分类号：H315.9密级：公开

研究生学位论文

论文题目（中文）石黑一雄科幻小说中的后人类共同

体思想探究

论文题目（外文）The Posthuman Community in Kazuo

Ishiguro’s Science Fictions

研究生姓名韩泊涵

学科、专业英语语言文学

研究方向英国文学

学位级别硕士研究生

导师姓名、职称史菊鸿教授

论文工作

起止年月2022年5月至2023年5月

论文提交日期2023年6月

论文答辩日期2023年5月

学位授予日期2023年6月

校址：甘肃省兰州市硕士学位论文

M.A.Thesis

Constructing the Posthuman Community:a Posthuman

Reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Science Fictions

by

Han Bohan

Under the Supervision of

Professor Shi Juhong

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master of Arts

School of Foreign Languages and Literatures

Lanzhou UniversityAbstract

With the successive publication of two science fictions:Never Let Me Go and

Clara and the Sun,Kazuo Ishiguro expressed to the world his visions and attitudes

towards the posthuman era.Inspired by the posthumanist theories proposed by

scholars such as Katherine Hayles,Donna Haraway,Rosi Braidotti,and the theory of

liquid modernity and community proposed by Zygmunt Bauman,this thesis analyses

the key issues concerning the construction of the posthuman community explored in

the two fictions,including the ethical dilemmas faced by the human and non-human

characters,the disintegration of the existing social connections,and the urgency of

developing the posthuman ethics and the posthuman awareness.

Having portrayed two groups of non-human characters,machines with artificial

intelligence which is the result of computer science and human clones which are

produced with the development of biological science,in his two science fictions,

Ishiguro intrigues us to conduct an in-depth exploration of the problems and

opportunities come with the development of science and technology.The intrusion of

technology has resulted in the fragmentation of the traditional human body and the

appearance of the new body,which,as the products of technology,starts to question

their own existence,and thus falls into the existential dilemma.In order to highlight

their dominant position,the dominant human group has drawn a series of boundaries,

which have led non-human beings into a series of ethical dilemmas,such as bioethics,

responsibility ethics,and identity ethics.Meanwhile,the development of technology

has created a“fluidity”in society,exacerbating the disintegration of the existing

social structure.

When the traditional boundaries between humans and non-human beings are

blurred,both of them are afflicted by a strong sense of displacement and alienation.

However,in the contact and communication between human and non-human beings,

both sides learn to re-negotiate the traditional boundaries and to re-establish their

identity coordinates.When the arrogant and paranoid anthropocentrism is dispelled,

the possibility of building up a posthuman community emerges.To construct a

posthuman community,it is essential for the human beings to be aware that their

existence is an amalgam one in the posthuman era,inseparable from the existence ofbeings created by science and technology,and thus learn to be empathetic to the

welfare of the other beings

Keywords:Kazuo Ishiguro,Science Fictions,Posthuman Community,Liquid

Modernity摘要

随着石黑一雄两部科幻作品——《别让我走》和《克拉拉与太

阳》的相继出版，石黑一雄向外界表达了他对后人类时代的构想与态

度。本文试图结合后人类相关理论，齐格蒙特·鲍曼的“流动的现代

性”理论及共同体理论，分析两部小说所探讨的后人类共同体建构的

关键问题，包括人类和非人类角色所面临的伦理困境、现有社会联系

的解体以及发展后人类伦理和后人类意识的重要性。

石黑一雄在他的两部科幻小说中描绘了两组非人类角色，计算机

科学产生的具有人工智能的机器和生物科学发展产生的克隆人。通过

描绘这两大群体在后人类时代的处境，石黑一雄对科学技术发展所带

来的问题和机遇进行了深入的探索。科技的入侵使得人类的身体被破

环，作为科技产物的他们对自己的身体产生了疑惑，从而陷入了主体

性缺失的困境。占主导地位的人类为了突出自身的主导地位，划分了

一系列界限，使得非人类角色陷入了生命伦理、责任伦理、身份伦理

等一系列伦理困境。同时，科技的发展使得社会形成了一种“流动性”，

加剧了现有社会的解构。

当人与非人之间的传统界限变得模糊时，他们也都不可避免地被

不确定性和疏离感所困扰。然而，在人类与非人类的接触与交流中，

双方都学会了重新审视传统的界限，以及重新定位自己的身份坐标。

当傲慢和偏执的人类中心主义被驱散后，建立后人类共同体的可能性

也随之产生。

关键词：石黑一雄，科幻小说，后人类共同体，流动的现代性Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Chapter One Ethical Dilemmas in the Post-human Era ........................... 14

