A Mirror Of Future-On The Dystopian Themes In Klara And The Sun

Kazuo Ishiguro(1954-),a Japanese-British Nobel Prize-winning writer,whose latest novel Klara and the Sun was nominated for the 2021 Man Booker Prize.This thesis takes Klara and the Sun as the research object.Based on the careful reading of the text,it analyzes three dystopian themes in Klara and the Sun: opposition against totalitarian oppression,critique of scientific supremacy,and concern for alienation from the perspective of dystopia.The thesis is divided into five parts.The first part introduces Kazuo Ishiguro and his novel Klara and the Sun,the domestic and foreign research on Klara and the Sun,and theoretical basis---utopia,dystopia and the transformation from utopia to dystopia,and briefly introduces the significance and layout of the thesis.The second part uses Michel Foucault’s microphysics theory of power to analyze how human wield surveillance and disciplinary power to implement totalitarian oppression on Artificial Friends to oppose human totalitarian thoughts.The third part criticizes scientific supremacy.Genome editing used by human can cause class solidification and new elite racism.The attempt to replace human with Artificial Intelligence threats human subjectivity and uniqueness.The behavior of Artificial Intelligence “creating gods”warns human to be vigilant about Artificial Intelligence overriding human.The fourth part expresses concern for alienation in the developed scientific society,manifested as the antagonism between human and human creations,as well as the alienation of interpersonal relationships.The former comes from the fear of humans being replaced by creations and the destruction of human creations to human society;The latter manifests as the comprehensive alienation of mother-daughter relationship,lover relationship,and friend relationships.The last part discusses the realistic significance of this novel in constructing the dystopian world.Kazuo Ishiguro creates an allegorical mirror future world that is connected with the current world starting from reality and extending from it.Through the description of the near-future society,he sounds the alarm bell for the development of human society.