Kritika Kultura: A Refereed Electronic Journal of Literary / Cultural and Language Studies PDF Free Download
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KULTURA
KRITIKA
a refereed electronic journal
of literary / cultural and language studies
No. 47, July 2025
archium.ateneo.edu/kk
Indexed in MLA International Bibliography,
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Clarivate), Scopus,
EBSCO, and Directory of Open Access Journals
Literary and Cultural Studies Program
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University
Quezon City, Philippines
ISSN: 1656-152x
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<https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk>
ISSN -x
Kritika Kultura is an international refereed journal acknowledged by a host of Asian and Asian
American Studies libraries and scholars network, and indexed in the MLA International Bibliography,
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Clarivate), Scopus, EBSCO, and the Directory of Open Access
Journals.
Open Access
Copyright © Ateneo de Manila University
Kritika Kultura is published by Ateneo de Manila University. Contents may not be copied or sent via
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AIMS, FOCUS, AND SCOPE
Kritika Kultura is an international peer-reviewed electronic journal of language and literary/cultural
studies which addresses issues relevant to the st century, including language, literature and cultural
policy, cultural politics of representation, the political economy of language, literature and culture,
pedagogy, language teaching and learning, critical citizenship, the production of cultural texts, audience
reception, systems of representation, eects of texts on concrete readers and audiences, the history and
dynamics of canon formation, gender and sexuality, ethnicity, diaspora, nationalism and nationhood,
national liberation movements, identity politics, feminism, women’s liberation movements, and
postcolonialism.
Kritika Kultura is interested in publishing a broad and international range of critical, scholarly articles
on language, literary, and cultural studies that appeal to academic researchers in government and
private agencies and educational institutions, as well as members of the public who are concerned with
exploring and examining contemporary issues in the complex nexus interconnecting language, literature,
culture, and society.
Kritika Kultura seeks to promote innovative scholarship that challenges traditional canons and
established perspectives and enhance work that bridges disciplinary research around the issues
enumerated above, especially in the promising lines of work in Philippine, Asian, Southeast Asian, and
Filipino-American studies.
INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS
Please visit archium.ateneo.edu/kk
PUBLISHER
Literary and Cultural Studies Program
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University
Loyola Heights
Quezon City
Philippines https://www.asianjournalsnetwork.net/
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KRITIKA KULTURA 47 JULY 2025
ISSN -x
archium.ateneo.edu/kk
GUEST EDITORS
FORUM KRITIKA EDITORS
Biwu Shang
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Maria Luisa Torres Reyes
University of Santo Tomas
EDITORIAL STAFF
Maria Luisa Torres Reyes
Vincenz Serrano
vserrano@ateneo.edu
Ma. Gabriela P. Martin
mgmartin@ateneo.edu
J S. M
@.
Martin Villanueva
mvvillanueva@ateneo.edu
Raymon Ritumban
Luisa L. Gomez
Anna Alves
So Bernedo
Nadine Legaspi
Marie Franchesca Borras Manalo
Anne Camille Ortiz-Meriales
Regina Carmeli Regala
John Paolo Sarce
Francis Sollano
Anna Victorino
Jacqueline Bernadette Palma
Raisa Perez
Kritika Kultura 47 (2025): iv–005
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© Ateneo de Manila University
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TABLEOFCONTENTS
1
35
59
85
111
133
169YafeiLi
Encountering the Non-Human with Narrative Form:
J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals
TaeheeKim
Maritime (Im)Mobility and Heterotopia: Jeju Island in South Korea
E.SanJuan,Jr.
In Quest of the “Sublime Paralytic”: Speculations on History, Identity, and
the Emergence of National-Class Consciousness
XiaoxiaoHuang
Chun-MeiChuang
Editor’sIntroduction
ChristianJilR.Benitez
A Verdant Reading:
On the Agency of the Nonhuman Landscape in Apocalypse Now (1979)
REGULARSECTION
4FenGaoandPengfeiZhang
FORUMKRITIKAONNONHUMANNARRATIVEINWORLDLITERATURE
161BiwuShangandMariaLuisaT.Reyes
Love Is a Molecular Island
Nonhuman Narratives in World Literature: An Introduction
Literary Study in the Era of Artificial Intelligence in China
Neoliberal Society, Alienation, and Affective Crisis in The Answers (2017)
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183 Siqi Zhao
Beyond the Fermi Paradox: Alien Narratives and Chinese Epistemology
in Liu Cixin’s Science Fiction
200 Zou Li
Making the World of Connections Visible:
Nonhuman Narrative as World Literature
215 You Wu
Towards an Envisioned Human-Nonhuman Community: e “New Human”
Narrative and Ethical Choice in Wang Jinkang’s e Articial Human
239 Kanjing He
Luck As Power: Nonhuman Game Narrative, Agency, and Alien
Colonization in Philip K. Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan
261 Xiaomeng Wan
Pain, Pleasure, Preference: “Consider the Lobster” and
Dilemmas of Animal Narratives
281 Minrui Li
From Clones to Robots: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Non-human Narrative and Its
Ethical Implications
298 Xinyue Yuan
Rethinking Human/Nonhuman Hierarchy in Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory
315 Hongbo Lyu
How Should We Get Along? Non-human Narratives in Anthony Browne’s
Picture Books
Serrano / Introduction 1
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EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
KK / July
Kritika Kultura is pleased to publish for its th issue seven articles in the regular
section and articles in the Forum Kritika on Nonhuman Narrative in World
Literature.
“Literary Study in the Era of Articial Intelligence in China” by Fen Gao and
Pengfei Zhang accounts for a number of developments in an emerging age of
“technological innovation and human-machine symbiosis” in China; the authors
identify (a) the establishment of “the original theory of ‘brain text’; (b) the
promotion of local innovations and the “research of machine reading in digital
humanities; and (c) engagement with the “posthuman theory of Western academic
circles” as promising areas for Chinese scholars. Chun-Mei Chuang’s “Love Is a
Molecular Island” in part conjoins “discussions on abstract machines, attosecond
physics, quantum theory, and Paul Klee’s art” to show how “humans, nature, and the
cosmos” interact; Chuang’s essay concludes with demonstrating the cosmopolitical
implications of magnetotaxis and proposes ways in which theory resonates with
“the molecular processes of life.” “Maritime (Im)Mobility and Heterotopia: Jeju
Island in South Korea” by Taehee Kim analyzes Jeju Island from the vantage point
of Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia; Kim identies the factors that make
experiences on the island as “terminable and heterochronic,” as well as “render[ing]
dwelling on the island a voluntary exile.” “A Decolonial Reading of the Dystopian
Narratives About Feticide and Infanticide in Hindi Films” by Argha Basu and
Priyanka Tripathi discusses, following a decolonial feminist framework, how ve
lms from India “emplo[y] the narrative patterns of critical dystopias” and show
“decolonial contexts of sex-selection and abortion.”
In “In Quest of the ‘Sublime Paralytic’: Speculations on History, Identity, and
the Emergence of National-Class Consciousness,” E. San Juan, Jr. examines, among
others, Apolinario Mabini’s “El Vedadero Decalogo” (in Panukala sa Pagkakana
nang Republika nang Pilipinas) and La Revolucion Filipina in order to show how
Mabini Filipinized and “merge[d] Enlightenment principles with the communal
ethos of the natives” combatting the “legacy of Spanish feudal savagery and the
violence of U.S. barbarism.” In “Neoliberal Society, Alienation, and Aective
Crisis in e Answers (),” Xiaoxiao Huang takes her theoretical cues from Karl
Marx’s theory of alienation and argues that Catherine Lacey’s novel shows how
neoliberalism “restructur[es] . . . intimacy” and “give[s] rise to pervasive aective
crises.” Finally, “A Verdant Reading: On the Agency of the Nonhuman Landscape
in Apocalypse Now ()” by Christian Jil R. Benitez lays bare the “story of the
production” of Francis Ford Coppola’s lm, paying attention to how, ironically,
Serrano / Introduction 2
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“Coppola’s erasure” of the tropical landscape contributed to “the overall mythology
of the lm.” e articles in the regular section were edited by Ma. Gabriela P. Martin
and Jocelyn Martin.
Biwu Shang and Maria Luisa Torres Reyes’s introductory article “Nonhuman
Narratives in World Literature” oers an overview of the Forum Kritika on
Nonhuman Narrative in World Literature; Shang and Reyes are preoccupied with
how “nonhuman entities are involved in events” and how “nonhuman narratives oer
the experientiality in more-than-human world.” “Encountering the Non-Human
with Narrative Form: J.M. Coetzee’s e Lives of Animals” by Yafei Li reveals how
Coetzee’s “rhetorical experiment”—which include “free imagination and textual
dialogism”—renders the “interiority” and the “living conditions of the non-human
entities,” resulting in a novel that explores an “ethics of otherness.” In “Beyond the
Fermi Paradox: Alien Narratives and Chinese Epistemology in Liu Cixin’s Science
Fiction,” Siqi Zhao outlines and compares the “limitations” of human cognition
with that of “alien perspectives”; Zhao analysis is enabled by an engagement with
“Chinese epistemology, . . . moral epistemology, relational epistemology, and onto-
epistemology.” In “Making the World of Connections Visible: Nonhuman Narrative
as World Literature,” Zou Li compares William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Chen
Qiufan’s Waste Tide with regard to how both works “congure the connections and
networks of the world system.” e articial humans in both novels are interpreted
from the theoretical standpoints of Franco Moretti and David Damrosch, and are
seen as “a center of calculation that connects dierent classes, cultures, and domains
both inside and outside their home countries.” “Towards an Envisioned Human-
Nonhuman Community: e ‘New Human’ Narrative and Ethical Choice in Wang
Jinkang’s e Articial Human” by You Wu examines ‘new human’ narrators in
terms of their “observations, actions, and ethical choices”; by focusing on articial
humans, Wu is able to oer insights regarding the “limitations of human existence,
reect upon the unthought-of of humanity, and explore the in-depth meaning of
being human.”
Kanjing He’s “Luck As Power: Nonhuman Game Narrative, Agency, and Alien
Colonization in Philip K. Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan” portrays human
inferiority by means of speculative ctional aordances such as “an alien setting,
antirealistic events, and alien perceptual focalization.” “Pain, Pleasure, Preference:
‘Consider the Lobster’ and Dilemmas of Animal Narratives” by Xiaomeng Wan
highlights the “irresolvable dilemma”—how to “satisf[y] human needs and
reduc[e] animal cruelty”—in David Foster Wallace’s essay; Wan’s key theoretical
consideration is zoocriticism, which surfaces tensions and conuences between
“anthropomorphizing” the animal and maintaining its “animal autonomy.” “From
Clones to Robots: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Non-human Narrative and Its Ethical
Implications” by Minrui Li engages with Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and
Serrano / Introduction 3
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Klara and the Sun with regard to how these works represent “cloned beings and
robots in the new era of articial intelligence.” Li argues that Ishiguro’s novels stage
crucial “ethical issues” that inform the “relationship between humans and non-
humans” as well as “the future development of articial intelligence.” “Rethinking
Human/Nonhuman Hierarchy in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Xinyue
Yuan locates its analysis of Roald Dahl’s work on the theoretical assumption of
the “agency of food”: the capacity of food to “control” people’s desires; the capacity
of “modern commercial civilization” to foster “food cravings’; and the capacity of
food to be an agent of meaning-making in identitarian and social senses. Finally,
“How Should We Get Along? Non-human Narratives in Anthony Browne’s Picture
Books” by Hongbo Lyu presents the dilemmas of “animals under human inuence,”
oers an “ecological critique of anthropocentrism,” and advances the proposition
that humans and animals are equal.
Vincenz Serrano
Kritika Kultura
Literary and Cultural Studies Program
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University
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Abstract
In view of the salient characteristics of technological innovation and human-machine
symbiosis in the era of articial intelligence, Chinese literary circles have purveyed a productive
exploration of “literary study in the era of articial intelligence.” Chinese scholars’ innovation of
literary theory consists of three characteristics. First, they have established the original theory
of “brain text,” systematically analyzed the denition, formation mechanism, and relationship
between “brain text” and literature, language, text, and cognition, and applied this theory to
literary criticism. Second, on the basis of sorting out and summarizing the core viewpoints of
Western digital humanities theory, Chinese scholars have carried out indigenized innovations,
promoted the research of machine reading in digital humanities, and proposed the paradigm of
online literary criticism. ird, Chinese scholars have accepted and promoted the posthuman
theory of Western academic circles, thereupon formulating independent critical discourses
by means of classication, distinction, and selection. Chinese scholars’ innovation of literary
criticism is reected in the following aspects. ey continue to promote ethical literary criticism,
paying closer attention to environmental ethics, biotechnology ethics, and robot ethics. At the
same time, they have expanded the issues of literary criticism from the dimensions of body and
emotion, focusing on such novel topics as virtual body, new subject, articial emotion, and
non-human narrative. ey have also explored the generative mechanism, nature, limitations,
and potentials of AI literature.
Keywords
AI literature, “brain text” theory, Chinese literary study, ethical literary criticism, posthuman
theory
LITERARY STUDY IN THE ERA OF
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
IN CHINA
Fen Gao
Zhejiang University, P. R. China
gfed@.com
Pengfei Zhang
Zhejiang University, P. R. China
broderickzhang@.com
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About the Authors
Fen Gao is Professor of English at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. Her
research interests include English literature, comparative literature, and literary theories. Her
articles appear in Style, Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, etc., and she has published more
than articles. Her latest monographs are Towards Life Poetics: Virginia Woolf’s eory of
Fiction () and British Formalist Aesthetics and Its Literary Writing Practice ().
Pengfei Zhang is a PhD candidate at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University.
His research focuses on literary modernism and its interplay with history, science, and
environment. His work has appeared in English Studies, Women’s Studies, Forum for Modern
Language Studies, Isis, European Legacy, and European Review of History, among other venues.
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INTRODUCTION
Articial Intelligence (AI) refers to an articial system that canvasses the laws
of human intellectual activities and constructs computational procedures with
human intelligence. Its research focuses are to explore and expose the laws and
characteristics of human consciousness, self, and mind, to formulate basic theories,
methods, and technologies that simulate human intellectual behaviors like learning,
reasoning, thinking, and planning with computers, and to manufacture computers
with the intelligent properties of the human brain. e era of AI, broadly conceived,
is strikingly characterized by technological innovation and human-computer
symbiosis. With the rapid development of high and new technologies such as
bioengineering, genetic engineering, cloning technology, and big data analysis,
sci-tech innovations and humanities have been intertwined with each other in
an inextricable interdisciplinary linkage, thereby stimulating and spawning new
humanistic theories and literary criticism.
e development of articial intelligence has an inherent anity with that of
literary writing and criticism. Literature, with human emotion, consciousness,
self, and other life characteristics as the objects of expression, is essentially the
representation of “human intelligence.” It diers from “articial intelligence” in that
literature relies on experience, perception, and imagination rather than science
and technology, and the medium of expression of literature is language rather than
material manufacturing. Literature has long presented imaginative depictions of
“articial intelligence” and probed into the problems it may pose through science
ction. Literary study, with its purpose of reection and critique, has always paid
close attention to the depiction of “articial intelligence” in literary works and
actively explored literary theory and criticism in the era of AI.
It seems that the Chinese scholarship, compared with the Western world, is
more preoccupied with literature’s position sui generis in the new era and primed
to reinvestigate the theoretical and practical gamut of literary study. In recent
years, Chinese literary critics have conducted quite a few researches on the issue
of “literary study in the era of articial intelligence” and achieved many innovative
results. Here comes an overview.
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INNOVATION AND ADVANCEMENT OF LITERARY THEORY
AI’s intervention into the literary eld necessitates, before anything else, a revolution
in literary theories that undergird subsequent critical practices. Several international
journals—among them New Literary History, Critical Inquiry, and CLCWeb—have
partaken in this revolution and displayed Western scholars’ continuous concern
for humanities computing and literary narrativity. By contrast, in China, there is a
tendency for initiating new terms at once interacting with Western literary theories.
More specically, in the context of the rapid advancement of articial intelligence
and the in-depth study of the human brain, Chinese scholars have pioneered the
original theory of “brain text,” which not only speaks to the unique distinction
of human brain distinguished from articial intelligence, but also brings forth a
batch of contemplations on the thinking mechanism of human brain in the literary
eld. At the same time, on the basis of Western digital humanities and posthuman
critical theories, Chinese scholars have made an indigenized reinterpretation and a
constructive expansion thereon from the perspective of Chinese culture.
BRAIN TEXT THEORY
“Brain text” theory was proposed by Chinese scholar Nie Zhenzhao. Since , Nie
has published a series of essays on “brain text” in many important Chinese journals,
systematically proposing and analyzing the denition and generating mechanism
of “brain text” and its correlations with literature, language, text, and cognition.
In “Ethical Literary Criticism: Oral Literature and Brain Text,” he proposes the
denition of “brain text” and claries that it is the origin of literature:
Brain text, in its biological form, preserves human beings’ experience of perception and
cognition through memory. Before the invention of written symbols, there appeared a
wide array of brain texts with literary characteristics, such as myth, heroic epics, folk
tales, and historical narratives. Brain text is the prototype of the text of oral literature, yet
it is not hereditary and can only be passed down orally from one generation to another.
()
“e Forming Mechanism of Brain Text and Brain Concept in eory of Ethical
Literary Criticism” oers a detailed analysis of “brain text” and its important value:
Brain text consists of brain concepts, which, by the dierent sources, can be divided
into objective concepts and abstractive concepts. Brain concepts are tools for thinking
while thought comes from thinking by understanding and application of brain concepts.
Brain text is the carrier of thought. e termination of the synthesis of brain concepts
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signies the completion of thinking, which produces thoughts to form brain text. Brain
text determines thinking and behavioral patterns that not only communicate and spread
information, but also decide man’s ideas, thoughts, judgments, choices, actions, and
emotions. ()
In “Redening Language as Brain Text and Based on Saussure’s Views,” Nie examines
the relationship between “brain text” and language and character: “Language is the
sound form of brain text and character is the written form of brain text” (). “On
Brain Text and Language Generating” elucidates the basic methods of expression
of “brain text”: “Brain text is presented through oral expression with human vocal
organs and through writing symbols” (). “Ethical Mechanism of Language
Generation” reveals the relation between “brain text” and language generation:
“e process when brain text is transformed into the form of sound coincides with
the generation of language” (). In “On Human Cognition and Consciousness,”
Nie investigates the connection between “brain text” and cognition: “Brain text
is not the terminal stage of human cognition, but rather the beginning of a new
cognitive stage” ().
e “brain text” theory lays a solid foundation for Nie’s more extensive
theorization on textual theory and ethical literary criticism. It is disparate from
cognitive poetics proposed by Western scholars to interpret literary texts with
the aid of textual world theory and cognitive science. Rather, it falls into Nie’s
classication of three literary textual forms: “brain texts with the brain as the vehicle,
written texts with written materials as the vehicle, and electronic texts (or digital
texts) with electronic media as the vehicle” (“Value Choice and the eoretical
Construction” ). e “brain text” theory, to some extent, can be considered as a
counteractive against the welter of digital texts in the era of AI.
Nie’s “brain text” theory creates a new theoretical perspective for literary
criticism in the era of AI. Chinese scholars have applied this theory to literary
research to decipher the generative mechanism of literary creation. Shang Biwu,
Su Hui, and Ren Jie have each published articles to dissect literary works by virtue
of this theory. In “e Conict between Scientic Selection and Ethical Selection:
Articial Intelligence and Brain Text in Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me,” Shang
points out, with reference to “brain text” theory, that “articial intelligence is a type
of electronic text in nature and cannot replace the brain text armed with ethical
consciousness, which accounts for Adam’s failure to deal with ethical issues in the
world of humans” (). In “From Brain Text to the Final Draft: On Ibsen’s Ethical
Choices in Pillars of Society,” Su and Xiong Hui read the four drafts of Henrik Ibsen’s
play Pillars of Society as his “brain texts” and observe “Ibsen’s ethical choices in
‘decoding’ his brain text into written text” (). In her research of Japanese literary
works, Ren enacts “brain text” theory to reveal “the basic ethical principles of the
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metaphorical subject’s construction of brain texts” (). e “brain text” theory,
in this way, opens up new space for evaluating dierent textual forms, writers’
manuscripts, and literary genres. Mostly buttressed by Chinese or Asian scholars,
it is expected to become more popular in international scholarship in the near
future.
e “brain text” theory and its critical practice, on the whole, reect the
multidisciplinary intersection of literature, linguistics, neuroscience, and ethics in
Chinese literary theory and criticism and provide a revealing exploration of the
essential distinction between the human brain and articial intelligence. With
constant eorts, it bids fair to execute more theoretical exchanges with the Western
world.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES
Digital humanities, despite originally a Western approach, is nowadays basking
in the global limelight. As the study of “digital humanities” in the age of AI enters
a new stage of development, Chinese critics not only pay attention to the core
concepts, research progress, and critical approaches of digital humanities, but
also launch sustained theoretical discussions on computational criticism, distant
reading, and online literary criticism. As one may be aware, the genesis of digital
humanities is generally ascribed to Roberto Busa’s “Aquinas Project,” in
which he utilized computers to conduct indexing and computing studies on
St. omas Aquinas’s complete theological writings, presenting an automated
analysis of the possibility of human expression. Since then, natural language
processing and literary stylistics have become the two main methods of digital
humanities criticism. A Companion to Digital Humanities by Susan Schreibman
et al. and Digital Humanities by Anne Burdick et al. put forward and make clear
the concept of “digital humanities,” clarifying its core idea as a combination of
traditional humanities and computational methods to develop interdisciplinary
research, such as humanities computing and quantitative analysis. Although the
idea of digital humanities is accompanied by the wave of computer invention and
information technology, it has actually turned into an inuential discipline and
emanated unprecedented vitality now that we have entered the era of AI. In this
aspect, Western scholars show a predilection for and prociency in computational
literary (primarily narrative) studies. For instance, Katherine Bode postulates the
performative theory of literary knowledge and proclaims that CLS (Computational
Literary Studies), through applying scientic methods both to literary texts and
to archives, “employs highly conventionalized literary notions of both science and
literary phenomena in describing its practice” (). Her intention is to defend CLS’s
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participation in producing literary knowledge and objects instead of degrading it
into a mere methodology. Andrew Piper and Sunyam Bagga map out a data-driven
theory of narrativity, a framework that argues for “the empirical testing of narrative
theory using the process of machine learning and predictive modeling” (). eir
research intimates the potent potential for integrating computation and data into
literary and narrative studies. Chinese scholars also engage in the debate on digital
humanities, yet in a relatively comparative, conceptual, and constructing manner,
which can be subsumed into three signicant characteristics.
First and foremost, Chinese scholars have examined the developing tendency
of digital humanities in the context of mutual learning between the East and the
West. In “Digital Humanities: Concept, History, Status in Quo and Its Application
in Literary Studies,” Guo Yingjian analyzes the concept of digital humanities in
three dimensions: concept construction, development status, and application. In
so doing, Guo highlights the instrumental creativity and productive eciency of
literary computing and advocates for the establishment of relevant majors and
institutions in Chinese universities (-). In “Digital Humanities-Oriented
Literary Criticism: e Past, Present and Future,” Dan Hansong reviews the
trajectories of natural language processing and corpus-based literary stylistics over
the last few decades and recommends taking full advantage of machine learning
prompted by AI to survey masses of internal and external materials, thereupon
calling for “a new type of literary criticism which is not only characterized with
special digital thinking but based on traditional literary ideas and episteme” ().
In “Advances in Digital Humanities,” Huang Shuiqing, Liu Liu, and Wang Dongbo
present the advanced research progress of digital literature, digital historiography,
and digital art in the West and propound the status quo of digital humanities
studies in China, especially on ancient Chinese classics. It is worth noting that
they enumerate the most representative research on digital humanities in China
from eight aspects: “indexing, language style analysis, text encoding, digitization of
classics, digital historiography and visualization, text knowledge mining, cultural
heritage and image digitization, video and cultural promotion” (). ese aspects
proer several research paradigms for digital humanities with distinctive Chinese
characteristics by dismantling the scaolding of natural language processing and
literary stylistics that predominate in the Western modes. Just as Wang Ning argues,
digital humanities “is far more than merely a method of humanities research, but
a new academic paradigm” (). Both Eastern and Western scholars are obliged to
recognize and reconstruct this paradigm.