Ethical Dilemmas of the Non-Human Characters ................................. 14

Ethical Dilemmas of the Human Characters.......................................... 20

Chapter Two The Disintegration of the Existing Social Connections ...... 28

The Challenges of the Social Connections ............................................ 28

Power Structure Formed by Technology in the Posthuman Society ..... 34

Chapter Three The Construction of Posthuman Community ................... 42

The Construction of Posthuman Subjectivity ........................................ 42

Constructing a Posthuman Community ................................................. 53

Conclusion ................................................................................................ 59

Works Cited ............................................................................................... 62 1

Introduction

With the publication of his science fictions,Klara and the Sun and Never Let Me

Go,Kazuo Ishiguro expresses his attitude towards posthuman to the outside world.This

thesis attempts to analyze how Ishiguro explores the problems of posthuman era and the

construction of the posthuman community.Problems encountered by the human and

non-human characters in the posthuman era,including loss of the subjectivity,unfair

use of technology,unequal responsibility,and the limitations of technology,are

examined in the thesis.

Born in 1954 in Nagasaki,Japan and moved to Britain in 1960 with his parents

when he was five，Ishiguro is one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction writers in

English.He has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize four times,winning the prize

in 1989 for his novel The Remains of the Day,which was adapted into a film of the

same name in 1993.In 2017,the Swedish Academy awarded Ishiguro the Nobel Prize

in Literature,describing him in its citation as a writer“who,in novels of great

emotional force,has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with

the world.”He has explored different genres of literature,among which Never Let Me

Go and Klara and the Sun are two works of science fiction.

Never Let Me Go,the sixth novel by Ishiguro,takes place in an alternate reality of

England in the 1990s.During the time,human cloning was authorized and performed.

The story begins with Kathy who is a clone that describes herself as a carer that looks

after organ donors.Having been a carer for almost twelve years at the time of narration,

Kathy often reminisces about her time spent at Hailsham,a boarding school in England,

where the teachers are known as guardians.The children are watched closely and they

are often told about the importance of producing art and of being healthy.In a word,it

tells a story of cloned humans.

Klara and the Sun,the eighth novel by Ishiguro,was published on March 2021.2

The novel is set in a dystopian future in which some children are genetically engineered

(“lifted”)for enhanced academic ability.As schooling is provided entirely at home by

on-screen tutors,opportunities for socialization are limited and parents who can afford

it often buy their children androids as companions.The book is narrated by an Artificial

Friend(AF)called Klara.Although Klara is exceptionally intelligent and observant,her

knowledge of the world is limited.From the window of the store in which she is for sale,

Klara imagines about the world outside and watches the sun,which she always refers to

as“he”and treats as a living entity.Klara is chosen by Josie,a 14-year-old girl,who

lives with her mother in a remote region of prairie.Soon after joining them,Klara

learns that Josie’s older sister Sal had died earlier,and Josie herself is gravely ill.Josie’s

mother asks Klara to imitate Josie,which,due to her exceptional powers of observation,

she can do almost perfectly.She intends that Klara will integrate her intelligence into it

if Josie dies,becoming not simply a facsimile but Josie’s true continuation.Klara and

the Sun,like Never Let Me Go,also discusses the issue of technology,yet from the

perspective of Artificial Intelligence(AI).

Various studies have been done concerning the two science fictions of Kazuo

Ishiguro.Studies in China and abroad on the two works focus on the following two

topics:the narrative techniques and the issues brought by technology.

