“…I carried it into the room. As I put it down, the springlid flew up and disclosed a number of compartments filled with strange objects: mis-shapen forms in a dark metal, grotesque replicas of the instruments in the racks. Not one of the tools was usable; they were blunted, distorted, melted, as though they had been in a furnace. Strangest of all, even the porcelain handles, virtually incombustible, were twisted out of shape. Even at maximum temperature, no laboratory furnace could have melted them; only, perhaps, an atomic pile…”
Kris finds these mangled tools early in the novel but their origin is never explained. It is obliquely hinted that the tools are simulacra not unlike the Visitors themselves or rather like certain details surrounding the Visitors, such as clone-Rheya’s dress, that doesn’t work as it should because it was created by something that doesn’t quite understand what function it serves or what it ought to look like. This is a clear example of the sheer alien-ness and otherness that Kris and the other crewmembers experience as they explore Solaris.
“…A giant Negress was coming silently towards me with a smooth, rolling gait…” “…I caught a gleam from the whites of her eyes and heard the soft slapping of her bare feet. She was wearing nothing but a yellow skirt of plaited straw; her enormous breasts swung freely and her black arms were as thick as thighs…”
The quote is lifted from Kris’ first encounter with a “visitor,” an alien organism created by the ocean being Solaris presumably to initiate contact with the humans that have visited the planet. Beyond being “born” via mysterious means from an alien being the choice of the Visitor’s appearance is also of great significance as the author is making an allusion and a parallel to historical exploration accounts, specifically that of white European explorers. This parallel and allusion can be seen through the use of the antiquated, possibly racist term, “negress” in describing the appearance of Snow’s visitor.
“…I don't know you…" His voice croaked. "I don't know you… What do you want?"
When Snow first meets Kelvin he is bad shape, on the verge of a mental breakdown. He is genuinely confused by the appearance of Kris because by this time he is already aware that Visitors will come in the form of someone they had known or someone of deep personal significance. The fact that Snow doesn’t know who Kris is unnerves him considerably.