Secondly, Chinese scholars have introduced and improved Franco Moretti’s
concept of “distant reading” to promote the study of machine reading in the realm of
digital humanities. Moretti’s “distant reading,” in contrast to the convention of “close
reading” in literary criticism, considers world literature as a whole and advocates a
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macroscopical, historical, and rhetorical reading of “units” of knowledge by means
of digital archives (). Michael Gavin, in his recent article “Why Distant Reading
Works,” further buoys this concept and reassesses it as “the practice of using
statistical analyses of corpora to describe their textual contents and, on that basis,
to make claims about literary, intellectual, or cultural history” (). It suggests
Western scholars’ attempts to validate the viability of distant reading in gauging
the literary and cultural past. Chinese scholars also expand on this concept. For
example, in “Moretti’s Distant Reading and Its Inuence,” Du Lanlan foregrounds
the discrepancy between “distant reading” and computer criticism in the era of AI:
“e digitization and visualization of empirical data bespeaks a signicant token
that distinguishes computer criticism from Moretti’s early distant reading methods”
(). In “Digital Humanistic Transformation of World Literature, Distance
Reading and Literary Criticism: Franco Moretti’s Evolution Logic of Literary
eory,” Chen Xiaohui extends Moretti’s evolutionary logic of distant reading into
four paradigms of machine reading, that is, second-hand reading, large-scaled
reading, collaborative reading, and computational criticism. Chinese scholars
contribute to diversifying what Chen calls the “conceptual existence” of Moretti’s
theory of distant reading (), but are somewhat decient in reappraising, or even
redening, the warp and woof of this notion as Gavin has done.
Last but not least, Chinese scholars also endeavor to construct critical criteria
for online literature, thereby opening up a new research space for digital humanities.
In “Cyberspace and the Genealogy of Literary Criticism,” Nan Fan elaborates
on the connotations and developmental forms of online literary criticism and
points out the commonality between the computational statistical feature of
digital humanities and the de-historical nature of online literature, implying the
possibility of coalescing digital humanities into the genealogy of literary criticism.
Likewise, in “Digital Analysis on Literary Criticism Paradigm Reconstruction of
Web Literature from Digital Humanities Perspective,” Lei Chengjia species the
matrices of online literature and veries the feasibility of implementing digital
humanities methods in online literary criticism by proposing three research paths:
the genre of online literature, the regionalism of online literature, and the “o-eld
criticism” (concerning non-literary aesthetic elements) of online literature (-
). When taking into account such an alternative literary form, Western scholars
often revolve around the keyword of “media”: Janez Strehovec deems e-literature as
a “new media art” featuring database logic, process-like nature, and customization
(); similarly, Elżbieta Winiecka compares “digital literature (electronic, online)”
to new media that conforms to what Lev Manovich describes as “numerical
representation, modularity, automation, variation and cultural transcoding” ().
By contrast, Chinese scholars prefer to enshrine online literature as an emerging
genre, or more importantly, as Li Zhenling avers, a sort of cross-cultural world
literature and national literature in the Internet age, amounting to “the fourth
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largest cultural phenomenon in the world” (). Chinese scholars’ trials of
theorizing online literary criticism through the prism of digital humanities would
prospectively popularize this “world literature” further.
erefore, on the grounds of sorting out and summarizing the Western theory
of digital humanities, Chinese scholars have reected on its key concepts and put
forward new viewpoints on distant reading and online literary criticism, imparting
a sense of indigenization and innovation in the wave of digital humanities studies
in the era of AI. What they need to break through, in contrast with the Western
scholarship, is the critical practice and wider popularity of digital humanities in
literary studies.
POSTHUMAN THEORY
“Posthumanism” has constituted a hot topic in Western academic circles in
recent years. Since the s, the related research results have been surging.
In “Prometheus as Performer: Towards a Posthumanist Culture?,” Ihab Hassan
pioneers the concept of “posthumanism” and pregures the advent of a posthuman
epoch, yet its denition is still ambiguous. N. Katherine Hayles’s How We Became
Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics is widely
regarded as a manifesto of posthuman discourse. Hayles constructs a narrative
framework of informational, controlled, and posthuman bodies, and presents its
central idea as the union of humans and articial intelligence: “In the posthuman,
there are no essential dierences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence
and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot
teleology and human goals” (). “Posthuman,” therefore, signals the mutualistic
symbiosis between humans and articial intelligence in the near future. It is, per
se, a sort of perception rather than a concrete form, and is essentially a speculation
on the relationship between humans and contemporary technology. Other
representative works include Robert Pepperell’s e Post-Human Condition, Neil
Badmington’s Posthumanism, Rosi Braidotti’s e Posthuman, Sonia Baelo-Allué
and Mónica Calvo-Pascual’s Transhumanism and Posthumanism in Twenty-First
Century Narrative, and Christine Daigle and Matthew Hayler’s Posthumanism in
Practice. ese works display Western scholars’ ongoing debate over the posthuman
and its aftereect on sciences, humanities, education, the Anthropocene, and the
age of AI. Aware of the rapid development of AI technology and the blurring of the
boundary between man and machine, Chinese academic circles also reexplore the
essence of man via the theory of “posthumanism.”
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Chinese scholars have embraced and advanced the resources of Western
posthuman theory, and their major contribution is to classify, discern, and
discard certain presumptions and to illuminate those unique critical discourses
fundamental to this theory. For instance, in “Posthuman eory: From Critical
eory to Poetics of Subjectivity,” Yang Jianguo denes and dierentiates the terms
“posthuman,” “posthuman theory,” and “posthumanism,” indicating the evolutionary
direction of posthuman theory towards a poetics of subjectivity. In the essay,
noteworthily, he diagnoses three kinds of subject images in posthuman theory—
the cyborg subject, the zoe subject, and the actor-network subject—and identies
from its poetics of subjectivity four parameters, that is, “imaginary representation,”
“open intermediation,” “heterogeneous polysemy,” and “other-directed vectoriality”
(). Also, in “Nomadism of Life: An Introduction into Rosi Braidotti’s Posthuman
Critical eory,” he classies posthuman conceptions in Western academia into
four branches: futurist posthuman theory, critical posthuman theory, feminist
posthuman theory, and philosophical posthuman theory of science and technology,
among which Braidotti’s critical posthuman theory is favored and crystallized into
four core views: “the view of life centered on ‘Zoe,’ the view of nomadism based on
‘becoming,’ the view of the global based on ‘the local,’ and the view of politics based
on ‘creation’” (). Yang’s introduction and interpretation of Western posthuman
critical theories, to a certain extent, enhances the breadth and profundity of
posthuman theories and provides a supplementary theoretical framework for both
Eastern and Western researchers.
In addition, Chinese scholars have tentatively forged some fresh theoretical
discourses by incorporating some other critical perspectives into posthuman
theory. For instance, in “Articial Intelligence and Post-Human Aesthetics,” Wang
Xiaohua combines posthuman theory with aesthetics and puts forward three
forms of posthuman aesthetics: “the interactive aesthetics of human, machine, and
natural existence,” “the embodied aesthetics of human-machine continuity,” and
“the enhanced ecological aesthetics of machine subject” (). In “Post-Humanism,
Modern Technology and the Future of the Humanities,” Yan Guidi demonstrates,
from the perspective of the philosophy of technology, the congeniality between
posthuman theory and critical theories of technology constructed by Karl Marx,
Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas. Meanwhile, he points
up the dierence between the “subject/object” dualism in Western philosophy and
the “unication of man and nature” (天人合一) in traditional Chinese ideology (),
calling more attention to those contemporary problems entrenched in China.
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e discussion of posthuman theory in Chinese academic circles not only
dives into a dialogue with the international academia, but also marches towards
a succession of unique Chinese discourses. Yet there is still a long way to go:
theoretical exploration of the posthuman in the era of AI requires more eorts
from the Eastern world, and Chinese scholars ought to keep a closer eye on the
localization and complication of Chinese issues.
REVOLUTION AND EXPANSION OF LITERARY CRITICAL PRACTICE
e unstinting trove of innovative literary theories has paved way for the revolution
and expansion of literary critical practice in the era of AI. Broadly speaking, where
Western scholars leverage their theoretical resources, such as cognitive poetics,
humanities computing, digital formalism, and posthumanism, to navigate the
trend of new-fashioned literary research, Chinese critics entertain a propensity
for humanistic concern and critical thinking. More specically, Chinese scholars
contribute to the prosperity of literary studies by making the best of ethical literary
criticism, looking into particular literary problems and discourses in the era of
AI, and guring out the similarities and dierences between AI literature and
traditional literature.
PROMOTING ETHICAL LITERARY CRITICISM
Ethical issue is a key concern in the era of AI. With the rapid development of
environmental engineering, biomedicine, gene editing, big data analysis, and other
high technologies, human subjectivity has substantially faltered and a battery of
ethical issues have successively ensued. How to accurately apprehend the “double-
edged sword” nature of the era of AI and poignantly ruminate on the ethical issues
resulting from technological progress is a pivotal task jointly confronted by natural
sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Under these circumstances, Chinese
critics have been devoted to interdisciplinary research, focusing on such topics as
environmental ethics, biotechnological ethics, and robotic ethics in literature.
Environmental ethics in literary criticism is principally concerned with the
climate crisis and the problem of garbage, which has led to the consideration
of environmental justice, non-human discourse, and the Anthropocene. In
the twenty-rst century, the climate crisis has become a controversial topic.
As Wang Hongri accentuates, “as climate change becomes intertwined with
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capitalism, neoliberalism, consumerism, and the like, its discourses have proved
to be prominently complicated” (). e development of AI technology has not
alleviated environmental problems, but brought a greater burden to the ecological
environment with more natural resources consumption and more new solid
waste due to the depreciation of AI products. In October , when “e th
International Conference on Ethical Literary Criticism” was held in Beijing, China,
more than scholars from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and
other countries participated in the conference and presented their understanding
of literary criticism in the age of AI. e climate issue has aroused many scholars’
attention (not limited to Chinese): for instance, Karen ornber delivered a keynote
presentation entitled “Ethical Literary Criticism, Climate, and Gender Justice in the
Era of Articial Intelligence,” pointing out that the environmental problems caused
by climate change have not been alleviated by the development of technology, but
rather increased the vulnerability of disadvantaged groups (Huang Qi ). In the
academic forum “Anthropocene, Climate Change, and Literary Reproduction”
held in , Chinese scholars combined the study of climate crisis narratives with
postmodern critical theories and perspectives such as ethics and justice to probe
into intergenerational justice, climate ethics, ecological cosmopolitanism, and the
compatibility between Chinese Taoist thought and Anthropocene theory. Some
Chinese journal articles that touch upon climate change in the Anthropocene
include Jiang Lifu’s “A Brief History of Cli-Fi and a Tentative Construction of the
Anthropocene Cli-Fi Criticism,” Wang Hongri’s “Scale Critique, Nonhuman Agency,
and Mesh: Critical Approaches to Climate Change Fiction,” Yuan Yuan’s “Critical
Climate Change: A eoretical Perspective for the Construction of World Literary
History,” and Hua Yuanyuan’s “Echoes of Tao: Taoist oughts and the eory and
Reality of the Anthropocene.” ese conferences and articles situate human and
nonhuman in the geological phylogeny of the earth to highlight the signicance
of nonhuman agency and decentralization in the latest literary criticism, thus
embracing and advocating a future-oriented and ethics-oriented approach in the
era of AI.
Moreover, Chinese scholars have also taken note of garbage writing in literary
works, inquiring into the cruxes, causes, and solutions of ecological problems. For
instance, Dai Guiyu and Lü Xiaofei argue that the garbage narrative in Don DeLillo’s
novel Underground unveils the anti-ecological nature of the capitalist system and
calls for “adhering to the ecological socialist views of world, labor, consumption
and happiness” (). Zhang Jianran asserts that novelist Cormac McCarthy’s
e Road, by means of garbage writing, interrogates consumerist ideology and
anthropocentric thought, undermines the myth of technology, and exhibits “the
power to counter against alienated consumption, alleviate the burden of ecological
environment and save the subject” (). e concern for environmental ethics
demonstrates Chinese scholars’ humanistic care and critical thinking, ushering in
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a new perspective for literary criticism (particularly on resource consumption and
new waste) in the wave of AI technology.
e ethical criticism of biotechnology focuses on the impact of articial
intelligence, bioengineering, and cloning technology on the human body and
social ethics, expressing concern for moral responsibility and care for life ethics.
In “e th International Conference on Ethical Literary Criticism,” Stuart
Christie scrutinized the impact of articial intelligence, computational thinking,
and technological rationality on human creativity, and called on the government
and the public to assume ethical responsibilities so as to “realize the harmonious
coexistence of ethical thinking and computational thinking” (as qtd. in Huang
Qi ). Many Chinese critics pay keen attention to biotechnological writing
in literary works—the diethylstilbestrol in Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, the
transgenic crops in Ozeki’s All Over Creation, and the test-tube baby in Jodi
Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, among others—that highlight such issues as food
poisoning, reproductive justice, and medical ethics. ey illustrate in literary
criticism that biotechnological development is a potentially huge threat to life,
health, and traditional ethics. For example, Wang Taohua and Cheng Tongxin,
by probing into the theme of human cloning in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let
Me Go, criticize the backlash of biotechnology against life ethics, evincing that
“the eternal essence of ethics and morality is to respect and revere life” (). e
critique of biotechnology in the era of AI attests to Chinese scholars’ concern for
the alienation of technology and the gravity of life ethics, which, to some degree,
can reconcile the contradictions between technology and ethics and expedite the
sustainable development of human society.
Chinese academics also register a sustained interest in robotic ethics or
human-machine relations in science ction. Most researchers, grounded in the
theory of ethical literary criticism, investigate from multiple perspectives the
robotic ethics in Western science ction like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Philip
K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ian McEwan’s Machines Like
Me, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, and so on. While analyzing these novels,
they persistently enquire: “Can machines think?” or “Can robots replace humans?”,
performing an unceasing exploration of the core ethical issues in the era of AI.
For example, Lü Chao divides human attitudes towards robots in Western science
ction into three stages: “refusing to accept them, conning them to the servant
role, and blending human and robot into post-human Cyborg” (), suggesting
a reection on robotic ethics and a prediction of the impending occurrence of
human-machine symbiosis. In the meantime, Chinese science-ction writers also
dedicate themselves to imagining and delineating robots. Unlike those well-known
Chinese science-ction novels such as Han Song’s (韩松) Red Ocean (红色海洋)
and Liu Cixin’s (刘慈欣) e ree-Body Problem trilogy (三体) which concentrate
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on ecological crises, younger writers begin to foray into the subject of robotic
ethics, with works like Chen Qiufan’s (or Stanley Chan, 陈楸帆) e Waste Tide (荒
潮) and Fei Dao’s (飞氘) e Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales (讲故事的机器人).
Chinese scholars’ literary criticism and creation of robotic, human-machine ethics
make for a mutual learning between Eastern and Western literatures, cultures, and
civilizations.
To sum up, Chinese critics in the era of AI accord particular attention to ethical
issues in the wake of scientic and technological development and strive to rethink
and reemploy existing Western theories from the perspective of traditional Chinese
culture and philosophy, thereupon purveying some sorts of Chinese thoughts and
imaginations for the advancement of literary criticism. To put it frankly, however,
Western theoretical resources—especially on climate change, medical humanities,
posthumanism, and the Anthropocene—still occupy a crucial position for Chinese
scholars to articulate their ethical concern for those technological or planetary
emergencies. e Chinese circles, whose original theories and literary genres
remain comparatively out of proportion to their Western counterparts, are thus
beholden to bring forth the most distinctive ones, among them ethical literary
criticism and Chinese science ction, to the Western world.
EXPANDING ISSUES AND DISCOURSES OF LITERARY CRITICISM
e advent of the era of AI has exerted a profound impact on the issues and
discourses that currently dominate literary criticism. Since the twentieth century,
the dominant kernels of literary criticism have rotated around either the internal
compositions of literary texts (such as literary technique, structure, deconstruction,
etc.) or the external contexts (such as issues of gender, class, race, society, culture,
colonization, empire, etc.). In other words, literary critics’ focus is either on the
artistic form of literary imagination or on the human situation and the way of
seeking a breakthrough in those complex environments, all premised on human
experiences and spirits. In the era of mechanical reproduction, industrialization and
technological development have subverted the ontology and evaluation standards
of art with an alien force, giving birth to new critical discourses such as cultural
production and technological criticism. Nowadays, in the age of AI, the relationship
between humanities and technology becomes much more complicated, conveying
a dynamic interaction and integration that is bound to inject fresh blood into the
discourse of literary criticism. Huang Yue has translated this transition as such: “If
‘simulation’ represents the core of technology in the age of mechanical reproduction,
then virtuality is becoming an important proposition common to literature and
even to all humanities” (). AI’s computational language, neural networks, and
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machine designs are all characterized by virtuality and non-humanity, so literary
studies have begun to add the layer of virtuality, and literary critical discourses
have shifted to post-human and non-human theoretical constructions and critical
practices.
Literary criticism in the context of virtuality has developed entirely new topics
in both Western and Chinese circles. Western scholars are expert in theoretical
debates and explorations of neoteric narratives. In Virtual Reality: e Last
Human Narrative?, for example, orsten Botz-Bornstein disentangles the
characteristics of human reality and posthuman virtual reality and adumbrates “a
post-anthropocentric situation” that reconciles both (). Botz-Bornstein’s work
intimates a frequently-used approach in Western literary criticism: invoking
manifold metaphysical concepts from Western philosophers (like Friedrich
Bouterwek and Friedrich Nietzsche in Botz-Bornstein’s case) to compare with or
come up with new theories and practices. Chinese scholars, relatively inadequate
in thinking back to absorb traditional theoretical assets, usually turn directly to
contemporary concerns and look for possible solutions. eir literary criticism
xates not only on the ethical dimension mentioned above, but also on the bodily
and emotional dimensions.
In terms of the bodily dimension, Chinese scholars pay close attention to
the phenomenon of human-computer intermingling and the combination of
organismic and inorganic bodies in the era of AI, thereupon exploring such
themes as virtual bodies and new subjects. From the outset of the s, when
the concept of “Cyborg” was initiated in the Western academia, international and
Chinese scholars have been debating on Cyborgs, modied humans, biochemical
humans, and other mechanized organisms. “Cyborg” turns into a high-frequency
word in the era of AI. Applying Cyborg to literature means to rely “on the basis
of traditional literature, creating original novels on ‘Articial Intelligence’ and
‘Intelligence Amplication,’ including topics like robot manufacturing, articial
limbs, genetic modication, and full internet access” (Wang Yiping ). ese
topics are essentially reections on and explorations of new forms of the body. For
example, Liu Shuliang indicates that the concept of body occupies a key position in
the era of AI, and he summarizes three paradigms for interpreting virtual bodies:
the “coded body” constructed by digital games and virtual reality, the “metaphoric
body” that reconstructs human senses and inuences mass communication of
digital art in the Internet-based digital age, and the “esh emulation” that seeks to
align the technological body with the human body (). Flesh emulation, a literary
theme that science ction enjoys, constitutes a bold imagination of future bodies
and new subjects. In “e Image of Articial Intelligence in Contemporary Science
Fiction,” Cheng Ye arms the possibility of the fusion of the human body and AI,
and points out that behind the fusion of human and machine lies human anxiety
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about the loss of identity and subjectivity: “In the proliferating virtual illusions,
the ‘human’ loses its subjectivity, and its ethical life and spiritual values will be
redened by the AI program” (). From virtual bodies and new subjects to
disordered ethical relations and destructed spiritual values, literary discourses in
the AI era show great particularity and vitality.
In the emotional dimension, Chinese scholars respond to the central questions
of whether AI has emotions and whether it can possess emotions, pointing to
the nucleus of humanist values. e essence of literature is to express emotion,
which falls within the scope of traditional literary criticism. But is emotion a
unique human trait? Are desires and individuality in the purview of humanism
the exclusive privileges of human beings? In response to these questions, Dick’s
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is taken as a popular research object for
Chinese critics and has provoked dierent critical opinions. For instance, in “e
Emotion and Ethics in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” Wang Zhenping
and Chen Xin compare the evolution of androids’ emotions and the degradation of
human emotions in the novel, attributing the protagonists’ cognitive dilemma to
not only technical issues but also social psychological and moral ethical problems.
In “A Study ofDesires andEmotions inDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,”
Wang Yuying and Hao Tianhu interpret the titular “dream” as androids’ ability to
communicate desires and emotions, revealing “the humans’ lack of emotion, the
evolution of the androids’ desire and its eect on human emotion” (). e
tentative dissection of bionic robots’ desires and emotions showcases Chinese
scholars’ outlook on human-machine emotional communication as well as their
caution on the control of AI technology. Chinese scholars also scout for innovative
approaches to aective machines and articial emotions. Liu Yuedi argues in
“Articial Intelligence, Emotional Machine and the ‘Paradox of Emotion-Intellect’”
that robots lack emotional internality and their “intelligence” is greater than
“emotion,” so “the active engagement of the development of science and technology
in the eld of human emotions is to try to break a new ‘paradox of emotion-intellects’”
(). Hu Jingpu and Chen Fan adopt a more positive attitude in “Approach Analysis
of ‘Articial Emotion’ Research,” pointing out that articial emotion research can
promote the integration of technology and humanities, “forming a two-way giving
of emotion between human and technology” (). Regardless of diverse outlooks
and attitudes, Chinese scholars’ research on machines’ emotions adds a new layer
to literary criticism in the era of AI.
Another heatedly disputed topic within literary criticism in the era of AI is the
theoretical construction and critical practice of non-human narratives. Shang Biwu
has investigated the concept, types, and functions of non-human narratives, and
presented his critical practices with the science ction of Ian McEwan and Kazuo
Ishiguro as the core. In “Non-Human Narratives: Concepts, Types and Functions,”
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he divides non-human narratives into four types: “narratives of natural objects,
narratives of supernatural objects, narratives of articial objects, and narratives
of articial humans” (), which exhibits an eort to undermine anthropocentric
thinking in Western narrative theories. His seminal essay, “Towards a eory of
Nonhuman Narrative,” which appeared in the international journal Neohelicon,
bears testimony to Chinese scholars’ theoretical dialogues with Western literary
circles. Shang’s focus on narratives of articial objects and articial humans can
serve as a response to the literary representation of androids and robots in the era
of AI. In “Delving into eir Worlds: Nonhuman Narrative in Nature’s Science
Fictions,” he further generalizes four sorts of non-human narratives in science
ctions: plant narratives, alien narratives, thing narratives, and machine narratives,
noting that science ctions “not only portray the future worlds of how human lives
are changed by science and technology, but also reveal how humans approach the
nonhuman world and investigate the unknown” (). ese concepts and types
of nonhuman narratives, to a large extent, would contribute to the theoretical
reconstruction and practical innovation of literary criticism in the era of AI.
In a word, Chinese scholars have made eorts to integrate the changing features
of the AI era into literary criticism, to expand the scope of literary research issues
and discourses, and to promote the interdisciplinary and multidimensional
studies of literature. What they need to improve are the ways to absorb traditional
philosophical treasures into contemporary concerns (as Western scholars have
done) and disseminate their innovative theories and practices in the international
arena.
COMPARING AI LITERATURE WITH TRADITIONAL LITERATURE
Literary criticism in the era of AI cannot shy away from the clash with AI literature.
Articial intelligence has not only updated the vocabularies of literary criticism,
but also participated in literary creation and generated new literary forms. In ,
Microsoft released a collection of poems titled Sunshine Misses Windows (阳光失了
玻璃窗) created by the robot “Microsoft Little Ice” (微软小冰), demonstrating AI’s
extraordinary machine-learning capabilities and creative abilities. In , OpenAI
launched the AI-driven chatbot program ChatGPT, which can understand and
learn human language and conduct contextual dialogue and literary creation based
on the technology of natural language processing. As Yang Shousen concedes in
“Articial Intelligence and Artistic Creation,” “regardless of people’s acceptability
and attitudes, the development of AI in the eld of literature and art has challenged
traditional human creativity and is changing the tradition of human creation and
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the concepts of literature and art” (). is prophecy has been largely borne out
in recent years.
e intervention of AI in literary writing has triggered a heated discussion among
Western and Chinese scholars. Western scholars have expressed dierent opinions
on AI’s literary capacities, especially narrative ones. Angus Fletcher criticizes AI’s
symbolic logic, lack of causal reasoning, and incapability of processing the narrative
components of literature, claiming that “computers will never learn to read or
write literature” (). Jon Chun and Katherine Elkins, in their rebuttal to Fletcher’s
article, detail the key concepts, historical progress, and landmark breakthroughs of
AI technology and look forward to ever-emerging AI models that “can analyze and
generate narrative” (). N. Katherine Hayles’s “Inside the Mind of an AI: Materiality
and the Crisis of Representation,” in an eclectic manner, not only nds fault with
the “systemic fragility of reference for AI’s language understanding,” but also points
to the prospective engagement of literary criticism with “machine narratives” ().