It is maintained by not a few scholars that memory and self-deception is one of the

most remarkable narrative techniques employed by Ishiguro who adopts the technique

of unreliable narration in almost all of his works.Ana Maria Hopartean researches all

the works of Kazuo Ishiguro and argues that from The Remains of the Day to his most

recent Klara and the Sun,Ishiguro excels at creating characters that wilfully alter reality

while remaining true to themselves and concealing their true identity.This dichotomy of

being authentic and unreliable allows Ishiguro’s characters to take their stories to

unanticipated levels of depth and relevance for the world we live in.Megan E.Cannella

employs theories of Edward W.Soja and holds that Never Let Me Go is“best

understood through analyzing its unstable places and the narrator’s unstable memory”

(92).He argues that the reader can truly understand and engage with this narrative3

(92-126).Guruprasad also places a high value on the novel’s narrative method and its

elements and argues that“memorizations,identity,nostalgia,mourning,belongingness

and liminality are the major concerns in Never Let Me Go”(24).Francesca Boschetti

holds that the narrative method plays a large role in how memories are communicated

in the book,in her own words,“it is the medium through which memories are shared,

and it incites a dialogue with the reader”(16).Nonhuman narrative is another critical

narrative technique employed by Ishiguro.The narrators of both Never Let Me Go and

Klara and the Sun are nonhuman characters:cloned humans in Never Let Me Go and AI

in Klara and the Sun.Shang Biwu holds that an exploration of nonhuman narrative not

only enriches the existing narrative theory,but also makes it more comprehensive and

goes beyond anthropocentrism(29).An Jie argues that Never Let Me Go features

temporal narrative and paradoxical writing.He contends that,breaking the linear logic

of time,the narrative attains an effect of multiplicity of time in which“now”is the

actualized“past”potential under the deployment of“future”(46-57).

Technology-related issues also serve as a focus point for researchers to investigate.

Studies on Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun have tried to explore technology’s

influence on various other issues such as humanity and subjectivity,trauma and

recovery,ethics and society.Gabriele Griffin connects the clone technique in Never Let

Me Go with the cloned sheep,Dolly,and argues that“ethical problems brought by

technology should not be neglected”(645-663).Keith McDonald considers Ishiguro’s

dystopian novel Never Let Me Go as a text which utilizes memoir as“a means of

presenting a possible future where human rights are decimated,but where human

stories remain”(74-83).Titus Levi examines Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go as a

type of novel that presents a model of contemporary human rights issues(1-16).An Jie

argues from the perspective of ethics that the boundary line between the subject and the

object has become more and more blurred.He believes that the body which transgresses

repeatedly across the boundary lines coordinates with the multi-dimensional narrative

time to demonstrate a certain kind of post-human ethics(46-57).Santiago Mejia and

Dominique Nikolaidis starts from human subjectivity and argues that Klara and the Sun4

forces one to reckon with one’s own anxieties about the future of emerging technologies

and confront deep questions about the nature of dignity,existence,and humanity.Adam

Parkes argues from the perspective of“obsolescence”caused by consumerism of

capitalism and technology and believes that Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun reveals

obsolescence is a central preoccupation of his fiction.Further,obsolescence not only

furnishes Ishiguro’s novels with content but also informs their narrative structures and

language.He suggests that Ishiguro’s new book encourages people to ask questions

about the state and status of the novel as a literary genre in the 21st-century culture of

planned obsolescence:the means by which capitalism generates,sustains,and even

expands consumer demand by producing commodities that,sooner or later,must be

replaced or updated.Robert Eaglestone takes the point of“agent,”the key conception

of subject,and draws the conclusion that agency is a central issue in all of Ishiguro’s

fiction.Two visions of agency are contrasted in Klara and the Sun.The first is a

machine-like,algorithmic model,demonstrated by the artificial intelligence robot Klara.

