Saviors, naïfs, or orphans? The posthuman condition in literary and cinematic perspectives on human cloning

This article focuses on cloning as a relevant trans- and posthumanist theme presented in the classical science fiction of the 1970s (Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang), 21st-century literary fiction (Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go), and streaming television series made in the 2010s (B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWorld literature studies Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 43 - 54
Main Author Lacko, Ivan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences 01.01.2021
Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Subjects
American Literature
Ethics / Practical Philosophy
Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Language and Literature Studies
Other Language Literature
Studies of Literature
Clone narratives
Nature vs nurture
Human genome editing
Cloning
Posthuman
Posthumanism
Genetic determinism
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Summary:This article focuses on cloning as a relevant trans- and posthumanist theme presented in the classical science fiction of the 1970s (Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang), 21st-century literary fiction (Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go), and streaming television series made in the 2010s (BBC America’s Orphan Black). With special emphasis on the subject of human cloning, the article will endeavor to discuss questions of identity in a posthuman environment, tracing the development from Wilhelm’s dystopian and post-apocalyptic scenarios in which clones and humans interact to disastrous ends, through Ishiguro’s psychological and emotional exploration of the inner world of cloned individuals whose fates are narrated in a form similar to the Bildungsroman, all the way to the complex study of nature vs. nurture in the cloned characters of Orphan Black.
ISSN:1337-9275
1337-9690
DOI:10.31577/WLS.2021.13.1.4