Chinese scholars have also joined the debate on AI’s literary valences, yet in a more
comprehensive and comparative fashion. ey strive to distinguish the similarities
and dierences between AI literature and traditional literature mainly from three
aspects: the creation mechanism, essential characteristics, and limitations of AI
literature.
First, Chinese scholars have analyzed the impact of AI literature on traditional
literary creation process and literary concepts. Lu Wenchao, in “Dierences
between Articial Intelligence and Human’s Work,” points out that “AI works are
not dierent from human works in terms of formal demerits or merits, but rather
in terms of artistic events in the creative process” (). In “AI Writing and New
Changes in Literature,” Yang Dandan explores the changes of AI literature in regard
to occurring context, creative subjects, textual patterns, and existential value:
AI writing makes the subject of literary creation replaced from “human” to “machine,” in
which process, the boundary between “human” and “non-human” becomes blurred, and
literature becomes the mixture of “human” and “machine.” e replacement of literary
subject equips the intelligent writing machine with the dual attributes of creative subject
and productive tool, thereby producing “regenerative” texts and transforming literature
from “aesthetic art” to “computational technology.” ()
More critically, in “Literary Mind and Machine Chip: Articial Intelligence
Literature in the View of Ancient Chinese Literary eory,” Tao Feng and Liu Jiamin
resort to the parameters of indigenous Chinese literary theories to compare the
similarities and dierences between AI literature and traditional literature: in the
generative stage, the former is “a thing without consciousness” (无识之物), while
the latter is “an instrument with a soul” (有心之器) (); in the creative conceptual
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stage, the former is based on “imaginary coding” (想象编码), while the latter is on
“the unication of soul and things” (神与物游) (); and in the nal materialized
stage, the former appears as “aective computing” (情感计算), while the latter as
“mind governing disposition” (心统性情) (). Chinese scholars’ multi-dimensional
comparison between AI writing rationales and traditional literary components,
yoked with an indigenous Chinese standpoint, is instrumental in an in-depth
understanding of the maelstrom of multifarious textual forms in the AI era.
Second, Chinese scholars have attempted to summarize the essential attributes
of AI literature. For example, in “From Textual Experiments to Experimental Texts:
Expressive Repetition in ‘Articial Intelligence Literature’,” Zhu Tianhua examines
the machine thinking of AI experimental texts and puts forward that the core
feature of AI writing is the repetition of expression. In “On the Symbolic Form and
Embodied Ethics of AI Literary Texts,” Peng Chengguang points to the symbolic
nature of AI literature and divides it into three textual forms: “meaningless text” (无
意义文本), “quasi-meaning text” (准意义文本) and “meaningful text” (意义文本)
(), meanwhile emphasizing that embodied ethical principles should be abided
by in interpretive activities. In “Articial Intelligence Literature and Its Challenge
to the Conception of Modern Literature,” Li Guocheng contextualizes AI literature
in the framework of post-human and post-literary developments and relocates
it to the sequential and connectionist paradigms, arguing that “contemporary AI
literature can be perceived as cyborg literature, harmonizing human and cyborg
identities and oering cross-boundary potential in terms of human and machine
perspectives, author and reader roles, and language and non-language texts” ().
ese articles record Chinese scholars’ continuous inquiries into the nature of AI
literature: not only in the linguistic or textual dimension, but also in relational and
ethical ones.
ird, Chinese scholars have realized AI literature’s insurmountable—at least
for now—limitations. For instance, in “On Articial Intelligence and Literary
Creation,” Wang Chunhong reconsiders AI literature from the aspects of literary
tradition, literary ontology, and literary psychology, highlighting the irreplaceability
of human subjective consciousness. In “e Dilemma of Interpreting Articial
Intelligence Literature and Its Ways Out,” Wang Zeqing and Meng Fanxiao point
out AI’s lack of experience and the interpretative unsaturation of AI literature,
revealing the dual dilemma of interpretation and creation of AI literature. In “e
Triple Challenges of Articial Intelligence Literature,” Tao Feng recapitulates the
three major limitations of AI literature as such: ) it is unable to generate literary
language with “aesthetic logic”; ) it does not possess the core elements of literary
creation such as emotion, presence, and transcendence; and ) it further aggravates
mechanical reproduction and brings about an advanced integration of technology
into art (). In “e Development of ‘Automatic Writing’: On the Transformation
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of Articial Intelligence into Artistic Intelligence,” Shi Liang observes ChatGPT as
a “Weak AI” that lacks self-consciousness and pinpoints AI’s essential absence in
three aspects, that is, “embodied absence (具身性缺失), aesthetic absence (审美性
缺失), and reective absence (反思性缺失)” (-). Chinese critics, in a similar
vein to Western scholars who are mostly interrogating AI’s narrative capabilities,
contribute to this debate by incorporating more evaluation criteria and facing up
to AI’s challenge and impetus to traditional literary studies.
rough delving into the historical features of literary criticism and making
recourse to indigenous categories from traditional Chinese culture, Chinese
scholars shed new light on the similarities and dierences between AI literature
and traditional literature. eir explorations of the creative process, essential
features, and extant limitations of AI literature bid fair to enact a constructive
dialogue with the Western scholarship. More noteworthily, Chinese scholars are,
at this very moment, interested in and engaged with a theoretical construction for
“AI literary criticism,” which is still an untrodden eld, even for Western literary
circles. In “Scientic Selection and AI Literature,” Nie equates AI phase as the
stage of “scientic selection,” appraises AI literature as a “new literature genre,” and
congures such new critical concepts as “AIGC multi-modal literature” and “AIGC
digital writers” (). In “Criticism of AI Literature: Approach, Paradigm and Focus,”
Zeng Wei, after redening AI literature as “algorithmic literature” and “intelligent
entity,” constructs a coordinate diagram for AI literary criticism that consists of the
AI works, the world, the human-machine creative community, and the audience,
and charts an approach that “extend[s] from textual criticism to algorithmic
criticism, and further to relational criticism, incorporating reexive criticism to
reect on human literature” (). ese works not only testify to Chinese scholars’
ongoing discussion on the limitations and potentials of AI literature, but also signal
an invitation to Western circles to reexamine the challenges and possibilities for
literary studies in the AI era.
CONCLUSION
In the era of AI, Chinese scholars have made some new explorations of literary
studies from both theoretical and practical aspects, forming a dialogue with
Western academic circles and casting new light on our understanding of the
symbiotic relationship between humans and computers. eir research mainly
reects three signicant characteristics. First, the perspective of mutual learning
between the East and the West is the starting point and basic principle of Chinese
scholars’ research. Chinese scholars are devoted to embracing rewarding theories
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and methods from international academic circles, to critically reecting on
these theoretical and methodological resources, and to putting forward original
viewpoints endemic to Chinese contexts and thoughts. is implies a mode of
unbiased, inclusive, and broad-minded thinking, one that may well conduce to the
emergence of more reasonable and more viable approaches. Such mode of thinking
can nd evidence in the development of brain text theory, the promotion of digital
humanities and posthuman theory, the expansion of ethical literary criticism, and
the attention paid to new literary criticism. Second, harmony in diversity is the
basic position of Chinese scholars’ research. Literary studies have always been
placed in the collision between dierent cultures and ideologies. When Chinese
scholars apply the theory of digital humanities and posthuman criticism to the
analysis of Chinese culture and, vice versa, employ the original Chinese ethical
literary criticism to the interpretation of world literature, they follow a sense
and stance of harmony in diversity. Finally, interdisciplinary research is Chinese
scholars’ fundamental approach. e essential feature of the era of AI is indeed
interdisciplinary, which determines the main characteristics of literary research
in this age. Brain text theory, digital humanities, and posthuman theory are all
proposed and promoted under the umbrella of interdisciplinary research methods.
Environmental ethics, biotechnology ethics, robot ethics, virtual bodies, new
subjects, and AI literature are also testimony to the core status of interdisciplinary
perspectives in both scientic and humanities studies. Both Western and Chinese
scholars ought to undertake the responsibility of reconsidering and reviving the
whole gamut of literary studies in the era of AI from, if possible, a mutual-learning,
inclusive yet indigenized, and cross-disciplinary perspective.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
is work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China under grant
number [BWW].
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NOTES
. If we take “AI literature” (人工智能文学) as the title for information retrieval, there will
be forty-two scholarly articles (which are indexed in Chinese Social Sciences Citation
Index) exhibited in the CNKI database until December . By contrast, there are only
sixteen entries (half of them from Eastern scholars) in the literature category in Web of
Science. Dierent from Chinese critics who are keen on reexamining the full spectrum of
literary research, Western scholars, as we will argue, accord more attention to humanities
computing and literary narrativity in the era of AI.
. In the special issue on “Culture, eory, Data” (/) in New Literary History (Johns
Hopkins UP), Ted Underwood and others count “data” as the core of current humanities
and claim in the introduction that “computation has become important enough in a wide
range of disciplines to prompt a broad conversation about its implications for cultural
theory” (). e featured articles mainly argue for such assumptions as computational
literary studies, distant reading, computational cultural theory, and a data-driven theory
of narrativity. Similarly, Critical Inquiry (U of Chicago P) features such articles as
Katherine Bode’s “What’s the Matter with Computational Literary Studies?” () and
James A. Evans and Jacob G. Foster’s “Algorithmic Abduction: Robots for Alien Reading”
(). CLCWeb (Purdue UP) is also calling for papers on “AI and/as Form,” with an
attempt to theorize AI’s style and digital formalism.
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“以大脑为载体的脑文本、以书写材料为载
体的书写文本和以电子介质为载体的电子文本（电子文本也称为数字文本）。”
. It is worth noting that Kritika Kultura has proered two forums on “Ethical Literary
Criticism, Brain Text, and New Readings of World Literature” (/) guest edited
by Shang Biwu and Maria Luisa Torres Reyes. e contributors in the issues are mostly
from China, Philippines, or Korea. Also, Anh Dan Nguyen’s “Brain Text and Vietnamese
Novelists’ Ethical Choices Since ” () in Forum for World Literature Studies
examines Vietnamese novelists’ textualization of their brain texts, thus testifying to the
reception of the “brain text” theory in Vietnam.
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“对实证数据的数字化和可视化是计算机批
评区别于莫莱蒂早期远读方法的重要标志。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“网络文学类型研究”“网络文学区域性研
究”“网络文学‘场外批评’的建构”。
. As we have noted, Western scholars began digital humanities studies, especially literary
computing as in Roberto Busa’s “Aquinas Project,” much earlier than Chinese
researchers. As regards academic journals about this eld, in Western circles, Digital
Scholarship in the Humanities (Oxford UP) was founded in and International
Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing: A Journal of Digital Humanities (Edinburgh
UP) was in . In China, however, Digital Humanities (Tsinghua University and
Zhonghua Book Company) was initiated in and Digital Humanities Research
(Renmin University of China) was in .
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“想象表征性”“开放中介性”“异质多义
性”“他向矢量性”。
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. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“人类、机器、自然存在的交互美学”“人
类—机器连续性的具身性美学”“机器主体的加强版的生态美学”。
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“气候变化与资本主义、新自由主义、消费
主义等交错纠缠，话语复杂性愈发凸显。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“呼吁教师、家长以及政府承担起伦理教育
责任，以此为基础实现伦理思维与计算思维的和谐共存。”
. Nie Zhenzhao’s theory of “Ethical Literary Criticism” has attracted attention from Western
scholars. ere are entries containing this term in the titles in Web of Science through
December . e latest articles from Western scholars include Arleen Ionescu’s
“Dilemmas Beyond Ethics: A Critique of Eastern Ethical Literary Criticism” (), Tomo
Virk’s “A Chinese Version of Ethical Literary Criticism” (), Galin Tihanov’s “On the
Signicance and Originality of Nie Zhenzhao’s Ethical Literary Criticism” (), Knut
Brynhildsvoll’s “Homo Homini Lupus: e Relationship between Man and Animal as a
Topical Challenge to Ethical Literary Criticism” (), Leonard Harris’s “Universality:
Ethical Literary Criticism (Nie Zhenzhao) and the Advocacy eory of Aesthetics (Alain
Locke)—Ethical Literary Criticism between China and America” (), and so forth.
ere are sixty-four entries about “Chinese science ction” in Web of Science through
December . A special issue on “Chinese Science Fiction in Global Dialogism,” guest
edited by Wu You, is forthcoming in Critical Arts (Routledge), which bids fair to promote
this genre further on the global stage.
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“如果说‘仿真’代表了机械复制时代的技
术核心，那么虚拟性正成为文学乃至所有人文学科共同面对的重要命题。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“在文学传统的基础上，形成了以融合机器
人制造、人造肢体、基因改造、网络全接入等的‘人工智能’与‘智能增强’（IA/
Intelligence Augmentation或Intelligence Amplication）为主题的小说。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“在不断增殖的虚拟幻象中，‘人’失去了
主体性，其伦理生活、精神价值将被AI程序所定义。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“不管人们是否接受、看法如何，人工智能
在文学艺术领域的开发，已经对人类的传统创作提出了挑战，已经在改变着人类传
统的创作格局及其文艺观念。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is:“人工智能作品与人类作品不是劣作与杰作
的差别，而是艺术事件的差别。”
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is: 人工智能写作使文学生产主体实现由“人”
到“机器”的置换，在置换过程中“人”与“非人”之间的界限变得暧昧而模糊，
文学成为“人”与“机器”的混合体；文学主体的置换使智能写作机器具有生产主
体和生产工具的双重属性，并由此产生“再生性”文本，文学由“美的艺术”转
向“计算技术”。
. Translation ours. e original Chinese is: 人工智能难以生成具有“审美逻辑”的语
言；人工智能文学产品具有一定的艺术形式，但是却不具有艺术的核心要素，如情
感、在场感和超越性；人工智能艺术进一步发展了机械复制艺术，是技术对艺术的
高级整合。
. N. Katherine Hayles has touched upon this topic in her “Inside the Mind of an AI:
Materiality and the Crisis of Representation” (/), but only in seven pages.
She puts forward four strategies for analyzing GPT-’s texts from literary viewpoints:
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) source texts; ) stylistics of input with regard to output; ) how the language of a
response refracts human language use; and ) reections of ideological biases in
databases (-). Chinese scholars’ theoretical articles on AI literary criticism
have appeared in international journals. Lyu Hongbo and Fang Wenkai’s “AI Turn in
Ethical Literary Criticism,” published in Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature in ,
demonstrates the necessity, feasibility, and development trends of the AI turn in literary
criticism, indicating that “[i]n the era of AI, the roles of authors, literary works, readers,
and critics will undergo signicant transformations” (). Tao Feng’s “AI Literature:
eDisenchantment ofWord andtheEnchantment ofCode,” published in Neohelicon,
also in , recognizes AI texts as literature and argues for the theory of reader-
centered reception, and the analysis and regulation of code in AI literary criticism. It
evaluates AI literature as an artistic event that results in “the disenchantment of art and
the enchantment of technology” ().
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Abstract
When clarifying Spinoza’s concept of aect, Deleuze declares, “Hope as such or love as
such represents nothing, strictly nothing.” In this paper, I approach the question of love by
taking a detour of nonhuman anity. First, I present this paper as an experimental becoming
that weaves through heterogeneous lines of thinking and creating. Second, explicating the
Deleuzian-Guattarian notion of “abstract machine” alongside Isabelle Stengers’s gure of
“inappropriable unknown,” I argue for viewing the cosmos and art as interconnected abstract
machines that foster novel realities and communities. ird, I weave planetary thinking with
an interdisciplinary approach to propose a “planetary art machine of Cosmos,” where art and
science render invisible life forces visible. e discussions on abstract machines, attosecond
physics, quantum theory, and Paul Klee’s art reveal porous boundaries between humans,
nature, and the cosmos. Fourth, I take magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) as a model of molecular
creativity and follow some interconnected pathways of holobiont magnetotaxis in consortia to
illustrate Gaia politics of evolution or living together. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s concept
of transduction and Vladimir Vernadsky’s notion of life as cosmic energy transformers, I
redene magnetotaxis as a cosmopolitical process. Concluding with an archipelagic framework,
I reimagine theory as generative and aligned with the molecular processes of life, oering new
possibilities for coexistence and resistance within a planetary noösphere.
Keywords
Deleuze, magnetotaxis, postcolonial archipelagic thinking, Stengers, theoretical aect,
theoreticotaxis
LOVE IS A MOLECULAR ISLAND
Chun-mei Chuang
Soochow University
meihere@scu.edu.tw
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About the Author
Chun-Mei Chuang is a professor of Sociology at Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan. She
has authored three monographs in Chinese, with her most recent work titled “e Postcolonial
Anthropocene: Performative Politics of Life” (Taipei: Socio Publishing, ). In addition, she
has published numerous journal papers on feminist theory, trans-species politics, and planetary
imagination, including “e Diractive Politics of Postcolonial Cyborg Translation” (symplokē,
), “Planetary Memory and Diractive Immunity” (Bajo Palabra, ), “Aective Politics of
Magnetism: A Trans-species Reection on eoretical Aect” (Concentric, ), “Transversal
Symbiogenesis: Mapping a Nonlinear Postcolonial Future” (Kritika Kultura, ).
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My body is ocean literature.
— Syaman Rapongan
If there is a modern age, it is, of course, the age of the cosmic.
— Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A ousand Plateaus
Love is born
With solar ares
from two
Magnetic poles
— Rush, “e Speed of Love”
PRELUDE: AN EXPERIMENTAL BECOMING
Life is mysteriously creative and restricted. As Félix Guattari points out in the
context of scientic attitude, “life, thought, and the socius” constitute three “(self)-
organizing centers” (e Machinic Unconscious ). Organizing innovation in
life is no less than a revolution in the political community or a breakthrough in
theoretical work. One strives to live, think, and connect outside the box, to draw
up a new line across the boundaries, and to collaborate with molecular agents/
forces that constantly destratify the provisional organization. It is in the act of
destratication that one can “make consciousness an experimentation in life, and
passion a eld of continuous intensities, an emission of particles-signs” (Deleuze
and Guattari, A ousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia ).
e paper is an experimental becoming that weaves through heterogeneous
lines emerging in the contemporary force eld of planetary thinking. In the second
section, I rearticulate the Deleuzian-Guattarian notion of “abstract machine”
alongside Isabelle Stengers’s gure of “inappropriable unknown,” arguing for
viewing the cosmos and art as interconnected abstract machines that foster novel
realities and communities.
Drawing on attosecond physics, quantum theory, and artistic practice, I propose
in the third section an interdisciplinary concept of a “planetary art machine of
Cosmos” where invisible life forces are rendered visible through art and science.
One of these forces is the aective dimension of theory. e porous boundaries
between humans, nature, and the cosmos are revealed through the examination
of Klee’s works, such as e Sunken Island, alongside scientic advancements like
molecular technologies.
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In the fourth section, I follow some complicated pathways of holobiont
magnetotaxis in consortia to illustrate Gaia politics of evolution or living together.
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) and their evolutionary strategies portray how life
navigates and transforms its environment through molecular creativity, such as
magnetosome biomineralization, as well as trans-species innovation of metabolic
and sensory synergies. Drawing on Gilbert Simondon’s concept of transduction
and Vladimir Vernadsky’s notion of life as cosmic energy transformers, I redene
magnetotaxis as a cosmopolitical process—charting the unknown and co-creating
a planetary noösphere that connects life across boundaries, scales, and domains.
In conclusion, I propose a reimagined, embodied, and generative theory aligned
with the molecular processes of life and planetary art through an archipelagic
framework. In this framework, the islandscape of postcolonial theoretical aects
constitutes a vibrant eld of possibilities. As an experimental endeavor, this paper
conceptualizes theoretical aects, or “theoreticotaxis,” as dynamic forces that
traverse both corporeal and incorporeal realms. ese forces shape our shared
sense of direction and creativity within the planetary noösphere, nurturing new
modes of coexistence and resistance.
THE ABSTRACT MACHINE OF THE UNKNOWN
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari make two essential connections when discussing
Paul Klee’s artistic moment of the “deterritorialized, or rather deterritorializing
Cosmos” (Deleuze and Guattari, A ousand Plateaus, Capitalism and
Schizophrenia ). One is between the cosmic and the molecular, and another is
between the artist and a people that is still lacking. Indeed, Klee already draws out
these threaded connections with his paintings and words. e world made possible
by microscopy, one of the most accessible ways to employ modern molecular
technologies, has played a pivotal role in the artist’s study of nature. It is more a
process of seeing dierently and dierentially than merely seeing more. As Klee
points out, “even the small step of a glimpse through the microscope reveals to
us images which we should deem fantastic and over-imaginative if we were to see
them somewhere accidentally, and lacked the sense to understand them” (Klee, On
Modern Art ).
Klee’s artistic insight realizes that one needs a historically specic sense to
appreciate the microscopic images. A properly trained molecular sensibility is
necessary for cultivating one’s capacity to co-create with the universe. Hopefully,
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a new molecular cosmology will actualize itself with the timely reconciliation
between Earth and Cosmos in the current predicament of the Anthropocene,
where the human is simultaneously the oender, the judge, and the retributor. As
Stengers emphasizes in her project of cosmopolitics, the gure of the cosmos is
about “an inappropriable unknown” that requires one to “slow down” and open to
more possibilities than our rational calculation allows ().
Compared to Earth, which is simultaneously concrete under our feet and
symbolic in our heads, the Cosmos is almost already abstract enough to provoke
a head-spinning experience, cosmologically or philosophically. Nevertheless, both
Earth and Cosmos are concrete, alive, and embodied in every one of us as part of
planetary life and cosmic beings. Humans inhabit specic environments on Earth,
just like Earth dynamically situates itself in particular conditions in the universe or
Cosmos. e semiotic distinction between “cosmos” and “Cosmos” is both subtle
and shifting. It requires theoretical work that pays attention to the details of living
together with others and the unknown that is not ready for one’s understanding and
appropriation. Starting from an embodied planetary perspective, I propose to build
an intentional articulation between Stengers’s cosmos as a gure of “inappropriable
unknown” and Deleuze and Guattari’s Cosmos as an “abstract machine” that is put
into action by “each world as an assemblage” (Deleuze and Guattari, A ousand
Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia ).
An abstract machine is without physicality and semiosis. Instead, an abstract
machine as a diagram is “transsemiotic” (Deleuze and Guattari, A ousand
Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia ) since it transcends and transverses the
semiotic through transformation and translation. e Cosmos abstract machine is
about becoming other than oneself while never wholly separated from the “nonself.”
Each world becomes “the world” through innite co-becoming and co-composing
with one another. e other and the self are not opposites but are entangled in
redrawing the boundaries of everything. Immunologically, the self and nonself
patterns are recognizable through complex and subtle processes and are never
guaranteed (Silverstein and Rose ). e existence of autoimmune conditions
witnesses the slippery nuance of maintaining self-boundaries. Just like viruses can
evade and even exploit the immune mechanisms of their hosts, an organism’s own
immune cells and silenced genes can disrupt regulatory pathways. For example,
rogue autoantibodies may attack Xist molecules (RNA responsible for inactivating
females’ extra X chromosome) and cause Xist complex to act as “antigenic triggers”
(Dolgin; Dou et al. ). Self-care is a daunting task at all scales, as there are always
diverse “others” within, both physically and spiritually.
In computer science, an abstract machine, such as a Turing machine, is a
theoretical construct or model that analyzes the discrete systems’ dynamic
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behavior and function. In the age of generative AI and ChatGPT, it is revealing
that the abstract machine as a plane of immanence, or an image of thought
that “gives itself of what it means to think” (Deleuze and Guattari, What Is
Philosophy? ), shall become even more relevant for creating (un)timely
concepts and assemblages for remembering the future, which has been the
most crucial endeavor for drawing out the face of life. As cognitive scientist
Michael C. Frank describes, attempting to evaluate the remarkable capacities
of large language models (LLMs) is akin to encountering an “alien intelligence”
(). LLMs are trained to respond to human questions in natural language and
shamelessly imitate moral gestures, for example, sincerely apologizing when caught
with fabricated data. e alien nature of nonhuman intelligence lies in the fact that
every system of intelligence is a “black box” that lacks transparency, not unlike the
human mind (“ChatGPT is a black box” -). e ne line between generating
content and creating concepts or images is sub/molecular, similar to the possibility
of composing planetary life, depending on the dynamic subindividual energy forces.
