英语论文网

Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing career unfolded in synchrony with the development of the theory of posthumanism. In the summer of 1979, he took his first step in the field of literature by composing four short stories. Contemporarily, the American literary theorist and writer Ihab Hassan had just delivered his speech on the neologism “posthumanism”. In other words, Kazuo Ishiguro stood witness to the developmental progress of posthumanism. In his lecture delivered at the Nobel Prize ceremony, Ishiguro declared, the present world has recognized that “unstoppable liberal humanism may have been an illusion” (Ishiguro, 2017: 26) and speculated that “advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics will bring us amazing, lifesaving benefits, but may also create savage meritocracies that resemble apartheid” (Ishiguro, 2017: 27). His deliberations over liberal humanism and the relationship between artificial intelligence and humans or the relationship between machines and humans echo two of the main concerns of posthumanism. Subsequently, Klara and the Sun gave creative expression to these themes.

Klara and the Sun is set in the near future where genetic editing and humanoid robots are available to common people and home-schooling is the norm. “AFs” (artificial friends) are invented as companions for children at home and to improve their social skills. The titular protagonist, narrator and the perspective projector, Klara, is an artificial intelligence robot, or an “AF” in the parlance of the novel. She is brought by a family with a 14-year-old daughter named Josie who receives genetic editing to enhance her intelligence. The family suffers from the negative side effects of genetic editing: an illness with high mortality rate. Against this background, on the one hand, Klara, an AF like numerous others, works as a companion for Josie, trying to alleviate her loneliness. On the other hand, the Mother of the family privately coaches Klara to simulate Josie as a potential substitute for her daughter. She fears that should she succumb to her illness, the grief would be devastating. Along with the progression of human story, Klara secretly develops her plan beneath her ostensible companion mission. The titular “Sun” takes a decisive role in Klara’s plan. Driven by solar power, Klara views the Sun as omnipotent therapist and twice goes on a “pilgrimage” to the home of the Sun in order to pray for Josie’s recovery.

1.2 Research Objectives and Structure of the thesis

The current thesis takes its inspiration from the various kinds of human/machine relationship presented in the novel. But how to comprehend their varying attitudes and the underlying causes leading to contradiction? The purpose of this study, in the light of the posthumanism, is to discuss the reasons for and results of the derivation of varied human-machine relationships, which can be further subdivided into the following five questions: First, how many kinds of and what are the human/machine relationships presented in the novel? Second, why do people still prefer to stress human exceptionalism despite being aware that they are little different from machines? Third, what does the “human heart” symbolize and why is it emphasi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。