The second is a more human vision of agency which is clarified by Hannah Arendt’s

account of action.The two visions collide over a key issue in the novel,the idea and

practice of forgiveness(1-12).Robin R.Murphy takes the point of the life of AI and

argues that the robots created to serve human also need to be cared for.Shang Biwu

studies the novel from the perspective of ethics of AI and holds that how to understand

and interpret the refusal by the robot,Klara,to replace humans has become a key issue

that no scholar could avoid in discussing this novel.In a sense,Klara’s refusal is largely

affected by her ethical epiphany,namely,her recognition that the unreachable“human

heart”draws the fundamental difference between humans and machines.To some extent,

“Can machines replace humans?”is not an issue for robots to deal with,but a problem

for humans to confront and resolve.And its solution is not just a scientific choice,but

rather an ethical one.Zhang Fan and Feng Yi argue that the novel deconstructs the

traditional humanism in that the AI has been continuously improved in serving mankind,

while human’s own intelligence augmentation(IA)also tries to realize the symbiosis of

human-computer interaction(106-109).Liao Jingjing holds that the novel breaks5

through the limitations of Asimo’s“Three Laws of Robotics”In the examination of the

state of human-machine symbiosis,it obtains a transcendental perspective of

reconstructing and reflecting on the essence of“human nature”,and provides new

themes and topics for science fiction(19-29).

From the literature review shown above,it can be found that Never Let Me Go and

Klara and the Sun attracts multi-dimensional interpretations both in China and abroad.

Researches on Klara and the Sun notice the impact of technology on the body and

society of human beings,however,they do not put the issues brought by technology

into the idea of“community.”Therefore,a study of posthuman ethical community in

Ishiguro’s work is valuable and meaningful.

This study is conducted through the lens of posthumanism proposed by scholars

such as Katherine Hayles,Donna Haraway,Rosi Braidotti,and scholars of

transhumanism such as FM-2030,Max More and Ray Kurzweil.The concepts of liquid

modernity and community proposed by Zygmunt Bauman are also employed to analyse

the disintegration of society and the construction of“posthuman community.”The main

ideas and the relationship between these theories in this thesis will be explained below.

Posthuman means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human.The

concept aims at addressing a variety of questions,including ethics and justice,language

and trans-species communication,social systems,and the intellectual aspirations of

interdisciplinarity.The notion of the“posthuman”comes up both in posthumanism as

well as transhumanism,but it has a special meaning in each tradition.In the two science

fictions of Ishiguro,both branches of the theory of posthumanism are well represented.

The first branch of posthuman is philosophical posthumanism.Philosophical

posthumanism is an idea responding to the humanism and anthropocentrism and a

speculative theory that represents or seeks to re-conceive the human.Ihab Hassan once

stated:“Humanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itself into

something one must helplessly call posthumanism”(830).Posthumanism

questions anthropocentrism which claims that human nature is a universal state from

which the human being emerges;human nature is autonomous,rational,capable of free

will,and unified in itself as the apex of existence.Cary Wolfe starts from Hassan’s6

standpoint and argues that posthumanism differs from classical humanism by

relegating humanity back to one of many natural species,thereby rejecting any claims

founded on anthropocentric dominance(13).According to this claim,humans have no

inherent rights to destroy nature or set themselves above it in ethical considerations a

priori.Human knowledge is also reduced to a less controlling position,previously seen

as the defining aspect of the world.Human rights exist on a spectrum with animal

rights and posthuman rights.Posthumanism recognizes imperfectability and disunity

within human,and understands the world through heterogeneous perspectives while

seeking to maintain intellectual rigor and dedication to objective observations.The

posthuman,for theorists of posthumanism,has an emergent ontology rather than a

stable one.In other words,the posthuman is not a singular,defined individual,but

rather one who can“become”or embody different identities and understand the world

from multiple,heterogeneous perspectives.

For philosophical posthumanism,subjectivity is a key term that cannot be ignored.

The term subjectivity permeates modern philosophy which begins with the subject’s

self-awareness.By positing“I think,therefore I am”,RenéDescartes considers the

subject as the thinking subject and thus refers to subjectivity as consciousness,setting

the Western philosophy on the trajectory centering on human beings or the subject of

consciousness.Immanuel Kant ascribes the rational will or the power of judgment to

the subject on account of his belief that either cognition or morality is grounded in the

subject’s rational capability.Hegel equates the subject with the omnipotent“absolute

spirit”,which consists of every individual mind,produces the substance,and changes

all the time thanks to the inclusion of its own negation.As a result,freedom and

emancipation seem to be synonymous with subjectivity.In short,from Descartes to

Hegel,early modern Western philosophy can be considered as the metaphysics of the

subject which is concerned with the nature of the cognitive subject rather than objects

or the relationship between them,and the notion of subjectivity has been constructed as

abstract consciousness.