Guattari touches on the essence of molecular sciences when he explains the
scientic relationship between symbols and particles, especially how scientists
“invent” new particles with machines and “a chain of symbols” and recreate
“nature” (Molecular Revolution ). However, nature is not simply overwritten by
machines. Considering quantum feminist Karen Barad’s insistence that “the nature
of nature” and “the nature of science” are ontologically intertwined (), we are
co-constituting with and within the universe the very nature of what is and what
can be co-constituted.
Operating through molecular technology, the partnership between science and
art has never been so felicitous and challenging. e breathtaking infrared images
that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured and delivered, such as a small
star-forming area in the Rho Ophiuchi proximity at light-years from Earth, are
the collaborative work of scientists, artists (science visuals developers), machines
(Webb’s NIRCam instrument), and the universe (NASA Webb Mission Team
). Our cosmological imagination rapidly evolves with the nonlinear cosmic
temporalities, co-creating a new sensibility of molecular historicity with our best
machines. More than ever, the twenty-rst century witnesses the inseparability of
Cosmos and Art as abstract machines, “the diagrammatic” that does not seek to
represent any image of the world but to create new ones by feeling and exploring
the unknown. e emerging world images generated via the abstract machine of the
unknown cannot help but become more than human–the radical becoming-other
of one, which is already many across all scales. To compose a world is to create a
new people, a more-than-human folk, or rather a trans-species community, that is
no less than “a new type of reality” in a Deleuzian-Guattarian sense (Deleuze and
Guattari, A ousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia , ).
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THE PLANETARY ART MACHINE OF COSMOS
e Nobel Prize in Physics has drawn our attention to a particular unit of time:
the attosecond. e contribution of the three laureates includes using attosecond-
scale light pulses to capture fast electron movement far beyond the speed of heavier
electron motions previously observed on the femtosecond scale, - of a second.
Atto means to the negative th power or -. In other words, one attosecond is
. of a second. e new research eld of attosecond physics
marks an even ner scene of space-time-matter knot, or what Barad has called
the “entangled nature of spacetimematterings” (), highlighted by the quantum
turn more than a century ago. As the Nobel Prize press release points out, their
experiments bring “new tools for exploring the world of electrons inside atoms and
molecules” and “capture the shortest of moments.”
“e shortest of moments” is a slightly poetic term that semantically emphasizes
the shortest of many complex beats, the quickest to the extreme, far faster than
any human sensation and imagination. e most transient points of space, time,
and matter are those that, no matter when and how possible, are long gone when
you look at them. ey are present in the seemingly improbable retention. e
precious moment acquires a peculiar dimension of timelessness. e shortest
moment is an eternal presence constantly diverting away and forcing closer,
manifesting the paradoxical nature of matter in science, art, and life, particularly
the pivotal gure of the unknown. ere are innite subatomic and submolecular
movements secretly working within and across us, maintaining and recomposing
boundaries. As members of planetary life, we permanently live in momentary
ashes of betweenness and togetherness, invisible liminal spaces of the unknown,
inappropriable to us, yet informative of the possible future.
e planetary art machine of Cosmos, incorporating all lifeforms, creates the
very possibility of humanist arts. Human artists are not alone. ey live and thrive
among the trans-species artistic assemblages that form the consortia of Gaian
politics.
Yesterday’s artistic creed and the related study of nature consisted, it seems safe to say,
in a painfully precise investigation of appearance. I and you, the artist and his object,
sought to establish optical-physical relations across the invisible barrier between the
“I” and the “you”. In this way, excellent pictures were obtained of the object‘s surface
ltered by the air; the art of optical sight was developed, while the art of contemplating
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unoptical impressions and representations and of making them visible was neglected.
Yet the investigation of appearance should not be underestimated; it ought merely to
be amplied. Today this way does not meet our entire need any more than it did the
day before yesterday. e artist of today is more than an improved camera; he is more
complex, richer, and wider. He is a creature on the earth and a creature within the whole,
that is to say, a creature on a star among stars. (Klee, “Nature as an Example” )
I quote Klee at length to show Klee’s profound grasp of the critical function of naked
and extended senses in the art of observing and rendering the world visible. e
optical and non-optical dimensions of studying nature from within are intimately
convoluted with the more comprehensive trans-species planetary technological
evolution—human technoscience constitutes a new wave of disturbing yet
fascinating turmoil. e “invisible barrier” between “I” and “you,” the artist and her
object, is the frontier of constantly negotiating, mediating, and intervening with
human senses and sensibilities. e amplifying rupture Klee hints at is no less than
a quantum leap of humanity’s relationship with the unknown. e more humans
can manipulate and exploit natural forces, the more the inexplicability of their own
ignorance petries them.
Many of Klee’s works render sensible the embeddedness of the human artist
in the broader Cosmos, and it is precisely this embeddedness that enables the old
ideal of transcendence and the present urgent return to nature, which is “nonlinear
and unpredictable and never more so than in a period of change” (Lovelock ).
Nature has many faces that work through the complex entanglement between
symbols and particles. In Klee’s e Sunken Island (Versunkene Insel, ) (see
g. 1), an island is seen surrounded by sh, stars, geometric shapes, and mysterious
bubbles. e background is a grid in gradient blue tones, a cosmic reticular
structure, supposedly the ocean, but it could also be the sky, or both the sea and
the sky without an explicit borderline in between. e “sunken island” itself looks
serenely undisturbed, almost like a sleeping human gure that has already sunk, is
in the process of sinking, or has yet to fully submerge.. Also, it could be a planet-
island drifting in space with other celestial objects. e planet-island’s stillness
might well be deceptive or metaphorical.
Gaia’s molecular symbiotic image provides a dynamic way to bypass the
dichotomy between humanity and nature (Margulis and Lovelock ; Margulis
). e creative trans-species collaboration of the biosphere has become much
more observable through modern molecular technologies and has appeared far
more detailed and complex than what Klee calls “visible penetration” (“Nature as
an Example” ). Nowadays, scientists and artists often use microscopic knives
and “immaterial” eyes to analyze, penetrate, recompose, inscribe, and carve their
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objects. e invisible penetration and innite slices of phenomenon create more
layers of reality than ever.
Life relies on the invisible that can be rendered visible, as do science and
art. rough esh and blood, bodies are made of and connected with innite
microscopic particles and forces. Living bodies require more nuanced senses,
organs, detectors, symbols, and concepts to navigate the world. Life is studying life
with innite symbiotic assemblages. In so doing, lifeforms develop their singular
way of creating their own worlds without shying away from conict and struggle.
e rogue elements weave their way in and out of the body. Roaming immune
cells can be protective or harmful to the organism, and viruses can be invasive or
symbiotic under dierent circumstances. e ways of being alive are dierentiated
and connected. Surviving is never a passive situation of being but an active play
of composing with heterogeneous forces. Collaboration can fall into abuse and
exploitation, as the notorious arrival of the Anthropocene so vividly exposes. As
language-speaking beings, humans can xate on representations without awareness
of the vital aects that rush through our bodies and theories.
Aect is non-representational and performative, relating to the power of acting
and living. When clarifying Spinoza’s concept of aect, Deleuze declares, “Hope
as such or love as such represents nothing, strictly nothing” (Emilie and Julien
Deleuze, “Gilles Deleuze, Lecture Transcripts on Spinoza’s Concept of Aect”).
Take the postcoloniality of Taiwan island and its surrounding archipelagos, for
example. e aective dimension of “theory” as a commodity is noticeable in the
slim academic market. Talking about theory is a peculiar conspicuous consumption,
accumulating little more than symbolic capital except for the sheer pleasure of
thinking together. Meanwhile, it also bears a colonial ambiguity that demands
deconstruction, recomposition, and transcreation.
“eory” is not conned to academic texts with high abstraction but is already
diusive in everyday language and tacit knowledge, driving one to distinct life
goals, world images, and future visualizations. e dierence between a life theory
and a value system is that the former shows a particular balance of intellect and
aect. While value is about measuring something’s worth, theory is about seeing,
and one can only see with one’s specic bodily conguration. How a theory moves
us is even more mysterious than how one can twist reality to conform to one’s
values since a theory is a way of becoming and is almost alive, just like its organic
embodiment.
In the following section, I turn to the biological phenomenon of magnetotaxis,
especially in collective or assemblage. In biology, taxis is a directionally oriented
movement of an organism in response to an external stimulus. Taxis diers from
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tropism (directional growth or turning response) and kinesis (non-directional
movement) precisely because it is oriented either towards or away from the trigger.
Donna Haraway describes how “stunned” she was when she discovered that “trope”
is used in biology to mean “the turning of all or part of an organism in a particular
direction in response to an external stimulus” (xxxvi). What stunned Haraway
was no less than the transversal nature of language and signs operating through
dierent planetary life categories. Magnetotaxis in consortia is at the center of my
transversal study of the planetary art machine of Cosmos.
MAGNETOTAXIS IN CONSORTIA: CHARTING THE INVISIBLE TOGETHER
Shielding us from the constant bombardment of the solar wind, “a continual stream
of protons and electrons from the sun’s outermost atmosphere” (Dobrijevic), the
vital function of Earth’s magnetic eld embodies the ambivalent intimacy between
planetary life and our parent star, the Sun, and the Cosmos. e solar wind forms
a magnetic blanket wrapping the whole solar system, protecting it from the more
powerful particles from the galaxy, just like Earth’s electromagnetic eld safeguards
life on the planet. e ourishing of life depends on solar and cosmic power but
also needs proper protection against it. e act of protection is not simply reactive
but indeed creative, as manifested in the formation of Van Allen radiation belts,
donut-shaped clouds of radiation containing high-speed subatomic particles,
discovered in .
Life is the capability to transform territorial and extraterritorial energy into
something useful for itself and radically modify the environment into a specic
biosphere. Lifeforms, which Vernadsky calls “transformers” of cosmic energy,
are distinct from other forms of matter. ey are “living matter” (, ). e
connection and dierentiation between living and nonliving matter are endless
molecular movements weaving and threading the biosphere and the contour lines
of Gaia. “us, solar radiation as the carrier of cosmic energy not only initiates
its own transformation into terrestrial chemical energy, but also actually creates
the transformers themselves” (). Within the invisible ux in the virtual space
between protection and transformation, life emerges and evolves. Many scientic
studies support the prevalence of magnetoreception, with an inner magnetic
compass and hidden maps, in animals such as migratory birds.
However, its specic operations still elude explanation. e diculty of
locating the particular receptor lies in the fact that life activities are complex and
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interconnected at the cellular level. As life transforms across the disciplinary
boundaries between biology, geology, chemistry, and physics, magnetosensitivity
operations intersect with the reception of other senses. Likewise, magnetotaxis is
often intertwined with dierent types of directional orientation, such as aerotaxis,
chemotaxis, and phototaxis. For example, desert ants use the geomagnetic eld as
the “earthbound compass reference” for their multisensory path integration when
they learn their walks (Rössler et al. ).
One of the most challenging tasks in understanding magnetotaxis is about the
transition from a biophysical reaction to a cellular response, i.e., a “downstream
signaling state” (Dodson et al. ). For instance, cryptochrome proteins–blue
light-absorbing pigments and circadian photoreceptors–have been suggested as
“the crucial transducer molecule mediating magnetic compass information” in
migratory birds, even though the experimental results are never decisive (Möller
et al. , ). In order to produce a magnetic response, the cryptochrome
proteins need to undergo specic chemical processes involved in the “radical pair
mechanism” that happens on the quantum level regarding electron spins (Hore
and Mouritsen ; Hiscock et al. ; Smith et al. ). Indeed, the study of
magnetosensitivity inevitably leads us into the eld of quantum biology because
it goes down to the movement of electrons within molecules. Cryptochrome
proteins found in migratory songbirds’ eyes precisely display a “quirk of quantum
mechanics,” enabling the birds to sense the geomagnetic eld (Warrant ). is
scientic statement resonates with Simondon’s philosophical point decades ago:
“Quantum theory grasps this regime of the preindividual that goes beyond unity”
(“e Position of the Problem of Ontogenesis” ). Instead of being individual,
indivisible, or individuated with a particular sense of unity or “identity,” the
preindividual regime is the order that captures the often invisible and intangible
dynamics of being and becoming across, besides, under, and surpassing the
individual boundaries.
e gure of the transducer combining reception, transduction, and
transformation is transversal. Transduction can mean many things in biology. It
can mean the transfer of genetic materials through viruses or other vectors. It can
also mean the translation of an extracellular stimulus or messenger bound to the
cell receptor to changes in cellular biochemistry or other aspects so the cell can
respond to the information. Even though or precisely because scientists still cannot
fully grasp the whole picture of magnetic signal processing, the concepts of organic
magnetic transducer, as well as of “live quantum sensing” in living far-from-
equilibrium systems (Smith et al. , ), are inspiring for better understanding
and imagining the weak and intricate geomagnetic eect on life.
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Simondon employs the notion of transduction to the problem of ontogenesis–
“an individuation in progress” or “an individuating system” (“e Position of the
Problem of Ontogenesis” ). As Simondon points out, transduction as an operation
carries itself from one site to another and thereby establishes a foundation for
subsequent steps, structuring, and realizing progressive modication events. For
Simondon, transduction is a transversal process across many domains: physical,
biological, psychic, and social.
e transductive operation is an individuation in progress; it can, in the physical domain,
occur in the simplest manner in the form of a progressive iteration; but in more complex
domains such as the domains of vital metastability or of a psychic problematic, it can
advance in constantly variable steps and it can expand in a domain of heterogeneity.
(“e Position of the Problem of Ontogenesis” )
A lifeform as a far-from-equilibrium system is a Simondonian “vital metastability.”
As Simondon points out, a “metastable state” is “a necessary condition for invention”
(Simondon, Imagination and Invention ). As members of planetary life, we are
constantly evolving and inventing transduction pathways while living with innite
visible and invisible forces. Transduction operation that processes and mediates
signals through dierent domains is intrinsically evolutionary and innovative,
especially in life and mind.
e widespread occurrence and signicant variation of magnetosensitivity
among animals and microorganisms indicate that magnetoreception evolved very
early in the natural history of life. Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) discovered and
named only roughly a half-century ago are a striking example of magnetosensitivity,
with a deceptively simple picture of the sensing mechanism. ese ubiquitous and
diverse anaerobic prokaryotes produce unique complex membrane-enveloped
organelles known as magnetosomes, biogenic magnetite or greigite nanocrystals,
FeO or FeS, arranged in one or two rows like compass needles.
MTB represent a particular locus of interdisciplinary studies in our times because
human molecular technology is nally catching up with these ancient bacterial
lifeforms, and scientists can closely study the biosynthesis of magnetosomes, which
is a stepwise process with complex and precise control and well-made products
outcompeting articial magnetic nanocrystals (Müller et al.). Like myriad lifeforms
with specic techniques, MTB’s biogenic strategies participate in the trans-species
creative power of the planetary “noösphere”–a concept coined initially at the
end of the nineteenth century to highlight the technological emergence of the
human species. Paradoxically, with the advance of human molecular technology,
it has become increasingly problematic to deny the nonhuman power of creative
coevolution.
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Indeed, human science and technology have permanently been embedded in
the multiscale interconnected webs of techno-creative forces of lifeforms, from
the molecular to the planetary. Mutual dependence, conict, negotiation, struggle,
and even war are integral to planetary life. And humans, with all their ruse, have
been imitating and learning from other lifeforms in their creative activities. In
the age of molecular science, modern scientists continue to harness the power of
microorganisms. For example, magnetosomes, which are magnetic nanocrystals,
have been extracted and used for medical and other applications (Alphandéry) (see
g. 2). is kind of “application” is also an event of cosmopolitical transduction
that carries out to transform the usage of a particular element while remaining
relatively thoughtless of the unknown and its political signicance.
Research on gene clusters responsible for biomineralizing magnetosomes shows
that there have been repeated HGT (horizontal gene transfer) events between two
evolutionarily distinct lineages of MTB that are not overly resistant to laboratory
conditions, allowing them to be cultured and studied in vitro (Monteil et al.
“Repeated Horizontal Gene Transfers” , ). e magnetosome gene clusters
(MGCs) are also called magnetosome genomic islands (MGIs or MAIs) because they
form distinct mobile regions, suggesting they have been transferred from dierent
strains of MTB. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of MAIs points out that despite
similar MGCs in dierent MTB, there are signicant “variations in gene order,
presence of orthologues and sequence similarity” that might be responsible for
MTB’s great diversity in terms of “biomineralization (i.e. number, size and shape of
magnetic crystals), cell biology and magnetotaxis” (Jogler et al. , ). MTB also
displays a variety of lifestyles; some even show distinct multicellular organizations,
known as magnetotactic multicellular prokaryotes (MMPs), undergoing a complete
life cycle as multicellular forms (Abreu et al. , ).
Besides multicellularity, developing a trans-species symbiotic lifestyle is also
pivotal in the coevolution of planetary life. Scientists have observed magnetic
consortia comprising protists and MTB, where the magnetic ectosymbiotic bacteria
(MEB) exercise magnetic sensing, and the protists in marine anoxic sediments
provide motility, contributing to a collaborative form of “holobiont magnetotaxis”
(Monteil et al., “Ectosymbiotic Bacteria” , ). e partnership is made possible
through extended metabolic exchanges–their syntrophy or cross-feeding–and
the complementarity of magnetotaxis and chemotaxis (Monteil and Lefevre ).
Interestingly, research also nds a tendency to produce excess magnetosomes in
such microbial holobionts, suggesting that these peculiar organelles might have
extra functions (Chevrier et al.).
Holobiont magnetotaxis in consortia provides a complex picture of navigating
the invisible, the unknown, with the other. ese microscopic innovative microbes
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steer their way in and with the world using internal compasses and other senses
in the connected syntrophic networks. ey are not worldless beings wandering
in blindness. On the contrary, they are cosmopolitical microscopic critters who co-
create their world with the planet. Even those MTBs without explicit symbiotic
networks are charting the unknown collectively. eir seemingly simple, repetitive
moves narrate a far more convoluted story about the planetary noösphere as a
virtual space of life, death, and love. e genomic islands transferred through
HGT are a gift of friendship – trans-species transversality that allows the web of
life to connect across boundaries. e trans-species transversality disregards the
distinction between friends and foes and frequently happens among viruses and
their hosts. According to the analysis of protein patterns, the origin of genomic
islands probably came from viruses known as bacteriophages (also called phages)
because there are proteins that belong to phage protein families and a shared
prokaryotic GI in the “connection species” (Aldaihani and Heath). As an invisible
molecular planetary art machine, magnetotaxis in consortia hints at distinct
evolutionary trajectories connecting to the more expansive trans-species nexuses
that constantly chart the secret realm of living art and the art of living.
DRAWING TOGETHER IN POSTCOLONIAL ARCHIPELAGIC THINKING
Nothing ever works alone in Gaia’s molecular symbiotic consortia; every narrative
of living together contributes to the planet’s face and heart. Following the symbiotic
connecting pathways, I draw together elements from planetary forces, molecular
becomings, theoretical aects, and postcolonial perturbations, performing a
transversal mode of archipelagic thinking that problematizes the hegemony of
humanistic globalization in the Anthropocene.
Whether local or global, social life can no longer avoid the Anthropocene
predicament on a planetary scale. An evident symbiotic turn occurs in
contemporary biology, ecology, and related cultural theories in response to the
planetary emergency resulting from human technological advancement and socio-
economic exploitation. e rise of an anthropocentric noösphere and fossil energy
capitalism has always been countered silently and invisibly by microscopic entities
and life forces. e ecological crises humans have conveniently called “Nature’s
counterattacks” are chain actions of countless micro agents.
People all over the planet have felt and explored the molecular entanglements
of our shared planetary habitat in dierent ways for centuries through scientic,
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religious, or magical practices. e symbiotic evolution has created an increasingly
complex diagram of life. e pathways of symbiosis are nonlinear and ecologically
intertwined, involving dierences in relation at all scales, creating measurable
“diraction patterns,” following Haraway and Barad’s terminology, which are not
mere reections but create meaningful dierences in and with the world (Haraway
xlvi, , ; Barad , -). At the cellular level, the most fundamental metabolic
unit of life, sucient capacity must have evolved to control the production of
dierences in replication. e genesis of “supermutation” as a force of innovation
is proofreading all kinds of inventions (Woese , ). e relationship between
dierence and identity is not binary, far from being dialectical, but a nonlinear
evolutionary process among many agents.
Not only do we live in symbiosis with countless microorganisms and lifeforms
at every scale, but the politics of evolution at the microscopic scale are still
dynamically rooted in our physical/aective structure. e organization of
life, the assemblages of senses, the transformation of matter, the transduction
of information, and the becoming of forms are components of the planetary art
machine and constantly inter-act and intra-act at all levels, drawing an elaborately
detailed picture of life, technology, power, art, and thought. e evolution of life
is the development of technologies in a trans-species sense: ongoing observation,
measurement, registration, memory, recognition, action, anticipation, mutation,
and modication. e contemporary interlacing landscape of art and technology
resonates deeply with the dynamic trans-species interweaving of planetary life.
In the pressing Anthropocene situation, it is better to understand the symbiotic
Gaia as the planetary societal that functions as the vital condition on which any
notion of human society depends. What we need is no less than developing a
remarkable supermutation, a discerning capability to proofread the Anthropocene.
Take a moment to imagine the islandscape of postcolonial theoretical aects.
Perhaps it is not unlike the planetary art machine of magnetotaxis dancing with
the geomagnetic invisible lines along the way. e comparison of HGT and
cultural transplantation is more than a biological metaphor but might as well be a
cultural-biological tropism, kinesis, or taxis since biology is no less cultural than
culture is biological. Life forces do not care about disciplinary boundaries and
lack consideration for species limits. Studies on defensive symbionts in the host
microbiome reveal “the complex context-dependent nature of coevolution between
mutualistic and parasitic symbionts” (Smith and Ashby ). Also, research on
microbial communities in the plant rhizosphere indicates rapid evolution along
the mutualism-parasitism continuum (Fields and Friman).
Symbiosis is impossible without endless negotiation of boundaries, as are love
and violation. Love, thinking, and violation all involve reconstructing boundaries
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but with dierent dynamics and aects. Like love, deep thought always eectuates
a breakaway from the conventional framework, a leap of faith or a leap into the
faith, a radical escape and opening to the future. At some point, deciding and
maintaining the line might become problematic, especially in our current era of
perpetual crisis.
Aects are not purely incorporeal but transversal across the corporeal and
the incorporeal, and so is the aective force of theory. eory as a conspicuous
commodity and symbolic capital are usually considered “useless” in “real life.”
Ironically, useless theory can also display a mesmerizing aective dimension
and bear the imprint of everyday struggle. In the postcolonial situation, theories
are almost always stained with a colonial birthmark or trademark, even hastily
reduced to some big names, especially when they are “European,” “Western,”
“white,” “male,” and “(neo)liberal.” Shall we invent alternative ways of talking about
theory or theoretical thinking? How do we feel and think about a theory’s aective
dynamics, not just its apparent content? As discussed above, does holobiont
magnetic orientation in consortia also demonstrate a particular mode of aectivity
that crosses boundaries and travels to a nonlinear future? Is it possible for us to
bring forth engaging modes of holobiont theoreticotaxis with each other and move
towards a more sensible path?
We may consider the constitutive island of theoretical materials as a transversal
molecular conguration that cuts across individual and collective boundaries. It is
a molecular island of friendship, a precious yet dubious love, a betrayal hovering
around, an imaginative fragment from afar, a calling for reinvention here and
now. By bringing together the cosmic molecules of aects, orientations, islands,
colonizations, suerings, and passions, perhaps we can gather a transversal
molecular archipelagic thinking that suspends the Anthropocene, decentering
humanity among the more-than-human and speculating the future of the innite,
invisible encounters.
Indigenous archipelagic poet Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the
Island of Guam describes a word as “an island with its own deep history and
meanings” (Perez xvi). In a sense, our words are molecular islands conguring
on the force eld of human language, just like biochemical molecules are words/
islands composing planetary life. Both words and molecules move in a way that
occasionally traverses the provisional boundaries. As Yolanda Martínez-San
Miguel and Michelle Stephens point out in their introduction to a recent collection
of comparative methodologies of archipelagic thinking, archipelagic thinking
borrows from the world “its ambiguity, its fragility, its derivative drift” (). e
transversal molecular archipelagic thinking manifested in this paper resonates
with the broader interdisciplinary endeavor. By extending the gure of the island
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into the microscopic worlds of bacterial and viral genomic islands, as well as the
seemingly intangible aective and epistemic islands, I highlight the transversal
movement and molecular dynamics of archipelagic thinking when we pay enough
attention to how the invisible rendered visible participates in the transformation of
our onto-epistemic horizon.
