The "human Heart" Nowhere But Everywhere:A Posthumanistic Analysis Of The Human/Machine Relationship In Klara And The Sun

The Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro has a reputation for exploring humanism in his writing.The boundaries of what constitutes the “human” in his work is becoming a burning topic for critics.The thesis builds on past research in this field to investigate the implications of human interaction with machines in Klara and the Sun(2021).Rather than studying the “human” as a discrete and given category,the present study is concerned with how cutting-edge technology redefines longstanding concepts of human and machine.In the light of posthumanist theory,and influenced especially by Hassan(1977)and Hayles(1999),the thesis firstly disentangles the novel’s intricate human/machine relationship.It finds evidence for both the traditional subject/object and the modern convergent human/machine pairing.In the former,both hierarchical discrimination and binary opposition are evident as variants of anthropocentrism.By contrast,the modern relationship blurs the distinction between human and machine.In an era of genetic editing,man is being drawn closer to machine.Meanwhile,advancements androids are assuming ever more human-like characteristics.By studying the character of the robotic Klara,bought as a domestic servant and companion by the potentially terminally ill Josie,the study reinvestigates the limits of man and machinery.Concepts like the “human heart” are examined to see if these still constitute an indissoluble demarcation between man and machine or if the former is now able to replace the latter and vice versa.Posthumanism improves our comprehension of Kazuo Ishiguro’s critique of anthropocentrism,and effectively unveils his vision for the cooperative human/machine relationship,which can be explained in terms of the posthuman concept of the distributed system.At the same time,the study facilitates further understanding of human identity crisis in the age of advanced machines.