In view of the close tie between the posthuman and technology,the notion of

human subjectivity has encountered decentralization,and the anthropocentric ideas

have been rejected by more radical recent opinions.Donna Haraway uses the deepening

interaction between humans and technology as an occasion to rethink subjectivity in a

radical but,at the same time,ethically responsible way.In her famous piece,A

Manifesto for Cyborgs:Science,Technology,and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s,she7

proposes a new type of subject,cyborg.She points that“a cyborg is a cybernetic

organism,a hybrid of machine and organism,a creature of social reality as well as a

creature of fiction”(149).After Haraway puts forward the definition of cyborg,this

term becomes one of the core concepts of posthumanism and has attracted researches of

many scholars.Because of an increasing understanding in the way in which the brain

functions,the development of ever more powerful computers,and advances in neuronal

interface systems,direct interactions between the brain and computers,and between the

mind and cyberspace are slowly becoming a reality.Calum MacKellar points that

cyborg will challenge the ethical order.He argues that“any inadvertent changes to an

individual’s brain may have an effect on how he or she understands who he or she really

is”(100).

Haraway’s idea is echoed by N.Katherine Hayles who believes that the conception

of posthuman subject should be redefined:“the posthuman subject is an amalgam,a

collection of heterogeneous components,a material-informational entity whose

boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction”(3).Rosi Braidotti also

starts from the subjectivity of human beings and expand it to non-human species,she

introduces the posthuman nomadic subject,“a multifaceted and relational subject”

which is“materialist and vitalist,embodied and embedded”(188).In terms of Braidotti,

nomadic subject is not confined to the human species,but also includes non-human

subjects previously referred to as the other of the anthropocentric man.To summarize,

exceeding the boundary of anthropocentrism,the posthuman subject,be it human or

machine or a combination of both,is embodied,relational,pluralistic,open,dynamic,

and constantly in the process of becoming.Therefore,posthuman subjectivity refers to

the posthuman subjects’self-awareness,self-identification,self-fulfillment,subjective

consciousness,and autonomy.

The second branch of posthuman is transhumansim.Transhumanism is an

intellectual and cultural movement that advocates for the use of technology to enhance

the human condition and extend human capabilities beyond their current biological

limitations.The central idea behind transhumanism is that,with the help of advanced

technologies,people can transcend their biological limitations and improve the quality

of life in ways previously thought impossible.Transhumanists believe that with the help

of technology,it will be possible to increase lifespan,enhance physical and mental

abilities,and augment human intelligence.They also see the potential for technology to

solve many of the world’s problems,including poverty,disease,and environmental8

degradation.

The biologist Julian Huxley is generally regarded as the founder of transhumanism

after using the term for the title of an influential 1957 article.He argues in

Transhumanism that“The human species can,if it wishes,transcend itself—not just

sporadically,an individual here in one way,an individual there in another way,but in its

entirety,as humanity”(1).The thoughts of Huxley is echoed by FM-2030,an

Iranian-American scholar who popularized the term“transhumanism”and argued that

technology would allow humans to transcend their biological limitations.Based on the

thoughts of FM-2030,Max More,a strategic philosopher,created his own particular

transhumanist doctrine in 1990,laid the foundation of modern transhumanism by giving

it a new definition:“Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seek to guide us

towards a posthuman condition”(2).He points that transhumanism explores the

possibilities of lives resulting from various sciences and technologies.The thought of

posthuman condition is approved by Nick Bostrom.Bostrom has written about the

future of the human species and the potential for technology to enhance and extend

human capabilities and argues that the development of technology will have a profound

impact on the future of humanity,and that it is important to ensure that technology is

developed in a way that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the risks.Nick Bostrom

also starts from the perspective of artificial intelligence and argues that artificial

intelligence has the potential to surpass human intelligence,leading to an exponential

acceleration of technological progress.He also notices the the risks and challenges


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