When pushed to the realm of “natural” sciences such as microbiology and
genomics, interdisciplinarity risks losing its recognizable, courageous face, not to
mention the troublesome complicity between genetic sciences and surveillance
capitalism. Bravery slips into audacity when one steps into the extraterritorial terrain
of “inhumanity” that goes beyond the more familiar “nonhuman” as the antithesis
of the human. e apparent gap between magnetotaxis and theoreticotaxis fades
into planetary life’s molecular, metabolic networks once we put our theoretical
orientations back into the diusive and extensive connections that allow us to
survive, strive, ourish, and experiment as creative beings.
e theoretical aect, or theoreticotaxis, which brings us together across the
oceans, is more than any convenient labels, supercial signs, or a few sentences–the
attraction of theories exceeds the syntax and semantics. A mode of theoreticotaxis
does not operate in isolation but is integrated into historically specic shared
transduction pathways of sense and sensibility, and sometimes spiritual constitutive
islands of the planetary art machine. We are drawn to theory because theoretical
aects are constitutive of the cosmic, planetary, and molecular processes in our
living beings and can be translated and transformed into a sense of direction and
creation.
In the ebb and ow of postcolonial molecular archipelago thinking, the genomic
islands of ideas do not simply travel to or invade the geographical islands. ey must
experience embodied molecular translation, transformation, and transduction in
the local nexus of sensibility. eoreticotaxis, as telekinetic tendencies invisible to
our naked sense organs, is also inherent to the trans-species planetary noösphere
and art machine. In the age of the Anthropocene, some people are addicted to
the apocalypse, and others are trying to forget about everything, including their
spontaneous theory of making a living.
Once we face the music and realize that every living thing comes up with its
specic strategy and theory of life in the intricate web of symbiotic planetary
life, we might see theoretical aects in a new light as indispensable ingredients
in the planetary art machine, and the embodied congurations of the generative
diagrammatical Cosmos. As Taiwan indigenous writer from the Tao tribe of Orchid
Island Syaman Rapongan puts it, “My body is ocean literature” (“Syaman Rapongan:
‘My Body is Ocean Literature’”). Our esh, blood, and spirit are made of waves and
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particles that enable us to co-create endless possibilities of resistance or versions
of counterhegemonies at all levels against the dominant mode of production. One
lives and writes with one’s whole body, connecting to and evolving with the world.
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FIGURES
Fig. . Paul Klee, The Sunken Island. 1923, Versunkene Insel.
Fig. . “Transmission electron microscopy images of a single magnetotactic bacterium(A) of chains
of magnetosomes extracted from whole magnetotactic bacteria (B) of individual magnetosomes
detached from the chains by heat and SDS treatment (C),” Alphandéry, 2014.
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Note
. eoreticotaxis can be dened as “the tendency to act with and to be moved by theory”
(Chuang ). e following discussion will articulate the concept and its analogy with
magnetotaxis. By denition, magnetotaxis is the directional interaction between the cell/
organism with the magnetic eld, or more precisely, “the passive alignment of these cells
to the geomagnetic eld along with active swimming” (González et al. ). By making
a trans-species connection between magnetotaxis and theoreticotaxis, this project seeks
to relocate human theoretical intentionality back into its planetary conguration
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Kim / Maritime (Im)Mobility and Heterotopia 59
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Abstract
Jeju Island, located on the remote periphery of the Korean peninsula and historically a site of
exile, has become a popular destination for domestic migration over the past decade. Drawing
on Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia as a methodological framework and taking Jeju
Island as an example to reveal “islandness,” this paper discusses how the island is imagined
and represented in Korean society. From this perspective, Jeju Island is regarded exteriorly as a
place outside the ordinary and internally as a heterogeneous place. Further, in the heterotopia of
“illusion” and “compensation,” a sojourn on Jeju Island is expected and experienced as terminable
and heterochronic. e island’s uniqueness as a reecting and critical location is a signicant
factor in creating this heterotopic sense of place. erefore, Jeju Island is noted as a “counter-
place” to all other places in the “Hell Joseon,” a term signifying the socioeconomic regime in
South Korea (Joseon). Meanwhile, maritime (im)mobility plays a crucial role in this discourse
and practice; the sea, a uid and mobile space enabling marine mobilities, makes transverse
mobilities (at least psychologically) quite tricky, if not impossible, and renders dwelling on the
island a voluntary exile. By disclosing the heterotopic nature of these representations, this paper
also indicates that these representations eventually become disillusioned and uncompensated
in the capitalist regime.
Keywords
heterotopia, (im)mobility, Jeju Island, maritime, Michel Foucault
About the Author
Taehee Kim is an associate professor at the Academy of Mobility Humanities, Konkuk
University. He obtained his PhD in philosophy from Seoul National University after studying
at the University of Bonn. He focuses on the problems of mobility, time, and space in modern
society, based on the modern interpretation of phenomenology. He has contributed to several
MARITIME (IM)MOBILITY AND
HETEROTOPIA
Jeju Island in South Korea
Taehee Kim
Konkuk University
thcomm@konkuk.ac.kr
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publications, including Mobility, Humanities, Future World (), Application and Modeling of
Mobility Humanities (), Mobility, Ethos, and Common Culture (), Pandemic, Mobility,
and Technology (), Mobility, from Being to Value (), Phenomenology, a Breakthrough
to the Modern Philosophy (), Life and Death in Western Classics (), Coevolution of
Mobility Technology and Human-Being (), Developments of inking on Mobility (),
and A Phenomenological Reection on Time (). Additionally, he has contributed to the
translation of seminal works, such as Karl Marx’s Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte
aus dem Jahre 1844 (), Edmund Husserl’s Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung (),
Vilém Flusser’s Dinge und Undinge (), Jürgen Kaube’s Hegels Welt (), John Urry’s
Post Petroleum (), Edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins
(), Hartmut Rosa’s Alienation and Acceleration (), Peter Merriman and Lynne Pearce’s
Mobility and the Humanities (), Edmund Husserl’s Ding und Raum (), and Erwin
Schrödinger’s Mein Leben, meine Weltansicht (). He is currently an associate editor of
Mobility Humanities and a vice president of the Korean Society for Phenomenology.
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INTRODUCTION
Islands are home to ten percent of the world’s population (Baldacchino, “Islands” ).
Nevertheless, island studies as an independent eld of research emerged relatively
late; one reason is that the island has been recognized as a periphery that scholars
were likely to overlook compared to a mainland’s center.
Moreover, as the island has become a symbol of the climate emergency, island
studies has been inuenced by theories of the Anthropocene (Grydehøj, “Critical
Approaches” ). It has been widely recognized that the climate emergency will lead
to islands’ increased mobility, with “climate refugees” moving away from potential
threats. It is indisputable that islands are among the areas most profoundly aected
by the climate emergency, as “[v]ulnerability, or the susceptibility to damage, in the
face of climate change results from conditions and systemic power relations on the
ground” (Farbotko and Lazrus ). is phenomenon is further accentuated by
Anthropocene thinking, which, as posited by Jonathan Pugh and David Chandler,
“works with islands for the development of relational ways of being (ontology) and
knowing (epistemology)” (xi), which “radically decentred the notion of the isolated
and static ‘island’ to instead emphasise mobile, multiple, and interconnected
relational forms” (). Against this backdrop, island studies as an interdisciplinary
research eld is garnering increased attention from scholars across various
disciplines in an eort to address the pressing global concern of climate emergency,
as it is a well-established eld of research, not an emerging eld (Grydehøj, “Critical
Approaches” ). In this context, Godfrey Baldacchino predicted that “perhaps the
st century could prove to be that of island, […] whereas the th century had
been the century of mainland” (“Islands” ).
Despite this development in island studies, the question of “islandness,” i.e., what
is an island, as the most fundamental premise of island studies, remains unsettled.
Geographically, an island refers to land surrounded by water on all sides. erefore,
the island’s most crucial feature has been understood as remote isolation. In other
words, an island is conceptualized as an enclosed place lacking connectivity due to
the environmental background of maritime immobility.
However, attention is being paid to the fact that the island has not been isolated
but connected through maritime mobility. While the natural environment denes
an island’s isolation, connectivity emerges by the “will to connection” (Simmel ),
the active mobility of humans traveling and migrating to and from isolated islands
for various purposes and causes. Even though all societies require some kind and
degree of mobility, in island societies in particular, this mobility is organized and
self-aware. When discussing islandness, the dual characteristics of islands—namely,
isolation and connectivity—must be considered.
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As islands are hugely diverse in all aspects, including geography, topography,
population, and history, scholars are discussing the extent to which the common
characteristics of the islands pertain to each individual island. Because islands are
all dierent, it is challenging to nd a “quality of ‘islandness’ that helps to explain
how islanders relate to one another—how they construct their space and how, in
turn, island space shapes their social relationships” (Cohen and Sheringham ).
erefore, concerns about the island’s universality and specicity are crucial in
island studies.
As island characteristics are so complex and diverse, island studies should be
interdisciplinary to deal with multilayered and multiscale problems. In particular,
the humanities can and must join the discussion by oering research that critically
examines the meaning and value of islands’ lived experiences, representations, and
imaginations beyond simply dening them physically and geographically.
Jeju Island, the largest and southernmost island of the Korean peninsula, has
unique characteristics worth exploring from the perspective of interdisciplinary
and critical island studies that takes into account diverse aspects of the island’s
isolation and connectivity, universality and specicity. is paper examines the
representation and imagination of islands, especially from the perspective of non-
islanders, employing the concept of heterotopia suggested by Michel Foucault to
capture the complex and heterogeneous characteristics of its islandness.
After discussing the theoretical background of the island, islandness, and island
studies, this paper briey examines the historical process of Jeju Island being socially
constructed as a heterotopic space by maritime (im)mobility. It then presents
Jeju Island’s peculiarities and universality as an island through its heterotopic
characteristics. Jeju Island is regarded exteriorly as extraordinary and internally
as a heterogeneous place. In this heterotopia of “illusion” and “compensation,”
a sojourn on this island is expected and experienced as a terminable life in a
heterochronic temporality. A signicant factor in considering this heterotopic
sense of place is the island’s uniqueness as a reecting and critical place; Jeju Island
is counted as an alternative to all other places in the “Hell Joseon,” a widely used,
satirical and pejorative term signifying the desperately competing socioeconomic
regime in contemporary South Korea (Joseon). In particular, the phenomenon of
the “temporary residence,” such as “living on Jeju Island for a month,” explicitly
reveals the heterochronic characteristics of the island as a heterotopia.
Moreover, this paper addresses the vulnerability of this heterotopic representation
and imagination from a critical island studies perspective. Concerning such
vulnerability, island and maritime (im)mobility itself proved to be subordinated to
the “trialectic of power, knowledge, and space” or “power geometry” of the national
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and transnational capitalist regime. us, this paper asks whether the notion of
the island as a heterotopic site of refusal can disrupt and challenge these prevailing
relational entanglements.
ISLAND, ISLANDNESS, AND MARITIME (IM)MOBILITY
Article of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates the
regime of islands: “An island is a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by
water, which is above water at high tide.” is ocial denition and common sense
usually dene an island as a land space surrounded by water. However, because
all land on Earth, including continents, is surrounded by oceans, this denition is
insucient to determine “islandness.”For this reason, the island is further dened
as a land space smaller than Greenland surrounded by water. According to this
denition, Greenland (,, square kilometers) is the largest island, while
Australia (,, square kilometers) is not an island but the smallest continent.
Inevitably, it is also arbitrary and convenient to employ Greenland as the basis to
determine whether a land space surrounded by water is an island.
erefore, “a more exible, nuanced, and adaptable denition of islands from
the perspective of islanders,” as it were, as “a place holding meaning for islanders”
(Ginoza ), is required. In a similar sense, Baldacchino identies and unpacks
ve aspects of islandness: boundedness, smallness, isolation, fragmentation, and
amplication by compression (“Preface” xxv). In addition, according to many island
scholars, islandness as a unique characteristic aecting human life and perception
is a historical and uid concept. In particular, “assumptions about size, location,
history and political importance seem to determine how island spaces are mapped,”
and that is why we are “more likely to perceive the islandness of Jamaica, say, than
Iceland” (DeLoughrey ).
us, considering islandness, “both the materiality and the imaginations of those
who create and ‘do’ space” must be considered (Nimführ and Otto, “(Un)Making
Smallness” ). In this vein, an island is not only an actual geographical place but
also a place socially constructed through human performance. us, instead of
“insularity” emphasizing the island’s isolation, “islandness” is commonly employed
as a concept that can embrace two sides of the same coin (i.e., an island’s isolation
and connectivity).
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To be sure, islandness is determined, above all, by the sea surrounding the island,
which this paper terms “maritime (im)mobility.” e abovementioned duality of
the island is the consequence of the duality of maritime immobility and mobility,
allowing the island to be both isolated from the mainland and other islands and
connected to them (T. Kim, “A Phenomenological Study” ). erefore, if the
sea is mainly represented as a hazardous obstacle, the island will be dened as a
closed and isolated place by maritime immobility. Conversely, if the sea is primarily
represented as a mobile space, the island will be dened as an open place connected
by maritime mobility. us, maritime (im)mobilities are not only “guarantors of
separateness” but also “conduits, facilitating movement and exchange between
peoples and cultures” (McCusker and Soares xii–xiii).
According to Epeli Hau’ofa, the commonly used phrase “islands in a far sea”
focuses on the isolating aspect by emphasizing “dry surfaces in a vast ocean far from
the centers of power” and consequently stressing “the smallness and remoteness of
the islands” (). Hence, he employed the alternative term “a sea of islands” that
discloses “a more holistic perspective in which things are seen in the totality of
their relationships” (–).
In the same vein, other concepts are suggested “in order to provide an expanded
concept of the territory and human experience of an intermeshed and interactive
marine/land environment,” such as “the aquapelago,” which is dened as “an
assemblage of the marine and land spaces of a group of islands and the adjacent
waters” (Hayward ), or the “islandscape,” which focuses on “the island’s dynamics
and does not understand the sea as isolating, but as a nexus of islands, the sea and
the mainland” (Nimführ and Otto, “Doing Research” ).
From this perspective of a relational and archipelagic turn in island studies “that
foreground[s] island-to-island and archipelagic relations” (Pugh ,), the modern
Caribbean is, for instance, “the result of multiple, intersecting mobilities” to the
extent that “the essence of Caribbean life is movement” (Urry –).erefore,
the common representation of the Caribbean’s societies focusing on “its
fragmentation; its instability; its reciprocal isolation; its uprootedness; its cultural
heterogeneity; its lack of historiography and historical continuity; its contingency
and impermanence; its syncretism, etc.” can be seen as “judgments and intentions
that are like those of Columbus” (Benítez-Rojo ).
e duality of the island and the maritime is evident in Korean history, where
both aspects appeared alternately (B. Kang ). Until the collapse of the Goryeo
Dynasty (AD –), connectivity was relatively salient. As East Asian culture
was mainly communicated through coastal sea routes during these periods, coastal
islands served as steppingstones linking the roads.
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On the other hand, isolation dominated the Joseon Dynasty (–), which
forbade foreign exchanges through the sea at the national level, concentrating only
on exchanges with China through the overland route. Consequently, the island,
ocially regarded as an uninhabitable and vulnerable space, was mainly used as
a place of exile. Still, people’s ideas of the island diered from the regime’s ocial
policy. For the people of Joseon, who were exploited and oppressed within a strictly
hierarchical society, the island was often imagined as a utopian refuge (B. Kang ).
Against such historical background, this paper examines closely how Jeju Island
was used as a dystopian exile and, at the same time, imagined as a utopian refuge,
more than any other island in the Korean peninsula.
JEJU ISLAND
Jeju Island, shaped by continuous volcanic activity since . million years ago,
can be classied as an oceanic island, representing a form of “originary, essential
islands,” as opposed to a continental island, which is separated from a continent,
formed through processes of disarticulation, erosion, and fracture, representing
more “accidental, derived islands” (Deleuze ).
Jeju Island is located at the southernmost tip of the Korean peninsula,
kilometers away from the South Korean capital, Seoul, and kilometers away
from the nearest mainland. e island is the largest and most populous small island
and the sole island province in South Korea; it covers an area of ,. square
kilometers, which is . of the total area of South Korea, and, as of November
, its registered resident population is , (Statistical Portal of Jeju Island),
accounting for about . of the South Korean population.
Despite being the largest and most populous island in Korea, Jeju Island can
be considered a “small island,” even though its population slightly exceeds that
of a small island as dened by UNESCO: an island with less than , square
kilometers and less than , people (Nimführ and Otto, “(Un)Making
Smallness” ). is denition is ambiguous because these criteria may be in
conict. For example, is “Greenland, the world’s largest island at million km² but
with a population of less than ,, small or large?” (Nimführ and Otto, “(Un)
Making Smallness” ). Rather, “smallness is a state of mind [which] often arose from
colonial and decolonial dynamics, thereby overlooking connectivity, heterogeneity,
and complexity” (Nimführ and Otto, “(Un)Making Smallness” ). is colonial
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and decolonial state of mind is no less than the abovementioned “judgments and
intentions that are like those of Columbus.”
Jeju Island’s peripherality is far from the center. Due to this geopolitical location,
Jeju Island’s history has been marked by colonial and decolonial dynamics; “small
islands were for the taking, islanders were overwhelmed and their lands appropriated,
occupied, colonized and governed for the purposes of greater powers” (Lewis ).
roughout its history, Jeju Island has been shaping “its unique identity in
national and international aairs” (Shon ). Ever since “the earliest mariners
throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia most likely had contact with Cheju [Jeju],
it would be a fundamental mistake to regard Cheju as ‘isolated’” (Shon ).
Around the third century BC, Jeju Island was initially called Tamra (耽羅), literally
meaning “an island country.” Tamra, as an ancient maritime kingdom, established
diplomatic and commercial relations with the ree Kingdoms (Goguryeo, Baekje,
and Silla) in the Korean peninsula, Japan, and China, until it lost its status as an
independent country in during the Goryeo Dynasty. It was renamed Jeju (濟
州) in , literally meaning “a town across the sea,” which signies its reduction
in status from a “country” to a “town” in the colonialist context.Finally, Jeju Island
was completely annexed to the Joseon Dynasty in (C. Kim, “Philosophical
Issues” ). Because Jeju Island inhabitants often escaped from the island to
avoid excessive taxation and labor imposed by the central government, a ban was
issued in that forbade all islanders from leaving the island, which isolated and
imprisoned them for two hundred years (A. Kim ).
As a kind of “internal colony,” in the sense that the colonial hierarchy can work
the same within the state and not necessarily in a relationship of state to state
(Donghyun Kim ), Jeju Island has been represented “as a space outside regular
time and space,” which is “subject to violent disciplining when it deviates from
national interests” (Tran ). What clearly illustrates this is that Jeju Island was
historically a land of exile due to its remote location, harsh natural conditions, and
poor living conditions. Joseon, establishing a more robust centralized system than
Goryeo, thoroughly integrated Jeju Island into its national order by establishing
and managing administrative divisions on the island. Extremely far from Joseon’s
center of state power, Hanyang (Seoul), and with sterile living conditions, such as
its “problematic soil condition” and “[w]ater scarcity for settlement and agriculture”
caused by its consisting of “the crown, cape, and spurs of Halla Mountain, an
eroded strato-volcano now standing m” (Nemeth –), Jeju Island was
called Wonakdo (遠惡島), a “distant and evil island.” Exile was the second heaviest
punishment after the death penalty; among exile destinations, Jeju Island was the
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worst. During the ve hundred years under Joseon Dynasty, about people were
exiled to Jeju Island, and treason was the most frequent charge.
Still, many people imagined Jeju Island as a utopia outside the national order.
It was represented as a secret and mysterious place inhabited by the gods and
hermits, producing “idealized vision[s] of islands” (Grydehøj, “A Future” ). is is
also related to a legend widespread in East Asia and recorded in e Grand Scribe’s
Records: e Memoirs of Han China(史記) by Ssu-Ma Ch’ien (司馬遷) around the
rst century BC that Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), the rst emperor of Qin dynasty in
China, sent the envoy Seobul (徐巿) to Jeju Island in search of the herb of eternal
youth. is is one example of how, although it was created as a place of exile, Jeju
Island was conceived as a utopia that did not exist in the real world. is reects
the common “popular imaginings of the island—as refuge or as prison, as paradise
or as inferno” (McCusker and Soares xi).
e stereotype of Jeju Island, which has been perpetuated for centuries during
the Joseon Dynasty, that the island is barren and the people poor, can be interpreted
as an ideology of “internal Orientalism” that justies internal colonialism and
the rule of the mainland central government over Jeju Island. Nevertheless, the
imagination of Jeju as a utopian island has endured throughout history. During the
Japanese colonial period (–), this imagination underwent a transformation,
becoming a discourse on “Paradise Jeju” as a strategy of colonial governance and
island development (Jin ). Following the Japanese colonial period’s conclusion,
the discourse underwent a further evolution, with Jeju Island being imagined as an
exotic tourist attraction. is historical trajectory has become the foundation for
the contemporary imagination and discourse on Jeju Island as a heterotopia (Jin
–).
However, Jeju Island’s real history was lled with tragedy. During the Joseon
Dynasty and the Japanese colonial period, many “uprisings broke out in , ,
, , and, perhaps most famously, [in] the Lee Jae Su uprising”
(Abrahamian). Moreover, the “Jeju Massacre” or “April rd Incident” in was
“the most modern trauma in a long line of troubles” (Abrahamian). In this incident,
which occurred during the Cold War after World War II, , to , people
among the total population of , were killed (Abrahamian).
Following an extended period of gloomy history, Jeju Island is currently
experiencing a transformative phase that is without precedent. First, Jeju
Island’s isolation due to the maritime obstacle was eased due to aeromobility
infrastructure, which outperforms ships in connecting an island to the mainland
across the sea. In particular, the deployment of low-cost carriers has constituted
a notable development in recent years (Min-Young Kim ). is development
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has led to the noteworthy phenomenon that, since , the air route between Jeju
International Airport and Seoul Gimpo International Airport has been “the world’s
busiest passenger air route” (Casey). e number of tourists visiting Jeju Island
steadily increased in the s, reaching ,, in , just before the onset of
the global pandemic known as COVID- (D. Kang).
With tourism accounting for short-term mobility and migration for long-term
mobility, Jesu Island has become one of the most popular and most visited places in
South Korea. Urban dwellers’ internal migration or internal mobility to this island,
which has burgeoned since , has been established as a social phenomenon. Jeju
Island’s population, which exceeded , in but had been continuously
declining since the s, has steadily increased every year since , approaching
, as of November . During this period, Jeju Island has the second-
largest inux of people in the country after Sejong City. Whereas the migration to
Sejong City represents the result of a government-led top-down decentralization
through the relocation of administrative institutions, the migration to Jeju Island
is the result of a spontaneous bottom-up decentralization through the conversion
of life orientation and values, the main motive of which is escape from the city.
is mobility “from Seoul and other urban areas on the mainland to Jeju Island”
is identied as an “exodus of [the] downwardly-mobile middle class” (Jordan ),
although it is not certain whether the “exodus” to this island has the potential of
“the foundation of a Republic” (Virno ), a republic “as a non-State public sphere,
as the realm of common aairs” (Virno ).
“Despite the unprecedented scale of tourist visits” and internal migration from
the mainland, Jeju Island “continues to occupy a curious, ambiguous position: an
internal Other within both the territorial and conceptual sphere of contemporary
South Korea as a perceivable and imaginable nation” (Tran –). Now, this paper
will address, in terms of heterotopia, the phenomenon pertaining to this “internal
Other” in the representations of Jeju Island.
JEJU ISLAND AS A HETEROTOPIA
“Heterotopia” is a term that literally means “other place.” It is etymologically derived
from ἕτερο—“other, another, dierent”—and τόπο—“place”—in Ancient Greek.
