she is “real”—a real, sentient entity constructed from memories of a real original. On the other hand, because the ocean replicated her from Kelvin’s memories, she is in a certain sense “reduced” to Kelvin’s individual perspective on the original Rheya: the replica’s “stylized” and merely “characteristic” quality speaks to the limitations of Kelvin’s perspective and memory. This description therefore implies that even as Kelvin loved the original Rheya, he may not have known her in her full individuality and humanity.
As she tried to take off her dress, an extraordinary fact became apparent: there were no zips, or fastenings of any sort; the red buttons down the front were merely decorative.
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I felt I was justified in thinking that I had defeated the ‘simulacra,’ and that behind the illusion, contrary to all expectation, I had found the real Rheya again—the Rheya of my memories, whom the hypothesis of madness would have destroyed.
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Chapter 7: The Conference Quotes
The sight of the two identical dresses filled me with a horror which exceeded anything I had felt hitherto.
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“They are not autonomous individuals, nor copies of actual persons. They are merely projections materializing from our brains, based on a given individual.”
I was struck by the soundness of this description; Sartorius might not be very sympathetic, but he was certainly no fool.
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Chapter 8: The Monsters Quotes
“The truth?” she said. “Word of honor?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came. “Word of honor” . . . it was our special catch-phrase, our old way of making an unconditional promise. Once these words had been spoken, neither of us was permitted to lie, or even to take refuge behind a half-truth.
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Chapter 9: The Liquid Oxygen Quotes
“Am I . . . do I look very like her?”
“You did at first. Now I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Now all I see is you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. If you were really her, I might not be able to love you.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I did.”
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Chapter 10: Conversation Quotes
“You don’t love her. You do love her. She is willing to give her life. So are you. It’s touching, it’s magnificent, anything you like, but it’s out of place here—it’s the wrong setting. Don’t you see? No, you don’t want to. You are going around in circles to satisfy the curiosity of a power we don’t understand and can’t control, and she is an aspect, a periodic manifestation of that power.”
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Because there may be thoughts, intentions and cruel hopes in my mind of which I know nothing, because I am a murderer unawares. Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.
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Chapter 12: The Dreams Quotes
“Who is responsible? Who is responsible for this situation? Gibarian? Giese? Einstein? Plato? All criminals . . .”
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Chapter 13: Victory Quotes
“Suppose, I’m capable of reproducing the architecture of a symmetriad, and I know its composition and have the requisite technology . . . I create a symmetriad and I drop it into the ocean. But I don’t know why I’m doing so, I don’t know its function, and I don’t know what the symmetriad means to the ocean . . .”
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Chapter 14: The Old Mimoid Quotes
The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny.
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I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.
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Rheya Character Timeline in Solaris
The timeline below shows where the character Rheya appears in Solaris. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5: Rheya
...Kelvin wakes up in his bedroom on the station, a woman is sitting by the window—Rheya, barefoot in a white dress. Kelvin, on the assumption that he is dreaming, tries to...
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Kelvin sits up violently, still trying to wake up, and asks what Rheya wants and where she came from. Rheya admits that she doesn’t know and asks whether...
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Kelvin asks Rheya where they are. She says they’re home and tells Kelvin she’s happy. Kelvin picks up...
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Rheya asks whether she’s been sick. Kelvin says yes, sort of. He has the strange, simultaneous...
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Kelvin finds sleeping pills in the bathroom and tricks Rheya into drinking hot water with four pills dissolved inside. Rheya pretends to go to sleep—only...
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Abruptly, Kelvin hatches a plan. He tells Rheya that he needs to leave, and if she’s coming with him, she needs to change...
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...At this moment, Kelvin feels as though he has “defeated the ‘simulacra’” and saved the “Rheya of [his] memories.”
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Chapter 7: The Conference
Kelvin is lying in bed with Rheya. He feels trapped, bodiless, in a “void” and longs to scream. Then light fills the...
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Kelvin holds Rheya, feeling strongly that he is “deceiving” her, since she believes she is the original Rheya....
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Kelvin carries Rheya to the bed. Crying and examining her bloody hands, she asks what happened. Kelvin tells...
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Kelvin examines Rheya’s blood under a microscope. At first, it looks normal, but as he enlarges the image,...
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As Kelvin stares at Rheya’s “impossible” regenerating blood, Rheya points out that the videophone is buzzing. After Kelvin picks up,...
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Chapter 8: The Monsters
Late that night, Kelvin wakes to find Rheya sobbing. When he tries to comfort her, she pushes him away and said she overheard...
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Kelvin tells Rheya that she has changed, as everyone does, but that it doesn’t bother him that she...
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The following morning, Kelvin wakes to find Rheya in the bath and a letter shoved under his bedroom door. The letter, from Snow,...
