An Analysis Of Literary Ethics Criticism In Clara And The Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro(1954-)is a famous contemporary British novelist of Japanese descent,one of the "three immigrants" in the British contemporary novel literary circle,and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017.In recent years,Ishiguro has set his novels in the post-human era and offered different views on the future of science.This paper intends to use the critical method of literary ethics to analyze the ethical dilemma and ethical choice between Clara and human beings in Clara and the Sun,and to analyze Clara’s identity in combination with identity theory and posthumanism theory,so as to re-examine the ethical relationship between human and posthuman,and further study the pros and cons of future gene technology.The thesis consists of three parts:introduction,text and conclusion.The text is divided into four chapters.The introduction mainly introduces the research status of Kazuo Ishiguro at home and abroad,sorts out different research directions of Kazuo Ishiguro,and summarizes the significance and innovation of the topic selection of this paper.The first chapter mainly explains the construction and disillusion of Clara’s "humanoid" identity.Clara is similar to human beings in appearance,and can access human emotions,so as to obtain a certain degree of subjectivity.However,recognizing the "humanoid" identity of the robot would pose a threat to human’s own interests,so the human disciplined Clara from the two aspects of space and discourse system,and finally led to the disillusionment of Clara’s identity construction.The second chapter mainly discusses whether machines can replace human beings with the clues of Clara’s whole life experience,and analyzes Clara’s ethical dilemmas and ethical choices at each stage.When Clara first enters human society,she plays the role of "observer" at the beginning.The first ethical dilemma she falls into is whether she can trust human beings.When she chooses to trust human beings,but human beings tell her not to trust human beings,she still makes the ethical choice to trust human beings.Subsequently,it plays the role of "imitator" and "replacement",and gradually falls into the ethical dilemma of whether to "replace" human beings.Clara then has the ethical Epiphany that everyone’s feelings for Josie are unique,something Clara can’t replace anyway.Finally,after experiencing an ethical Epiphany,Clara takes on the role of "actor" and saves Josie’s life through her devout belief in the sun and her noble ethical choice to sacrifice herself.The third chapter mainly discusses the essential difference between robot and human from the material level,that is,the difference between the brain text and the electronic text.First of all,electronic text has certain advantages.It has the most stable storage medium,and it is very efficient in storage and reading.But it also has some disadvantages.On the one hand,it is subject to the creator and requires high storage capacity.On the other hand,it must maintain the integrity of the organism.At last,it shows the essential difference between electronic text and brain text: brain text has complete ethical consciousness,while electronic text cannot deal with complex ethical environment due to lack of complete ethical consciousness,so it comes to the conclusion that "machine cannot replace human after all".The fourth chapter mainly explains the causes and effects of posthuman ethical dilemmas,analyzes the different ethical choices made by humans and robots in the face of ethical dilemmas,and explores the ethical values behind them.In the ethical environment of the alienation of science and technology,whether it is the one-way living environment,the gene technology that hides the huge crisis behind,or the blind worship of technological rationality and the willingness to give way to human’s own emotions,all make human beings fall into an ethical dilemma.When humans and robots face ethical dilemmas,Josie,who is still a child and has not experienced technological alienation,embodies the value of human nature.She still chooses to forgive her mother Chrissie who wants to replace her in spite of her illness.Although Clara,a scientific product,lacks "animal factors" and cannot replace human beings,it also implies that human beings should not let go of "animal factors",or they will perish.When Chrissy,who is affected by the alienation of science and technology,faces the conflict between ethics and technology,she resolutely chooses to give up her daughter’s life,so as to exchange the opportunity to lead to the upper class,and also suggests from the side that it is not desirable to blindly follow science and technology and give up ethics.This paper analyzes and compares the ethical dilemmas faced by humans and robots and the different ethical choices they make.Therefore,it is concluded that human nature is the bottom line,and human beings need to correctly deal with the relationship between science and technology and ethics.Only scientific and technological development that preserves human nature can benefit mankind,while blindly pursuing technical rationality will only lead to human self-destruction.