In the posthumously published “Of Other Spaces,” Foucault adopts this concept to
analyze the social space:
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ere are also, and this probably in all culture, in all civilization, real places, eective
places, places that are written into the institution of society itself, and that are a
sort of counter-emplacements, a sort of eectively realized utopias in which the real
emplacements, all the other real emplacements that can be found within culture, are
simultaneously represented, contested and inverted; a kind of places that are outside all
places, even though they are actually localizable. Since these places are absolutely other
than all the emplacements that they reect, and of which they speak, I shall call them, by
way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias. (; my emphasis)
According to the quote, heterotopias are dened as “a sort of counter-emplacements”
in which the real emplacements are simultaneously represented, contested, and
inverted. In contrast to utopias, which etymologically signify a place existing
nowhere in reality, heterotopias are “a sort of eectively realized utopias.” It is an
irrefutable fact that this concept is notorious in a multitude of ways. e concept is
“frustratingly incomplete, inconsistent, incoherent” (Soja, irdspace ). One of
the most inconsistent, paradoxical, and contradictory aspects of the concept is the
discrepancy between the dierent denitions of the term “as both an unimaginable
space, representable only in language, and as a kind of semimythical real site”
(Knight ). Furthermore, the concept is frequently invoked as a deus ex machina,
with minimal critical engagement with Foucault’s original texts (Genocchio
). Nevertheless, this concept can be useful as a methodological framework
for analyzing Jeju Island because “this intentional ambiguity” keeps Foucault’s
heterotopia “open and inclusive rather than conned and securely bounded by
authoritative protocols” (Soja, irdspace ).
A number of studies on Jeju Island make a reference to the concept of heterotopia
(Chun; Jin; Myung Jin Kim; C. Kim, “Spatial Discourse”; Oh and Park). One of these
studies centers on the philosophical perspective that heterotopia unveils utopia as a
“space of absence,” while eschewing a thorough examination of Jeju Island in terms of
the diverse characteristics associated with heterotopia (C. Kim, “Spatial Discourse”).
Another study traces Jeju Island’s historical genealogy as a heterotopia, particularly
examining the relationship between “Paradise Jeju” during the Japanese colonial
period and “Heterotopia Jeju” of the twenty-rst century (Jin). e remaining three
studies do not employ the concept of heterotopia “as a tool for the study of real
material sites” but instead focus on the “ctional representations of these semi-
mythical places” (Knight ). One study addresses the representation of Jeju Island
through personal media platforms, identifying three key representational features
of Jeju Island: “Island of Survival,” “Island of Pilgrimage,” and “Island of Living
for a Month” (Chun). Another study examines Jeju Island as a “non-space” and
“counter-space” through the analysis of a broadcast program (Oh and Park). Finally,
one study conducts a socio-psychological analysis of migration to Jeju Island by
examining four books written by Jeju immigrants, with a particular emphasis on
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heterochronia, isolation and exclusion, and non-place (Myung Jin Kim). In light
of these previous studies, this paper focuses on heterotopia as an actual space and
examines the various characteristics of heterotopia, including as a site of illusion
and compensation, in order to elucidate the aspect of Jeju Island as a heterotopia
that critically reects and raises objections to dominant power relations.
What clearly shows Jeju Island as a heterotopia is that this island has been
represented and imagined, for example, in many travel writings, “as existing in a
liminal time and space” (Tran ). In particular, Jeju Island as a migration space
has been represented as a hybrid place that exists between a dystopian reality here
and utopian imagination far away (Myung Jin Kim ). Being represented and
imagined as a heterogeneous and hybrid “other place,” Jeju Island juxtaposes refuge
and prison, or paradise and inferno, as mentioned above. A heterotopia has, after all,
“the power to juxtapose in a single real place several spaces, several emplacements
that are in themselves incompatible” (Foucault ).
e most substantial reason why Jeju Island was imagined as a heterotopic place
with a sociological signicance is, beyond doubt, its characteristics as an island.
Generally, the condition for an island to be of “a great sociological signicance”
is that it is “remote and dicult to access” (Cohen and Sheringham ). In this
respect, islands in general have the capacity to arouse a sense of longing in those
who dream of them, as Gilles Deleuze suggests:
Dreaming of islands—whether with joy or in fear, it doesn’t matter—is dreaming of
pulling away, of being already separate, far from any continent, of being lost and alone—
or it is dreaming of starting from scratch, recreating, beginning anew. Some islands
drifted away from the continent, but the island is also that toward which one drifts. ()
In particular, representing Jeju Island as a dierent and heterogeneous place has
been a consequence of its remoteness and inaccessibility. Further, due to maritime
(im)mobility, Jeju Island as a heterotopia can be counted among spaces that
“always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and
makes them penetrable” (Foucault ). ough being seemingly “pure and simple
openings,” Jeju Island as a closed and isolated site conceals “curious exclusions”
(Foucault ).
It is such a representation of Jeju Island that attracts people to move to it. Even
though ongoing migration to Jeju Island has taken various forms and purposes, it
is strongly related to pursuing new values and alternative lifestyles. In this sense,
atypical migrations to Jeju Island are mostly “lifestyle migration,” a term referring
to “retirement migration, leisure migration, (international) counterurbanization,
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second-home ownership, amenity-seeking and seasonal migration” (Benson and
O’Reilly ).
As evidenced by studies on domestic migration in Korea, the most signicant
population shift prior to was rural-to-urban migration. However, following
both the Asian nancial crisis of and the global nancial crisis of –
, which had a signicant impact on the domestic labor market, there was a
notable shift in domestic population movement that deviated from the established
pattern (Oh ), often referred to as a “counterurbanization,” “desurbanization/
disurbanization,” “population turnaround,” or “rural repopulation” (S. Park ).
In the aftermath of economic crises, there has been a noticeable increase in the
number of urban-to-rural migrants, largely due to the closure of enterprises and
the resulting increase in unemployment. is form of urban-to-rural migration
resulting from economic crises can be considered a variant of “displaced-
urbanization,” which is “motivated by the need for new employment, lower costs
of living and/or available housing” (Mitchell ). While this form of migration is
often categorized as “passive mobility,” the recent increase in individuals returning
to agricultural and rural areas is considered “active mobility,” which is attributed to
a shift in cultural norms that prioritize ecological values, alternative lifestyles, and
the natural environment (E. Kim ). As a result, rural areas have experienced a net
inux of population since (Min-Young Kim ). However, among the various
forms of this urban-to-rural mobility, the tendency for urban-to-rural migrants to
occupy an observational and peripheral position, or to maintain an urban lifestyle
rather than engage in full-edged farming in rural areas and participate in rural
communities, has been observed to be particularly prevalent (K. Park ). Among
migrants to Jeju Island, this particular type of migrant appears to make up a larger
proportion of the total migrant population (Donguk Kim ).
us, as an “annexational space,” or “a place that is close to the mainland but
located separately so, though belonging to the mainland, it has an independent
history and culture,” Jeju Island “has developed into a settlement for migrants who
seek an alternative life and cultural and art activities that are hard for them to
have on the mainland” (Shin and Gwon ). As such an “annexational space” as a
vacation home, Jeju Island has become a destination where non-islanders imagine
living alternative lives that they cannot live on the mainland. What the movement of
visitors, migrants, and artists to Jeju Island has in common is the nature of seeking
an alternative life and activities in this separate space that were not possible or
sustainable due to economic and cultural constraints on the mainland (Shin and
Gwon ).
On the other hand, a notable phenomenon such as “living on Jeju Island for a
month” as a kind of “residential tourism” has emerged and been established over
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the past decade. Eunju Jeon’s Living with Children on Jeju Island for a Month, rst
published in , is a book about a housewife’s experiences with her children by
obtaining a monthly rent on Jeju Island. It caused a huge sensation and led to the
ongoing trend of renting a place on Jeju Island for a month (Kim et al. ).
is phenomenon needs to be considered in the context of a new trend of tourism.
Until the late twentieth century, tourism and migration have been considered
separate areas, but ultimately a close relationship between temporary mobility and
permanent migration has been identied (Bell and Ward). Such residential tourism
as living on Jeju Island for a month, which, in terms of duration, is medium-term
mobility between short-term travel and long-term migration, also serves as an
exploration of and preparation for possible permanent settlement. In the discourse
and practice of such temporary dwelling, Jeju Island is regarded exteriorly as a
place other than an ordinary place and internally as a heterogeneous place:
From the point of view of mobility, the content of “Living for a Month” emphasizes
the strong connection of certain islands with the center, while maintaining romantic
imaginations about islands such as isolation in daily life. [. . .] e “Island of Living
for a Month” makes the island an element of consumerism and lifestyle, revealing the
contemporary connectivity between the center and the island. ese performances also
create cracks in the existing dichotomy of virtual and reality, distant and close, movement
and pause. (Chun –)
Interestingly, in this context, migration to Jeju Island tends to be perceived as
similar to immigration to other countries. In the Korean language, “migration” is
translated as either “I-Ju (移住)” or “I-Min (移民)”; while the former is dened,
more broadly, as moving from one area to another for settlement, the latter is
dened, more specically, as moving from one country to another for settlement.
Ironically, according to a study analyzing keywords concerning “migration to Jeju
Island” on social networks, Koreans often use the word “I-Min” rather than “I-Ju”
as if it were a migration to a foreign country, due to the geographical or cultural
distance this island is separated from the mainland (Chang et al. ).
In this phenomenon, the temporal aspect of heterotopia—namely
“heterochronism”—should not be neglected. Being primarily a spatial concept,
heterotopia also connotes temporal signicance; its core feature is not only
“other space” but also “other time” in contrast to ordinary time, an “absolute
break from the traditional time” (Foucault ). Living on Jeju Island for a month,
understood as temporary dwelling, is expected and experienced as a terminable
life in a heterogeneous temporality, one that feels free from the ordinary dominant
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temporality involving “awareness of power relations as they play out in time”
(Sharma ).
e spatial movement from city to island means a temporal movement from the
ordinary everyday rhythms to a new time regime, because an unfamiliar temporality
is allowed on the island (Myung Jin Kim ). Such a temporal aspect is not trivial,
because “temporality operates as a key relation of power that manifests in the
minutes, days, and lifetimes of dierent populations” (Sharma ), and one of the
ways “to gain a new freedom and confront life outside of the conditioned reexes
prescribed by ordinary time” (Sharma ) can be a visit to a heterochronic place.
In particular, the establishment of the Jeju Olle Trail, a new mobility infrastructure
that began in and encompasses a total of trails and kilometers, has
contributed signicantly to the formation of this unfamiliar temporality. is
has led to a shift in the focus of Jeju’s mobility system, moving away from an
automobile-centric approach to a pedestrian-oriented one (Min-Young Kim ).
is phenomenon has led not only to a decrease in the pace of tourist activities,
which has been referred to as “slow tourism,” but also to a corresponding decrease
in the pace of daily life (Choi et al., “A Research on Slow Tourism” ). is
represents a return to the so-called original rhythms of the human way of life and
has led to the formation of a heterochronic experience of Jeju. In this distinctive
temporal context, Jeju Island is perceived as an “island of rest and healing” (C. Kim,
“Spatial Discourse” ).
People imagine escaping from the obsessive rhythm of life, constantly exploiting
themselves under the goal of so-called self-development running on a given
timetable. Such heterochronic places can be considered a “heterotopia of festivity,”
which, according to Foucault, is linked to “time in its most futile, most transitory,
most precarious aspect, and this in the festive mode,” such as in “those Polynesian
villages that oer three short weeks of primitive and eternal nudity to city dwellers”
().
Most importantly, heterotopias “have, in relation to the rest of space, a function”
(Foucault ). According to Foucault, heterotopia, a unique space found within a
given social space, performs the function of creating either a space of illusion or
a space of compensation. On the one hand, a heterotopia of illusion “exposes all
real space, all the emplacements in the interior of which human life is enclosed
and partitioned, as even more illusory” (Foucault ). In this respect, the media
representation of Jeju Island creates a “fantastic reality,” which makes Jeju migration
a “reconstructed reality” of a heterotopic space (Oh and Park ). As Foucault
argues, this reconstructed illusory reality of a heterotopic space can, in turn, reveal
the real space outside as more illusory.
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On the other hand, a heterotopia of compensation creates “another space,
another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is disorderly,
ill-construed and sketchy,” such as the Jesuit Colony in South America, particularly
in Paraguay (Foucault ). From this perspective, Jeju Island is a heterotopia that
functions as a compensation for urban life, often represented by “Hell Joseon,” a
term that “strongly criticizes the rapidly increasing inequality and class gap in
today’s Korean society” (M. Lee ).
Most of the migrants confess that living in the city was detrimental in one or
more ways and was marked by a lack of positive attributes, and the underlying
cause of this is found in the capitalist governance system inherent in the space of
the “city,” and furthermore, its neoliberal economic system with a winner-take-all
structure (Myung Jin Kim ). Mainly it is popular genres, such as TV series, that
clearly show the public’s imagination of Jeju Island; since mid-, TV series set
on Jeju Island imagine it as “the home of a new life” rather than using it as a simple
lming location (Oh and Park ).
Looking more closely at this, current migrants to Jeju Island are mostly
categorized into ve types: those who wish to return to farming or rural life, small
business owners, cultural workers, dispatched employees, and students. Among
these ve categories, the former three types are the main groups of migrants to
Jeju Island, the characteristics of which are related to non-material values (Kim
and Choe –). us, their migration seems to have come mainly from a post-
material motive to escape from the competitive and economic-driven urban life
(Kim and Choe ).
e heterotopia of illusion and the heterotopia of compensation, as Foucault
asserts, are inherently incompatible but can be juxtaposed in a single real place
(). Jeju Island is imagined as “a place of withdrawal from high-pressured living
on the continent” (Tuan ), compensating for the ills of urban places while
exposing the urban life symbolized by Seoul as an illusion. As a heterotopia of
illusion and compensation where voluntary exile is performed in a heterochronic
place, Jeju Island is a space against the dystopia of the ercely competitive “rat
race” represented by Hell Joseon. Jeju Island is “not just a place with spectacular
views, but also a dream land that is outside the harsh socioeconomic order of
contemporary Korean society” (Myung Jin Kim ). is heterotopic function of
challenging the dominant social order corresponds to the “island logic” that objects
to “the capitalist and territorial logics of contemporary imperialism” (Heim ).
One of the most signicant factors in making Jeju Island and living there
heterotopic is no more than the island’s unique placeness as reecting and critical;
Jeju Island is counted as a sort of counter-place to other places in Hell Joseon. In this
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heterotopia, “a bit of the social world,” organized “in a way dierent to that which
surrounds them,” is “to be seen as an example of an alternative way of doing things”
(Hetherington viii). While Seoul is a space that symbolizes the capitalist system
in South Korea, Jeju Island is its very opposite pole in common representations,
and its “sociotemporal aspects” are nothing but “the mirroring, distorting and
unsettling qualities” of this space (Rink ). As Foucault puts it:
e mirror functions as a heterotopia in the respect that it renders this place that I
occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the looking glass at once absolutely real,
connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since, in order to
be perceived, it has to pass through this virtual point, which is over there. ()
CONCLUSION
e heterotopic characteristics of the symptomatic phenomena surrounding Jeju
Island have been identied. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, this paper
analyzes the representation and imagination of Jeju Island in order to reveal its
islandness, which is one of the most signicant but uncertain concepts for island
studies. In this imagination and representation, Jeju Island is regarded exteriorly
as a place other than an ordinary place and internally as a heterogeneous place in
a heterochronic temporality. With respect to a heterotopia’s social function, Jeju
Island is a heterotopia of illusion and compensation, a counter-place that critically
reects the socioeconomic regime in South Korea. Such a representation and
imagination of Jeju Island as a heterotopic space enables an “exodus” in the sense
of “a politically-engaged exit from the ‘rules of the game’” and “a positive remaking
of social foundations from the ground up” (Jordan ).
Yet a heterotopia of illusion and compensation is ultimately disillusioned and
uncompensated within a capitalist regime that withdraws and snatches any attempt
at ight from its territory. As Deleuze succinctly puts it with the literary examples
of Robinson Crusoe and Suzanne and the Pacic, “the essence of the deserted island,”
which is “imaginary and not actual, mythological and not geographical” (), tends
to be disillusioned and uncompensated. Even people who dream of and voluntarily
move to islands “encounter it from the outside, and their presence in fact spoils its
desertedness” ().
A heterotopia exists not as a self-contained entity but in relation to the outside.
us, it is “erroneous and self-defeating to presume the existence of some heterotopic
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or segregated ‘lifeworld’ space insulated from (even if in the long run in danger
of being penetrated and swamped by) capitalist social relations and conceptions”
(Harvey ).It is questionable that “protected spaces” such as Foucault’s heterotopia
can function “without being dominated by capital accumulation, market relations
and state powers” (Harvey ).
Accordingly, the concept of heterotopia with its complex interconnections
between internal and external spaces can be understood as analogous to a Möbius
strip. From this perspective, heterotopia, which reveals the external realm as a mere
illusion, is also revealed as an illusion in itself. In this light, it could be argued that
Jeju Island is an illusion in the same way that Hell Joseon is an illusion, suggesting
that Hell Joseon is somehow inside Jeju Island.
Indeed, considering the Foucauldian“trialectic of power, knowledge, and space”
(Soja, irdspace ), a heterotopia should not be regarded as “a substanceless
void to be lled by cognitive intuition nor a repository of physical forms to be
phenomenologically described in all its resplendent variability,” but as “another
space [. . .an ] actually lived and socially created spatiality, concrete and abstract at
the same time, the habitus of social practices” (Soja, Postmodern Geographies ).
What should be noted in this regard is that mainlanders have represented
Jeju Island mostly as an island of tourism, selected and interpreted entirely by
their tastes and prejudices, and de-historicized and de-contextualized by their
orientalist perspective (D. Lee ). is Orientalism on the island is conrmed by
the observation that “it is in the imagination of the Western world that the island
has taken the strongest hold” (Tuan ).
As a result, “a persistent contradiction” in representing Jeju Island “as a
place that is somehow ever-present yet empty” (Tran ) is evident. However,
considering the “power geometry,” the way in which space and mobility are shaped
by power dierentials in society, within which Jeju Island is also located, it is
crucial to “examine not only what ows into and across space, but who controls the
production, the content, and directionality of these ows” (Massey ).
As is widely known, Jeju Island’s history is full of anti-colonial revolts. Recently,
there have been severe conicts over constructing a naval base and a new aireld.
Such incidents lay bare “the mid-twentieth century militarization of Jeju-do [Jeju
Island]” within the broader context of “the imperial militarization of the Pacic
and the Korean transnational nexus,” including “the lingering legacies of Japanese
colonialism, U.S. militarized security, and Korean nationalism” (Baik ).
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In addition, Jeju Island is over-touristed, with more than ten million tourists yearly
since , which causes various problems such as gentrication, environmental
damage, trac congestion, rising housing prices, and cultural conicts between
tourists and local residents (Choi et al., “Evaluation” –). ese problems
clearly indicate that Jeju Island, even as a heterotopia, cannot stray from the power
geometry controlled by national and transnational social relations and conceptions.
e heterotopia serves as a mirror to the surrounding social world, reecting and
critiquing the norms and structures of the dominant social order (T. Kim, “From
Immobility” ). However, the mirror image reects objects and, conversely, the
mirror image can be reected by objects insofar as mirrors “return images of the
interior to the exterior and those of the exterior to the interior, making a spectacle
of everything” (Melchior-Bonnet ). en, in this spectacle of everything, the
functions of heterotopias “to suspend, neutralize, or invert the sets of relations
designated, mirrored, or reected by them” (Foucault ) might be suspended,
neutralized, or inverted by these dominating sets of relations designating, mirroring,
or reecting theses heterotopic relations. is interdependent determination of
spaces dominating an entire social order, and the heterotopias mirroring them,
corresponds to Arturo Escobar’s argument that “an ‘exteriority’ to the modern/
colonial world system” should never “be thought about as a pure outside, untouched
by the modern; it refers to an outside that is precisely constituted as dierence by
hegemonic discourse” (). Whether Jeju Island as a heterotopia, constituted as
dierent by an ordinary and dominant spatial order, will be able to evade this fate
is the question that Escobar asks:
Could it be that it is possible to think about, and to think dierently from, an “exteriority”
to the modern world system? at one may envision alternatives to the totality imputed
to modernity, and adumbrate not a dierent totality leading to dierent global designs,
but networks of local/global histories constructed from the perspective of a politically
enriched alterity? ()
Today’s Jeju Island, while being represented as a heterotopia, is dominated by a
neoliberal capitalism that forces unlimited competition. Despite that, or because
of that, it raises objections to the urban space of Hell Joseon. Jeju Island is “the
most actual heterotopia in Korean society” in that it is an ideal “anti-space” and, at
the same time, in danger of becoming a colony that is merely an illusion of non-
islanders (Myung Jin Kim ). If this is true, whether Jeju Island as a heterotopia can
sustainably function as an anti-space against national and transnational capitalist
power geometry is a question that must continue to be asked. e concept of the
island as a heterotopia raises the fundamental question of whether the island can
be considered “the origin, radical and absolute” and whether human beings can
“create the world anew from the island and on the waters” (Deleuze , emphasis
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in original). is question, which ultimately allows for the possibility of disturbing
and challenging the prevailing relational entanglements through an “abyssal work”
that oers “an alternative logic of refusal” (Gfoellner and Pugh ), warrants
further exploration.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
is paper was supported by Konkuk University in .
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Note
. Jeju Island is actually “almost” the southernmost island of the Korean peninsula because
there are two tiny islands to the south of it within the South Korean territory: Gapa
Island with an area of . square kilometers and a population of , and Mara Island
with an area of . square kilometers and a population of . However, they belong to
Jeju Province in terms of administrative districts.
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Abstract
Summing up the achievement of the generation of the - revolution, Apolinario Mabini
appraised the organic basis of the Filipino nation as a popular-democratic project. All sovereignty
belongs to the masses of workers-peasants, the victims of Spanish and U.S. colonialism. He
articulated the historical consciousness of the oppressed and exploited as the foundation
of the rst Philippine Republic. Functioning as the rst prime minister of the revolutionary
government, and later as a deported insurrecto, Mabini crafted the juridical-moral basis of
the resistance against U.S. aggression. He distinguished himself as the rst public intellectual
who exposed the hypocritical racist ideology of U.S. imperialism. In doing so, he forged the
conscience of the Malayan race founded on a socialist-oriented ethical self-consciousness. In
his memoir, Mabini mapped the trajectory of the Filipino struggle for self-determination from
the time of the secularizing propagandistas, the Katipunan, and the urban cultural activists
that inspired later independence movements. Analyzing his discourses, this article hopes to
elucidate the process of how Mabini sought to indigenize and merge Enlightenment principles
with the communal ethos of the natives struggling to overthrow the legacy of Spanish feudal
savagery and the violence of U.S. barbarism. From this dialectic of contradictory forces, Mabini
discovered the revolutionary subject, the agent of a national-popular insurgency sustained
by martyrdom and visionary ideals. Although Mabini’s life and deeds are still obscured, his
ideas remain sedimented and cogent in current grassroots mobilizations against neocolonial
servitude.
Keywords
colonialism, ilustrados, imperialism, nationalism, natural rights, revolution, sovereignty
IN QUEST OF THE “SUBLIME
PARALYTIC”
Speculations on History, Identity, and the Emergence of National-
Class Consciousness
E. San Juan, Jr.
Washington State University
philcsc@gmail.com
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About the Author
Emeritus professor of Comparative Literature and Ethnic Studies, E. San Juan Jr. was previously a
fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, and Fulbright professor of American
Studies at Leuven University, Belgium. His latest books are Peirce’s Pragmaticism: A Radical
Perspective (Lexington), Carlos Bulosan: Revolutionary Filipino Writer in the U.S. (Peter Lang),
Maelstrom Over the Killing Fields (Pantax Press), and e Subversive Reader (Vibal Publishing
Co). He is completing a book on the life and works of Apolinario Mabini.
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INTRODUCTION
If the Philippines obtains her independence at the end of heroic and tenacious struggles,
she can be sure that neither England nor France, and less Holland, will dare to pick
up what Spain has not been able to keep.... Perhaps the great American republic with
interests in the Pacic and without a share in the partition of Africa may one day think
of acquiring possessions beyond the seas... [But that is] against her traditions. Very
probably the Philippines will defend with indescribable ardor the liberty she has bought
at the cost of so much blood and sacrice.
– Jose Rizal, “e Philippines a Century Hence” (-)
e hour has arrived. e fatherland is in danger, and it is necessary that the
Filipino people carry out their promises, if they have learned the dignity of liberty during
the short period of their emancipation. e Americans declared war on Spain under
the pretext of liberating those oppressed by the latter, and now the victims of Spain
are groaning under the slavery of American brute force.... [e Americans] are making
themselves absolute masters of this rich patrimony of our race. Never fear . . . . ere
is no human force which can stand against a people to whom slavery is odious even to
death. Show to all nations that you are worthy of independence, by knowing how to
appreciate and defend it....