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In the library, while Rheya reads a book on cooking in space, Kelvin flips through one volume of a nine-volume...
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...on the shelf and begins reading about neutrino structures, resolved to prevent Sartorius from killing Rheya. He has just discovered some interesting scientific theories about neutrinos when Snow, sweaty and exhausted,...
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...Kelvin, hoping to stall Snow in general, says that he’ll consider it. Snow leaves. Afterward, Rheya asks why Snow was looking at her so oddly. Kelvin dodges the question.
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Chapter 9: The Liquid Oxygen
In the night, Kelvin reaches out for Rheya but can’t find her. He hears footsteps approaching and calls Gibarian’s name. Gibarian identifies himself...
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...the neutrino-disruptor. He tells Kelvin he can’t trust anyone. When Kelvin claims he can trust Rheya, Gibarian laughs at him and concedes Kelvin can, “to some extent.” Kelvin calls Gibarian a...
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...about how “anthropomorphism” prevents the scientists from comprehending their visitors. When Kelvin says Gibarian’s name, Rheya gets into bed with him and points out Gibarian is dead. Kelvin says that Gibarian...
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When Kelvin asks Rheya whether she saw a tape recorder under the bed, she says she put everything under...
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After lunch, at which Rheya doesn’t eat, she asks Kelvin to be honest with her—and reminds him that he promised....
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As Kelvin searches desperately for something that will help Rheya, she convulses and foams at the mouth. He believes she is dying, but after a...
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Kelvin tells Rheya that she’s real and the past isn’t, but she admits that she listened to the...
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Rheya suggests that perhaps she and Kelvin could come up with a “solution.” When he asks...
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Chapter 10: Conversation
...Snow leaves Kelvin a note saying that Sartorius is preparing the X-ray experiment. Kelvin tells Rheya that he has to go and asks her what happens to her when he leaves....
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...process. After another silence, Snow asks whether Kelvin has something to say. Kelvin admits that Rheya knows—she listened to the tape on Gibarian’s tape recorder and then attempted suicide, an attempt...
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Snow asks whether Kelvin wants to leave Solaris with Rheya. Kelvin says yes. Snow says that while Kelvin is trying to “stay human in an...
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...wants him to just keep killing his visitors, Snow suggests that Kelvin leave Solaris with Rheya—and, after she dies, decide what he wants to do. When Kelvin insists that he loves...
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Kelvin finds Rheya in the hall outside Snow’s cabin and leads her back to his room. He wonders...
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Chapter 11: The Thinkers
That night, while Kelvin is suffering from insomnia, Rheya asks whether he’s thinking about the experiment. When he admits he is, she asks what...
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...worried about the encephalogram experiment, which strikes him as trivial, and he decides to bring Rheya to the lab with him. By the time Sartorius arrives in the lab, Snow is...
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...his thoughts. This imagined audience holds Sartorius in “ironic contempt.” Cautiously, he begins thinking of Rheya. Then, suddenly, he imagines among the spectators the early Solarist Giese, not as he died...
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...prints the encephalogram, and he and Snow feed it into the “X-ray beamer.” Kelvin and Rheya leave the lab, after which Kelvin asks whether they can go to the library. In...
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Chapter 12: The Dreams
...though neither Sartorius nor Snow has said anything further about it, and Kelvin’s relationship with Rheya has grown tense and precarious.
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...has other dreams as well, dreams he can’t even describe, in which no hint of Rheya is present. He begins trying not to fall asleep. Though he doesn’t tell Rheya about...
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...the lab wakes Kelvin from a nightmare. After another couple days, Snow—apparently drunk—finds Kelvin and Rheya in the kitchen. When Kelvin suggests that Snow go sleep it off, Snow asks why...
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Snow looks to Rheya and calls her “fair Aphrodite, child of ocean” before beginning to cough. When Kelvin demands...
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Chapter 13: Victory
Three more weeks pass, during which Kelvin and Rheya frequently discuss their future lives together on Earth, though Kelvin believes they’re both just pretending:...
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The next morning, Kelvin wakes up with a terrible headache. Rheya is gone. He begins searching the station for her and calling her name. When he...
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...know how it happened. Snow explains that Sartorius built a small, short-range destabilizer that vaporized Rheya. When Kelvin says that she’ll return, Snow says that the visitors haven’t been returning since...
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...says that he’s giving Snow the responsibility of communicating to their superiors. He asks whether Rheya said anything before she died, and Snow says no. Then Snow suggests they might finally...
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...him. He asks why the ocean has done “this” and asks what Snow said to Rheya. Snow claims that Kelvin already knows, invites him back to Snow’s cabin to write the...
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Chapter 14: The Old Mimoid
...has “forgiven” the ocean. He admits to himself that he is “waiting for something”—perhaps for Rheya to come back, even though he’s perfectly aware that love does not conquer all. He...
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