– Apolinario Mabini, author of “Proclamation of General Aguinaldo to the People
of the Philippines,” February (qtd. in Sheridan –)
Who is Apolinario Mabini? Every Filipino probably knows Rizal and Bonifacio, but
very few are really informed about the life and accomplishment of Mabini. Most
likely they have seen the character seated in a wheelchair in lms like Heneral
Luna (on General Antonio Luna, ), or El Presidente (on Emilio Aguinaldo,
). Perhaps they have heard or seen the musical Mabining Mandirigma, or
have thumbed through F. Sionil Jose’s novel Dusk, or have treasured a ten-peso bill
issued circa . In any case, Mabini may be called the “unknown hero,” though
some have seen him labeled “Dakilang Lumpo” or “Sublime Paralytic.” He was
certainly a cripple, but “Dakila” or “Sublime”?
NOTES FROM THE ARCHIVES
First elected to the position of prime minister in President Aguinaldo’s cabinet
on January , , he resigned on May (Mabini, Letters –). He perceived
that Aguinaldo had favored the opportunist faction of Pedro Paterno, Felipe
Buencamino, and others, in the Malolos Congress. Almost all credit for laying the
groundwork for the Congress and the legal basis for the rst Philippine Republic
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has been given to Mabini, beginning with his discourses on “Ordenanzas de la
Revolucion” up to “Programa Constitutional de la Republica Filipina,” and others,
all reproduced in the rst volume of La Revolucion Filipina (hereafter LRF), edited
by T.M. Kalaw (see also Mabini, Panukala).
Even though not an ocial of the Republic, Mabini continued giving advice to
Aguinaldo and maintaining communication with other partisans. Seeking relief for
his health, he headed for the warm springs of Rosales, Pangasinan, until he was
captured in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, on Dec. , . He was still secretly in touch
with Aguinaldo and the Republic’s forces until his exile. He refused to swear an
oath of allegiance to U.S. sovereignty, continued writing rigorously argued articles
critical of the barbaric pacication until the U.S. military decided he was rousing
the masses to continue guerilla war. General Otis ordered him to stop writing. But
he continued replying to questions posed by General Joseph Wheeler and General
J. F. Bell (Letters -, -, -). Finally, General Arthur McArthur decided
they could not tolerate Mabini’s “brain” and ordered this “irreconcilable insurrecto”
deported to Guam, together with other intransigents such as Pablo Ocampo, Pio
del Pilar, and Artemio Ricarte (O’Connor; Majul –).
On March , , Aguinaldo was captured; in a few days, he swore allegiance
to the brutal invaders. Even though guerillas continued ghting (the Moros resisted
until ), and the Balangiga, Samar, ambush occurred in September , , the
war was proclaimed ended a few months after (Tan). A few days before the Samar
incident, on September , the originator of “Benevolent Assimilation,” William
McKinley, was shot in Bualo, New York, by the -year-old Polish-American
anarchist Leon Czolgosz (Anderson ). us the man who prayed to God to
“civilize and Christianize” seven million subjects of Catholic Spain may have gotten
his just desserts by one who rejected evangelizing with Krags, hamletting, and
water-cure. It is not clear if Czolgosz knew the Filipino resistance to U.S. barbaric
practices (Agoncillo and Alfonso -); his individual act was a sympathetic
alliance with the collective project of anti-colonial struggle. In a widely-publicized
defense of Czolgosz, Emma Goldman compared the anarchist deed to Brutus’
slaying of Caesar. Mckinley, for Goldman, was Caesar’s equivalent, “the president
of the money kings and trust magnates,” and thus an enemy of the working masses.
McKinley’s successor, eodore Roosevelt, proclaimed the “insurrection” over on
July , . Roosevelt allowed Mabini to leave Guam without taking an oath, but
he was forbidden to go back and live in his native land. Mabini was left with no
choice but to sign the oath on February , . He intended to be of some use to
his country, but the cholera epidemic then devastating the country extinguished
such desire.
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REPRISE AND TRANSVALUATION
When did it all begin? Mabini gained fame when he was summoned by Emilio
Aguinaldo in June . At that time, Mabini was recuperating in Los Banos,
Laguna, where he met Paciano Rizal, Miguel Malvar, Emilio Jacinto, and other
Katipuneros. With the recommendation of Felipe Agoncillo and perhaps of
Paciano Rizal, Mabini was made a personal adviser to General Emilio Aguinaldo
(Kalaw ). Mabini established the foundations of the revolutionary government,
as outlined in his Panukala sa Pagkakana ng Republika ng Pilipinas and other
manifestoes. While Majul’s book on Mabini has given us a summary of Mabini’s
political ideas, the framework of his worldview and its contemporary resonance
has scarcely been explored. is essay intends to review key texts by Mabini to
highlight his contribution to laying the groundwork for the emergence of a historical
consciousness and sense of identity in the struggle against U.S. colonial aggression.
Its aim is therefore limited to speculative extrapolations from Mabini’s memoir and
his critical responses to American racialist designs. Within the framework of erce
resistance against U.S. ruthless pacication, Mabini articulated the revolutionary
principles of Filipino nationalism crystalized in his “Decalogo” (included in
Panukala) and elaborated in his reminiscences, La Revolucion Filipina.
REVISITING THE PRIMAL SCENE
Why concern ourselves with Mabini today after over a hundred years of
forgetting enacted by the alibi of ocial commemorations? Why bother ourselves,
in particular, with the Filipino-American War (-), one of the bloodiest
wars of conquest that killed . million Filipinos, and converted the Philippines
into a durable colony? No mystery to this pathology. Expunging that war from
public memory is the key to understanding a compulsive repetition of a slave
habitus (Bourdieu), evidenced by the recent return of the U.S. military to its bases
and its expansion. is also revives an unapologetic Americanization in the guise
of neoliberal globalization, evoking once more a putative “postcolony” defending
democracy in Asia against the Chinese leviathan. is explains also why Mabini is
a forgotten hero, ignored if not maligned, almost an anonymous icon.
Everyone knows that the neocolony as the U.S. “showcase of democracy” in
Asia during the Cold War suered a meltdown with the Marcos dictatorship
(–). Washington gave the OK to the beleaguered Marcos regime. is
precipitated inquiries into how the U.S. “possessions” came about via that genocidal
war, the primal scene of imperial rape by a rising predatory power. Among varied
historians, Stuart Miller compared that colonial intervention (epitomized by the
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Balangiga incident) with the Vietnam War in its unconscionable brutality (–).
In this rapid acquisition of the islands, Gabriel Kolko noted how “from ,
to , Filipinos were killed in an orgy of racist slaughter that evoked much
congratulation and approval from the eminent journals and men of the era” ().
Political scientists William A. Williams and Albert Hofstader surveyed the
political-economic motivations behind the conquest of the Philippines. ey
corroborate Lenin’s classic denition of imperialism as “the highest stage of
capitalism” (–; on the rationale for the United States’ seizure of Puerto Rico,
see Maldonado-Denis). As a sign of internal rupture, Howard Zinn described the
eorts of Mark Twain, William James, and others in the Anti-Imperialist League
to stir up mass opposition. ey called attention to how some Black soldiers (the
most famous is David Fagen) joined the Filipino revolutionaries in their realization
that they were ghting the same war against White Supremacy and capitalist
exploitation (–). A footnote to that war is the case of two African-Americans,
Edmond Dubose and Lewis Russell, hanged before a crowd of , Filipinos in
Guinobatan, Albay, on February , . Together with at least twenty U.S. soldiers
who opposed the war, Dubose and Russell deserted the th U.S. Cavalry to join the
natives ghting for their liberty (Headsman; Brown; San Juan, “African American
Internationalism”).
e Filipina historian Luzviminda Francisco counted a million dead after
Roosevelt declared the war over in . She inventoried the thousands slain in
General Bell’s campaign in Batangas and the “wanton slaughter in Mindanao and
astonishing death rates in Bilibid Prison” and Albay province (). History textbooks
in the Philippines and the U.S. typically devote pages to the Spanish-American War
during which the Filipinos defeated the Spanish forces and declared independence
while facts about the Philippine-American War are scarce or marginalized. It
was bound to be a dangerous secret or a mysterious aair. Not only was that war
signicant in establishing the U.S. as an Asian power for the rst time, but it also
revealed the extraordinary amount of violence and deception that U.S. “Benevolent
Assimilation” and its touted civilizing mission involved then and now. Mabini was
the rst to presciently grasp the enormity of this conjuncture.
THE IDENTITY PROBLEMATIQUE
History is the past returning to be recognized, or the present discovering itself
exhumed and resurrected from the grave. e Filipino-American War, ending with
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the destruction of the Republic, remains unconcluded, interminable, persisting as
a portentous sign. Interpretations of this signier or trope conict and diverge.
Chroniclers like Stanley Karnow’s In Our Image or its template, David Joel
Steinberg’s patronizing e Philippines, found ambiguities and ironies in the war
of suppressing the revolutionary army, a war that presumably equalized master
and slave, lord and bondsmen. Both the colonizer and the colonized oligarchy are
to blame for producing a supposedly hybrid, amorphous Filipino psyche spoiled
by a “damaged culture” (on this topic, see Eric San Juan). Steinberg even quoted
Imelda Marcos to prove his thesis: “e Philippines is in a strategic position—it is
both East and West, right and left, rich and poor. We are neither here nor there”
(). Erased or eclipsed is the inaugural origin of this identity predicament in the
amnesia over the Philippine-American War.
Arguments about the result of the war seem part of an open-ended debate. To
cite one partisan, the anthropologist Fernando Zialcita concludes his meticulous
inventory of Asian styles with the judgment already rehearsed by Karnow,
Steinberg, etc: “Because of its unique history, the Philippines has an identity
that connects together both sides of the Pacic Ocean” (). In short, we
are performance artists, as protean and enigmatic as the mythical gure of the
Western conquistador/missionary, perhaps mimicking our local trickster persona.
Arguably, the return of the colonizer embraced as an ally in “the pivot to Asia” has
confronted us again with the Empire’s hubris. is is accompanied by the return
to power of the Marcos dynasty and its bloody entourage. We are compelled to
grapple again with the problem of identity in being forced to choose between the
contending powers, United States and China, given the conict over sovereignty in
the West Philippine Sea. Who are we in this game of geopolitics, the latest ruse of
reason after the fallacious “end of history”? Is it a matter of geography, culture, or
historical genealogy? Mabini was fully aware of this when he wrote his “Decalogo”
and confronted the American generals and Commissioners.
NEOLIBERAL SCHOLASTIC INTERVENTION
Contrapuntal engagement with Filipino identity has been with us since the end of
the conquest. But in the wake of neoliberalism and postmodernist globalization,
Western scholars are advising us to forget the past and look forward to a decentered,
marketized future. We don’t have any history to be proud of or to be concerned
about. Did we just drop from the sky or spring from the earth like mushrooms?
Two Australian experts, in their book Post-Colonial National Identity in the
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Philippines (, reissued ), criticized the ocial centennial celebrations of
the Revolution by the Ramos regime in .
ey questioned the viability of our “supposedly shared historical past” due to
its limitations (non-inclusion of minorities, among others). ey urge us to look to
a future in which people are treated with dignity (Banko and Weekley ). Forget
celebrating the revolution and accept transnationalism—they advise us. ese
missionary sages are coaxing us to join the multinational carnival of performative
egos, to celebrate Eurocentric pluralism, which translates into obeisance to the
IMF-World Bank conditionalities directed by Washington and NATO authorities—
or else, succumb to anarchy. (Of the disaster on the economy wreaked by IMF-
World Bank “structural conditionalities,” we have the arguments of Edilberto
Villegas, Dale Hildebrand, and the contributors to Mortgaging the Future, edited
by Vivencio Jose.)
Apropos of critiques of that Centennnial, the most cogent is that by Renato
Constantino who has been bewailing the Filipino amnesia of that violent
destruction of the rst Republic and the attendant bloody pacication. Was the
defeat so demoralizing that we couldn’t bear to repeat the trauma? Constantino
has been complaining about our forgetting that erce resistance to U.S. invasion,
oblivious to its morbid consequence. He reminds us that “through the alchemy
of miseducation, the Americans were transformed from conquerors to solicitous
friends…. e war against the Americans was glossed over and… the Americans
were made to appear as accidental visitors who out of a spirit of altruism accepted
the burden of educating the Filipino…. Our defeat resulted in an occupation of our
country which continues to this day…. ese have been ninety years during which
we were transformed from a victorious, independent state to a colony, and from a
colony to a neocolony” (History ). While others remain in the dark, the rest seem
to have either resigned or acquiesced to necessity.
After a century of Americanization, for many Filipinos, the war against
U.S. conquest was a “non-event.” Many are ignorant that we already enjoyed
independence before February , , when the U.S. provoked the war (see
Mabini’s account of this provocation in his letters to Galicano Apacible, dated
February (Letters –; see also Sheridan; Storey and Lichauco). is
ignorance created “the myth that the Americans saved us from Spanish oppression.”
Constantino observes further: “In this savage war, which lasted for nearly a decade,
the Americans committed all sorts of atrocities in order to crush the patriotic
resistance. e Philippine-American War, which establishes the real origins of the
relationship between our two countries and exposes not only the savagery of the
army of occupation but also American motives for colonization, should not be
allowed to recede from our national memory” (“Truth Is the First Casualty” ).
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Our current national memory has been totally gutted by commodity-fetishes,
spectacles, and consumerist simulacra. We are familiar with the phenomenon of
how ideological eects are taken for granted as normal or natural. When the latest
Western fashions/fads and the current fetishisms (for Taylor Swift, for example)
are celebrated today in social media and corporate-controlled communication
in the neocolony, the problem of Filipino identity appears to have been resolved
by U.S. technocracy and Washington/Pentagon diktat. Neoliberal globalization
(championed by the Australian scholars) has almost extinguished the nationalist
drive initially sparked by Claro Recto, Lorenzo Tanada, and Jose Diokno in the fties.
is subterranean impetus was revitalized in the First Quarter Storm Movement
and the mass mobilization against the Marcos dictatorship in the seventies and
eighties. Now, with the U.S. move against China in the dispute over Taiwan, the
neocolony has been instrumentalized again (as during the Korean and Vietnam
wars) as a springboard for US geopolitical maneuvers against China, perceived as
the formidable challenger to an eroding if not eviscerated US global hegemony.
IN QUEST OF THE REDEMPTIVE MATRIX
We may rehearse here the almost anticlimactic question: Is nationalism an
outmoded pathology, whether as an invented tradition or imagined community?
Isaiah Berlin reviewed its genealogy in the reaction of the German romantics who
combined “wounded cultural pride and a philosophico-historical vision” to forge
resistance against oppressors (). is was before Marx and Engels proclaimed
that the proletariat is international, not belonging to any nation. e main task
of the proletarian movement in the capitalist nations is to overthrow its own
bourgeoisie. e German romantics alluded to by Berlin focused on the creative
will and collective genius of peoples over against the philosophia perennis of the
French Enlightenment and the triumph of the natural sciences.
Rizal and his compatriot-propagandists matured in that radical democratizing
milieu of late th century Europe. Mabini inherited the radical orientation of
European freemasonry and the liberal-democratic principles espoused by the Liga
which Rizal launched on July , . Mabini’s valorization of communal grass-
roots sentiment, while invoking the labor of workers and peasants, upheld the
Enlightenment ideals of rationality and village mores articulated with the forms
of life—the traditional customs, practices, folk rituals, etc.—crystallized in Hegel’s
concept of Sittlichkeit (Hegel –; see also Inwood –) or ethos of the rural
folk strata. (In actuality, Mabini’s roots in the village peasantry and urban plebeians
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disqualify him from being labeled a kindred of the creole ilustrado like Rizal,
Paterno, etc.) is unique synthesis of the ilustrado and proletarian historic bloc
functioned as the organic matrix of his vision of Filipino sovereignty elaborated in
LRF.
Given this milieu and the rapid socio-economic changes remarked earlier, for
Mabini, sovereignty resides permanently in the people, the indigenous masses.
Republican democracy derives from this concept of national-popular sovereignty.
is is a legacy whose historical signicance and normative value as an orientation
for transformative praxis is a desideratum in any endeavor to dene a Filipino
identity in our time (for more background, see Majul –).
Mabini attempted to express the principles of sovereignty detached from its
appropriate state-form, in the ten propositions of his “Decalogo.” e rst three are
distinctive in locating the kernel of individuality in the equation God=honor. Justice,
truth, and delity follow from one’s love of God=honor. e second rule invokes
the Protestant emphasis on conscience as God’s voice; thus every conscience
guarantees freedom to worship God in the form dictated by one’s conscience.
Cultivation of one’s ability in a righteous, just way contributes to the progress of
humanity. It is in Rules to that Mabini weaves country, God, and honor together,
recommending also that only a republican form of governance can insure that the
authority of God, speaking through the conscience of every citizen, is obeyed in
the free vote of everyone possible only in an independent country whose liberty
makes it “the kingdom of reason, of justice and of labor.” I shall elaborate more on
this in the next section.
While some members of the Malolos Congress rejected the “Decalogo” as part of
the Constitution, its main thrust has been incorporated in the republican structure
of government. For example, Rule insists on transcending the demands of family
or dynasty in a republic which “makes a people noble and worthy through reason,
great through liberty, and prosperous and brilliant through labor” (“Mabini’s
Decalogue”). Rule repeats the Golden Rule of loving and helping one’s neighbors.
Finally, Rule arms the need for a local commons to focus one’s energy and will
in one’s organic association, the collective in a particular space or region of the
earth—the concept of a nation concretized in shared experiences of daily living—
for common survival:
Tenth. ou shalt consider thy countryman more than thy neighbor; thou shalt see him
thy friend, thy brother or at least thy comrade, with whom thou art bound by one’s fate,
by the same joys and sorrows and by common aspirations and interests.
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erefore, as long as national frontiers subsist, raised and maintained by the selshness
of race and of family, with thy countryman alone shalt thou unite in a perfect solidarity
of purpose and interest, in order to have force, not only to resist the common enemy but
also to attain all the aims of human life.
Note that the “Decalogue” is mindful of the geopolitical context of the time and
the historical antagonisms among races and nations, Moreover, it is not a stand-
alone table of commandments; it is embedded in the plan constructing the Republic’s
founding, normative contract. Even though Mabini’s tenure as government ocial
was short, his impact was profound and enduring. His involvement with the Republic
was cut short when the cabal of ilustrados—their names are now infamous: Pedro
Paterno, Felipe Buencamino, Benito Legarda, Felipe Calderon, and others—forced
him out of oce. His role as Premier and Secretary of Foreign Aairs was brief. By
May , , he was replaced by Paterno and was in the margins of power until his
capture by American troops in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, on December , . His
reputation as uncompromising dissident probably began when he refused to take
the oath of allegiance, his intransigence demonstrated in his public denunciation
of the occupying regime. Eventually, General Arthur MacArthur ordered his arrest
and deportation as an “insurrecto” to Guam on January , (O’Connor). He was
amnestied after two years and allowed to return on February , , swearing the
oath to a customs ocer. Weakened and sickened by his imprisonment in Guam,
Mabini died of cholera on May , . He was years old.
NARRATING THE DESCENT FROM THE MOUNTAIN
We appreciate Mabini as a writer of political criticism, an epistolary artist, a
participatory historian of his time. It was his memoir, La Revolucion Filipina
(published in ), and his responses to American ocials and journalists that
constitute Mabini’s inscribed contribution to our sense of nation-hood, more
precisely, an emergent national identity. According to Dr. Rafael Palma, Mabini
embodied “the soul of a glorious era” of Philippine independence, from the
Katipunan rebellion and the Malolos Republic. Praised as “the brains of the
Revolution,” Mabini may appropriately be called its symbolic tribune, if not its tragic
and utopian inquisitor. His biographer Teodoro M. Kalaw speculated that “when
the history of our revolution is studied, and the cha is separated from the grain,
and the outstanding men and events of this turbulent epoch of our revolution are
recognized, Mabini appears as a prophet who saw things clearly and divined the
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aspirations and desires of the country, interpreting its best aspirations, channelling,
when he could, the occurrences toward its logical and natural course” (–).
“Not force but reason is our beacon and guide”—this slogan (my suggestion) may
be considered the inspiring axiom, the driving force of Mabini’s political strategy. In
the erudite commentary on Mabini’s philosophy by Cesar Majul, Mabini emerges
as the chief progenitor of the Filipino national community-in-the making rooted
in the Philippine archipelago. It is an embryonic nation apprehended only in the
mobilized wills and actions of the combatants, in their collective aspirations and
hopes. While Rizal and others articulated the inaugural principles of collective
honor and dignity, Mabini summed up the accomplishment of the revolution as
well as the resistance against U.S. aggression in upholding those principles. Popular
sovereignty as socialized virtue was the paramount categorical imperative: “Let us
not forget that we are on the rst steps of our national life and that we are called to
climb only by means of the standards of virtue and heroism; and let us not forget
above all that if we do not grow, we will die without having even been great” (Majul
–). is nascent assemblage born from the struggle operates on rational
principles, guaranteeing full rights, equality, and justice for all its members. Only
full independence will guarantee them. Such principles also dictate suppressing
the drive for personal advantage in order to free ourselves from “perpetual tutelage.”
And unless we do that, “we cannot combat our enemies because we have not yet
nished the struggle within ourselves.” Mabini thus endeavored to answer the
urgent classic humanist anxiety regarding what we should think, how we should
act, and what we should hope for.
In this context, let us examine Mabini’s theorization of collective agency for
radical transformation. In Mabini’s visionary foundation of the Republic, expressed
in the May document, Panukala sa Pagkakana nang Republika nang Pilipinas,
the maxims for constructing the organic protagonists of the national community
were rst laid out as part of the “El Vedadero Decalogo,” cited often as “Decalogo.”
Its models were the Masonic Moral Code (Gealogo, qtd. in “Apolinario Mabini’s
e True Decalogue”; Philippine Center for Masonic Studies), Bonifacio’s “Ang
Dekalogo ng Katipunan” and Jacinto’s “Ang Kartilya ng Katipunan.” Contrary to
malicious allegations, it was not meant to replace the biblical “ten commandments.”
Rather, it recommended precepts or directive rules for those committed to the
revolutionary goal of freedom from colonial domination and clerical obscurantism.
Mabini submitted those recommendations for the deliberative judgment—his
term is “pagkukuro” or reasoned critique—of each participant of the emergent
democratic polity. It was not an authoritarian diktat but a heuristic pedagogical
guide for recalling certain truths.
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Anticipating objections, Mabini forewarned his readers: “Bagamat ako’y hindi si
Moises at di rin namamansag na tagapagbatas ng ating bayan, ay naghahanay ako
sa inyong pagkukuro ng sampung katotohanan, na ang pagkakilala’t pagsasagawa
nito’t maghahatid sa atin sa pagtatamo ng pinakananasang Kalayaan, o kaya’y
ng pangakong Kasarinlan” (qtd. in Mabaquiao ). Notice the invitation to
the “pagkukuro” of the reader, and also the use of the conceptual metaphor of
travel—“maghahatid” to fulll desire and to realize the promise of sovereignty or
self-determination—all prospective and prophetic. e creed for the revolutionary
combatant and partisans is found in the fourth, fth, and sixth advice (cited in
Mabini’s Tagalog, with translation by the Philippine Press Bureau in brackets):
Icapat, ibigin mo ang iyong bayan o Inang bayan na ka-ikalawa ng Diyos at ng iyong puri
at higit sa iyong sarili. Sapagkat siya ang kaisaisang Paraisong pinaglagian sa iyo ng Diyos
sa buhay na ito. Bugtong na pasunod sa iyong lahi, na kaisaisang mamamana mo sa iyong
mga nuno at siya lamang pag-asa ng iyong inaanak. Dahil sa kanya ay humahawak ka ng
buhay, pag-ibig at pag-aari, natatamo mo ang kaginhawahan, kapurihan at ang Diyos.
(Panukala )
[Fourth. ou shalt love thy country after God and thy honor and more than thyself: for
she is the only Paradise which God has given thee in this life, the only patrimony of thy
race, the only inheritance of thy ancestors and the only hope of thy posterity; because of
her, thou hast life, love and interests, happiness, honor and God.]
Ikalima. Pagsakitan mo ang kaginhawahan ng iyong bayan higit sa iyong sarili. At
pagpilitan mong siya’y pagharian ng kabaitan, ng katwiran at ng kasipagan. Sapagkat kung
maginhawa siya ay pilit ding giginhawa ikaw at ang iyong kasambahay at kamaganakan.
(Panukala )
[Fifth. ou shalt strive for the happiness of thy country before thy own, making of her
the kingdom of reason, of justice, and of labor; for if she be happy, thou, together with
thy family, shalt likewise be happy.]
Ikaanim. Pagpilitin mo ang kasarinlan ng iyong bayan. Sapagkat ikaw lamang ang tunay
na makapagmamalasakit sa kanyang ikadadakila at ikatatanghal. Palibhasa’y ang kaniyang
kasarinlan ang siya mong sariling kaluwagan at kalayaan, ang kaniyang pagkadakila ang
magdadala sa iyo nang lahat mong kailangan, at ang kaniyang pagkatanghal ang siya
mong kabantugan at kabuhayang walang hanggan. (Panukala )
[Sixth. ou shalt strive for the independence of thy country: for only thou canst have any
real interest in her advancement and exaltation, because her independence constitutes
thy own liberty; her advancement, thy perfection; and her exaltation, thy own glory and
immortality.]
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Mabini’s dialectic of individual and society, theory and practice, is formulated
succinctly. e advice-giver or counselor strives to establish an organic synthesis of
self and community, as well as pregure in the process the synergetic linkage of past
and future of the community. Personal worth and identity are inseparable from the
fate and destiny of the concretely dened community in its historical specicity (see
also Miroy –). is characterization omits any reference to race, sect, gender
and other tribal aliations. If a nation, as Otto Bauer once dened it, appears as “a
totality of people who are united by a common fate so that they possess a common
character” (Davis ), then Mabini’s community may claim to be a nation in its
historical determinacy. We are aware of other conceptualizations: the nation as
imagined community, invented tradition, etc. What dierentiates Mabini’s notion
from others is that it invokes the passage of events, the transformation of actors/
citizens and institutions by negating the negation, their colonial servitude (Mabini
foreshadows Frantz Fanon’s belief that “in the colonies, the economic substructure
is also a superstructure” (). e sublated identity of the Filipino nation has been
forged in the revolutionary struggle against mercantile Spanish colonialism and
against the nance-capitalist logic of a racialized, capitalist power, the United
States. Such historical-materialist perspective informs Mabini’s concept of the
Filipino nation in the process of construction.
As already remarked, Mabini upheld the idea that sovereignty belongs and resides
in the people “by virtue of natural law” (La Revolucion, vol. , ; also Mabini, e
Philippine Revolution ). e colonized subjects are the victims of the colonizing
power’s violence, and by negation the protagonists in transforming the dominant
institutions. Sovereignty won by the independent state empowers its citizens, the
subjects/agents of empathy and care (see Majul –, –). is historical
situatedness of self-emancipatory praxis is enough to distinguish Mabini’s theory
of national self-determination from other modernist or postmodernist notions of
nationality or nationalism. In this lies its originality and teleological potency.
FOR WHOM THE BALANGIGA BELLS TOLL
Agency requires purposiveness and integrity. e colonial predicament
aggravated the classic division of mind and body since Saint Augustine and Descartes,
the rupture between consciousness and its surroundings, to the point of schizoid/
paranoic breakdown. Hence came the imperative for a double revolution, the
external and the internal, as expounded in LRF. What the dialectical interactions of
these two transformations are remain a topic for further analysis and critique. One
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may hazard a hypothesis. While the external process clearly refers to the plotted
conguration of events in LRF, the internal process appears to signify an elaborate
and complex pedagogy focused on the acquisition of critical self-consciousness.
Arguably, the two processes may occur simultaneously, or in parallel trajectories.
When will and intelligence coincide, the human actor changes herself together with
her environment, her concrete situation. Since I have just published commentaries
on Mabini’s magisterial work (see “Sa Pagitan”; “Apolinario Mabini: Paghamon”),
it may be timely to sum up my arguments for recognizing Mabini as the major
theoretician of the transformative spirit of the - revolution.
Allow me to read the LRF as an allegorizing narrative. In partitioning LRF’s
sequence of topics, Mabini created the space for the birth of the Malayan race
in the eld of modern geopolitics. It is a narrative with hybrid tragic and utopian
implications. Replete with crucial moments of reversal (peripeteia) and recognition
(anagnorisis), Mabini’s discourse recounts the adventure of one protagonist’s
reexive sensibility as he tracks the vicissitudes of the struggle against two empires,
one decaying and one convulsed in birth-pangs, marching and sailing across the
Caribbean and the Pacic. In the ultimate analysis, LRF attempted an inventory
and judgment of all the characters and events involved in the revolution. It charted
the dialectic of mutations inside and outside, in the motives of characters and
the contingency of events leading to its climax and denouement. By positing the
intersection of the evolutionary (the synchronic) and the revolutionary (diachronic)
forms of change, Mabini resolved the paradox of continuity through breaks and
disruptions. In eect, Mabini delineated the vicissitudes of the anticolonial struggle
against Spain and the United States and, in the process, envisaged the birth of a
nation indivisible from its Malayan matrix and Asian heritage (for an alternative
view, see Campomanes).
Summing up, one can venture the thesis that Mabini composed the historical
self-consciousness of the collective will. He sought to adjust the classic concept
of natural law borrowed from Western discourse to the concrete situation of the
anti-colonial war engaging the consciousness of slaves of color (Majul –). By
adopting the viewpoint of the victims, Mabini approximates the ethics of liberation
that Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel theorized for third-world peoples. Placed
by the “cunning of Reason” in that historic conjuncture, Mabini thus stands out as
the most articulate and astute critic of U.S. racism and the class contradictions
underwriting its imperial hubris. is nance-industrial behemoth is viewed from
the peculiar optic of a subaltern inhabiting an archaic tributary economy, hence
the use of “honor” and various libidinally charged sentiments.
Let us remind ourselves that the struggle for freedom/independence is made
in order to arm the dignity of each person. For that purpose, human rights are
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needed to allow equal and reciprocal relations, especially economic justice or
equality—a solidarity in which dignity and happiness are not purchased at the price
of the suering and degradation of another (see Bloch –). Mabini recalled the
shibboleth of “liberty, equality, fraternity” of the French Revolution (e Philippine
Revolution –). What was at stake in the anti-imperialist struggle was the dignity
recovered from the humiliation of exploited Indios, workers, and peasant-serfs. It
was solidarity and equality, as materialized in the Republic’s army of peasants and
workers, that Mabini center-staged in the theater of national-popular revolution.
We can consider LRF a document of the Filipino people that revolted in order to
demonstrate to the world its singular virtue: the emancipatory and subversive spirit
of the community surging forth from the awakened sense of self-worth, honor, and
the justice-seeking virtue of the oppressed masses condemned hitherto to misery
by over three-hundred years of Spanish domination.
FROM ESPRIT DE CORPS TO EGALITARIAN NORMS
Let us return for a moment to Mabini’s concept of a national community, a topic
ably discussed by Majul. For this purpose, let me quote from Mabini’s response to
General Bell who commanded the ruthless pacication of Batangas (Linn –;
Tan –). Before Bell contacted Mabini on how to handle the guerilla war, Mabini
as political prisoner appeared earlier before the Taft Commission to nd out what
limits the Americans would put on Filipino sovereignty. Mabini asserted that
“sovereignty belongs to the people by natural right” (Letters ). us, even if the
Americans allowed local government under U.S. tutelage, Mabini declared that that
was not possible “where the people are not given real and eective participation
in the constitution and running of that same government.” Since the Americans
oered only force and refused to listen to “the voice of reason,” Mabini argued that
it was useless to continue the meetings. One cannot converse with the agent of
violence and lethal destructive force. e choice for the Filipinos was “dishonor or
death.” Mabini chose honor rst and delity to the community of victims organized
to maintain an “upright carriage of human dignity” (Bloch ).
Mabini argued for full sovereignty, as he did with the Schurman and Taft
Commissions (Letters –, –). And so, when he replied to General Bell,
Mabini pursued the same tactic in the face of superior force by saying that if force
is the only rationale of U.S. invasion, then guerilla war is the only way Filipinos can
defend their homes and their freedoms. Guerilla war presupposes the whole habitat
of the masses as the battleeld, serial humans evolving into fused groups (Sartre
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–). Historically contextualized, violence acquires meaning and legitimacy
from the ends and purposes of the victims, the subjugated people, whose needs are
privileged (Marcuse). In fact, not resisting the violation of one’s honor and natural
rights would be a sign of irresponsibility and lack of self-reective integrity. Mabini
tried to remind the General that the Filipino resistance can be compared to the
American colonies’ struggle for emancipation against the British (he also alludes
to the Boer’s struggle against the British in South Africa [Letters ). But this
invocation of the Enlightenment principles of ghting for justice and communal
rights—Rousseau’s “general will” (Bloch –)—seemed useless on the face of
American belief that Filipinos did not know how to govern themselves, and that
they were sullen mischievous children to be civilized with a Krag (witness the
doctrine of white Anglo-Saxon supremacy documented by a Congressional speech
by Senator Alfred J. Beveridge before the outbreak of hostilities in February
(–).
By prioritizing coercive force, the American promise of tutelage negates itself.
Violence cannot engage in earnest dialogue, as demonstrated by the systematic,
deceptive American “policy of extermination” (Sheridan –). On the outbreak
of the war, British lawyer Richard Sheridan observed that “[t]he Americans in
forty-eight hours slaughtered more defenceless people than did the Spaniards in
two centuries” (). is was followed by the obscene crime of U.S. bloodletting in
Batangas and Samar, among numerous battlefronts (for a more substantial record,
see Storey and Lichauco). Mabini knew all those horrors. After his service with
the Republic and exile, Mabini nally sums up beyond triage the lesson gained by
the revolution, namely, the experience of acquiring collective self-consciousness
through sacrice in “conscienticised” praxis (Freire –). He postulates the birth of
an organic, popular will for self-determination—that is, ascertaining the resources
available to develop the potential for enlarging the freedom and happiness already
attained, and to satisfy the anticipated ourishing needs of the entire country.
Freedom is coeval with dignity and humanist, secular virtues. Mabini elaborates
on the dynamic tension and sublimation of contradictions into a more vital, active,
comprehensive unity:
…the present state of culture of the Filipino people shall not put up with subjugation
by force as a permanent condition. e Filipinos may be vanquished now and again,
but as long as they are denied every kind of right, there will not be lasting peace. e
Spaniards were able to rule the islands without great troubles for three centuries because
the Filipinos were then sunk in the most complete ignorance and they lived without
consciousness of national solidarity. Today it is dierent; today the Filipinos share in
the life of other nations and they have tasted, even if only for a short time and in an
incomplete manner, the joys of an independent life. (“In Response” )
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LRF abounds with a celebration of that short-lived freedom terminated by U.S.
hamletting, water-cure, and rampant slaughter. ere are other documents we can
cite—such as Mabini’s reply to General Wheeler’s questions (dated December ,
; Letters –), and his well-publicized “A Filipino Appeal to the People of the
United States”—to oer evidence of Mabini’s refusal to renounce his convictions
and ideals. More revealing of Mabini’s integrity and principled stand are the replies
to General MacArthur and the Taft Commission (La Revolucion, –, –,
–). In his report on the meeting with MacArthur who insisted that Mabini
take the oath of allegiance to the U.S. and rebued Mabini’s demand for equality and
justice, Mabini stated that “all negotiations which would involve the renunciation
of political and civil rights would be dishonorable because it is our duty to sacrice
everything, including our lives, to preserve them” (La Revolucion ). Neither Saint
Augustine nor Saint omas Aquinas’ ideas of legitimate resistance to tyranny are
invoked here; rather, it is the radical principle of “liberty, equality, fraternity” and
its popular authority that animates Mabini’s declaration of a resurgent national will
to survive with dignity and love for neighbors and friends.
LIBERTY OR DEATH: A UTOPIAN PROJECT?
Mabini’s exchanges with the enemy testify to a belief in the capacity for rational
dialogue. After his capture in December , Mabini replied to questions posed
by General Joseph Wheeler, among which is one inquiring about the causes
of the revolution. Mabini repeats the justication of the universal right of self-
determination: “e popular desire of the people to have a government that would
assure to the Filipinos freedom of thought, conscience and association; immunity
in their persons, homes and correspondence; popular representation in the drafting
of laws and imposition of taxes; equality of participation in public oces and
public benets; respect for laws and property; and the progressive development of
public welfare with the help of means oered by modern progress” (Letters ; for
a liberal discourse on the ethics of just wars, see Coates).
Mabini always defended his uncompromising stand as the will of the insurgent
masses. Before he was deported for his publicized opposition to U.S. rule by force,
Mabini rearmed his popular-democratic commitment in a letter to American
journalists on January , . He reiterated his principles: “e Filipinos maintain
the ght against American forces not because of hatred, but to demonstrate to the
American nation that, far from looking with indierence [on] the country’s political
situation, they know, on the contrary, how to sacrice for a government that will
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assure her of individual liberties in accordance with the wishes and necessities of
the nation” (Letters ). From this perspective, the Filipino nation had already
acquired undeniable presence in the form of a continuum of sacrices incurred
in the people’s resistance to imperial domination (by both Spain and the United
States).
Like Rizal and his generation, Mabini looked forward to the future regeneration
of the country. e famous letter to General Bell may be said to exemplify Mabini’s
political sagacity as a partisan of progress. It is a testimony to the ethics of the
Philippine revolution in arming the Filipino potential for rational self-armation
in the given historical situation. e Filipino struggle to overthrow colonialism
was intended to establish and extend “freedom and happiness in a commonwealth,”
insuring “a life without fear and misery, and a life in peace” (Marcuse ). Mabini’s
praxis in dealing with the conquerors proved dialectical: he confronted the
Republic’s defeat as an opportunity to resolve the contradictions evinced in the
failure of the external revolution (due to the backward mode of production and its
debilitating social relations) and the partial if awed victory of the internal one—an
ongoing unity of opposites destined to further exfoliation and synthesis. It was
a transition from one mode of production (feudal/tributary) and its allegorical
translation to another capitalist one (dependent, peripheral) which accounts for
the pathos and irony of LFR (on mode of production as historiographic category,
see Jameson –).
Polarization of agency is ineluctable. Either dishonor (surrender to imperial
power) or death (defending the nation’s sovereignty) was the dilemma that Mabini
wrestled with throughout the years of resistance and exile. Practical reason
embodied in the maturing national form of life, the ethos of resistance in the
war against Spain and the United States, survived insofar as Mabini and those
compatriots who shared his historical experience (as epitomised by LRF) continued
to impart its lessons to the succeeding generations ghting for the full enjoyment
of freedom in an independent republic. e anity of Mabini’s ordeal with the
national-liberation struggles of the twentieth century cannot be more eloquently
armed.
Mabini’s reexive history fullls what the philosopher John Dewey posited as
the historian’s function of actualizing the past-present-future linkages. Dewey
argued that “changes become history, or acquire temporal signicance, only when
they are interpreted in terms of a direction from something to something.... e
present state of aairs is in some respect the present limit-to-which but is itself a
moving limit” (–). Mabini realized this function in LFR. Without this historical
self-consciousness, without the recovery of popular memory and a prophetic
imagination free from dogmatism and sectarianism, the current struggle for justice,
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national democracy, and genuine sovereignty cannot be advanced as a collective,
self-rectifying enterprise. And it cannot be developed further without organic
links to the communities of victims past and present, united by years of oppression
and resistance. Our common historical situation with its reversals and discoveries,
with all protagonists recognizing the tortuous narrative of past struggles and in
the process reinventing their destiny, with its contradictory mélange of failures
and successes, will serve to dene the historical contours of the nation’s fate in the
years to come.
FORGING THE CONSCIENCE OF THE RACE
We arrive at the point where we began: identifying our subject, the collective agent
of transformation. Mabini has always been praised as the “brain of the revolution”
to demarcate that physical part from the rest of the body. e paralysis has been
diagnosed and cured dialectically. All Aguinaldo’s decrees from Kawit, Cavite, to
Malolos, were written or prepared by Mabini, from June to May , when
he resigned from the government. He conducted negotiations with the American
ocials in March ; the Americans refused any ceasere or armistice, oering
only autonomy, not recognition of sovereignty. During this time, Mabini was
aware of the Boxer Rebellion against Westerners in China (–) and the
Boer wars in South Africa against the British (–) since he mentioned the
name of Stephanus Kruger in LRF (see also La Revolucion, vol. , –)—wars
of resistance that suered defeat but upheld exemplary heroism and strategy for
future emancipatory action. His visionary compass was global or international,
thus universalizing the Filipino endeavor as part of humanity’s protracted struggle
against capitalist alienation and technological reication.
Our odyssey is reaching its destination. Mabini was imprisoned by the American
troops on December , , and eventually deported to Guam in June and
released on February , , on the condition that he take the oath of allegiance
to the subjugating power. He died from cholera on May , . While in Guam,
Mabini composed his magisterial LRF, the elegiac testimony of a people that
vanquished Spanish colonialism and challenged the evolving imperialism of the
U.S. Analyzing the causes and consequences of the popular-democratic movement,
Mabini arrived at the judgment that the Filipinos had already won emancipation
and exercised their right to a civilized, just, and egalitarian mode of life. is brief
period was interrupted by the deceptive and unrelenting violence of U.S. militarism
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legitimized by a racist ideology designed to subjugate people of color. Mabini called
attention to the racist logic of U.S. occupation and domination.
We can conclude that among his contemporaries, Mabini was the only one
who understood the racist/white-supremacist motivation, the ideological animus,
underlying U.S. colonization. In elucidating the world-view of the American
conquerors, Mabini discovered the covert but manifest racism in the policies of
the invaders that violated natural law. Natural law, in Mabini’s usage, entails the
view that humans are rational and capable of self-critical action, in the interest
of equality and justice (Neumann ). It was a universalizing perspective. He
perceived the treacherous motive of McKinley’s “Benevolent Assimilation” slogan.
One might hypothesize that compared to the progressive intellectuals of his
generation (e.g., Rizal, Jacinto, Isabelo de los Reyes, etc.), Mabini was the only
one who fully discerned and assayed the racializing hubris of the U.S. ideological-
political apparatus. He grasped what this meant for the plight of workers and
peasants in a colonized, technologically retrograded milieu. Overall, the energy of
Mabini’s critical mind surged forth from the organic desire of the working masses
to overthrow all impediments to releasing its potential and to freely manage their
own lives and destiny.
UPHEAVALS OF SUBALTERN CHARISMA
We can surmise that Mabini’s afterlife may be said to have haunted his contemporaries
and those who bitterly recalled Aguinaldo’s surrender during the transition from
Spanish ascendancy to American hegemony. Within that circumscribed duration of
the Malolos Republic up to the execution of Macario Sakay in September , we
witnessed the profound transformation of the community’s spirit that forged a path
between the old feudal theocratic rule of Spain and the predatory racist ideology
of U.S. monopoly capital and its reifying entailments. us, Mabini unwittingly
resembled the mythical folk-hero Bernardo Carpio of the Indio barangays, poised
to separate colliding mountains. Mabini’s truly prophetic forging of the conscience
of the Malayan race, while serving the revolutionary forces until the end of his life,
may be said to chart the perilous future of a racialized group craving to uphold
and vindicate a singular historic identity. e future cannot be glimpsed except as
the promise and unfullled tasks inherited from the past, seeds germinating from
the grave, as intimated by the totalizing intuition of the folk-saying: “Ang hindi
lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makararating sa paruroonan,” translated into
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the colonizer’s language: “Anyone who does not look back to where she came from,
will not reach her destination.”
To wrap up this exploratory inquiry, it might be useful to speculate on this
heuristic inference of a modernist theme. Mabini’s armation of classic humanistic
principles, such as the primacy of natural law or natural rights as a generalizing axiom
(modied by a quasi-Darwinian notion of evolution), is an attempt to compensate
for the defeats suered by the Republic, notwithstanding the inadequacies of some
of its protagonists. His trust in the combined peasant/proletarian power of the army
was unwavering. Although overwhelmed by U.S. superior technology and logistics,
the spirit of the revolutionary army was resurrected in Sakay, in various colorum/
nativist insurrections, in the Tayug, Sakdal, and Huk uprisings, up to the present
insurgencies. Indeed, the universalizing telos of that struggle was imbued with a
salvic valorization by the narrative of the events sutured and made intelligible in
LRF. As a counterpoint to the defeatist mentality of the Paterno-Buencamino cabal,
Mabini’s thought strove to negate such contingencies, invoking a demiurgic will to
invent compensatory strategies against the new colonizers. Mabini’s discourses and
their rhetorical strategies were designed to generate a symbolic power that would
sublimate defeat by inducing a catharsis of the collective psyche and mobilizing
the heirs of the insurgents to invent weapons for future anti-imperialist wars of
position and maneuver. What is at stake is a new emancipated world in the making
still up for grabs.
It is tting in this epilogue to quote other scholars’ views on Mabini’s
contribution to the genesis of our national self-consciousness. In the s, the
legendary journalist Fernando Maramag paid homage to Mabini as “a practical
seer. No large aair of the Revolution that pressed for assessment was ever beyond
him.... He was a leader for peace times, legislating for the Revolution in the course
of its triumph toward civil responsibility and constitutional freedom” (–). For
his part, Teodoro Agoncillo celebrated Mabini’s sui-generis stature: “Mabini’s
contemporaneity lies…in his character as man and Filipino—a character which is
eternally Filipino, yet universal in his emphasis on the inevitability of freedom, the
dignity of the human race, and the sanctity of moral life. His virtues were those of
any great man of any time and any place to whom integrity was as sacrosanct as
faith. He is our contemporary because the present, which interweaves with the past
to formulate the future, stands in need of him” ().
at tribute may be considered a more elaborate gloss to the Philippine Press
Bureau’s preamble to a reprint of Mabini’s Decalogue: “Mabini was undoubtedly
the most profound thinker and political philosopher that the Pilipino race ever
produced. Some day, when his works are fully published, but not until then, Mabini
will come into his own.” We calculate that this urgent but long delayed recognition
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will soon transpire. After the February “People Power” revolt, Dr. Lilia H.
Laurel reinforced Agoncillo’s assessment: “Even among educated Filipinos of this
generation, only a few fully appreciate the spiritual and intellectual stature of this
man, this soft-spoken but tenacious Batangueno—the least remembered and least
celebrated of our national heroes. Yet a rereading of our history from the onset of
the Revolution, through the struggle against Spain and later America, to the early
years of the American occupation, reveals the signicance of his role as the spiritual
and ideological guide of the revolutionaries as well as the resolute defender of
our liberty, sovereignty and equality among nations” (). Summing-up, historian
Ambeth Ocampo foregrounded the serviceability of Mabini today: “Mabini was
central to the birth of the nation. To understand the present, it is essential that we
look back at the past and the people who shaped the way we are” ().
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NEOLIBERAL SOCIETY, ALIENATION,
AND AFFECTIVE CRISIS IN THE
ANSWERS (2017)
Xiaoxiao Huang
Nanyang Technological University
xiaoxiao001@e.ntu.edu.sg
Abstract
Amid the dominance of neoliberal capitalism, Catherine Lacey’s e Answers (2017) critically
examines the neoliberal restructuring of intimacy, revealing how contemporary economic
systems give rise to pervasive aective crises. Drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of alienation,
this paper explores how emotional laborers in the novel experience aective crises through
four interrelated dimensions of alienation, intensifying systemic pressures, particularly on
women, who endure economic precarity, debt burdens, and inadequate healthcare protections.
Situating the novel within its broader sociocultural context, this paper argues that the neoliberal
promise of emotional fulllment is inherently paradoxical, as it deepens alienation rather than
alleviating it. Both workers and employers become entangled in a cycle of cruel optimism,
though the harms are distributed unequally across class and gender lines. Moreover, this
paper underscores the necessity of fostering self-reection and social critique, as the escalating
demand for emotional labor in the post-pandemic era highlights the urgency of addressing its
structural inequalities. By examining these dynamics, this paper aims to resonate more deeply
with contemporary discussions on labor, intimacy, and neoliberalism, encouraging further
engagement with the pervasive yet often overlooked crises of emotional laborers.
Keywords
aect studies, alienation, e Answers, contemporary literature, neoliberalism
About the Author
Xiaoxiao Huang is a PhD candidate in the Division of English at Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. She has published articles in journals such as Research of Chinese
Literature. Her academic interests include comparative literature, Victorian literature, gender
studies, and aect studies.
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INTRODUCTION
Neoliberalism has been widely recognized as a dominant political-economic
framework that emerged in the 1970s, emphasizing free market deregulation,
privatization, efficiency, and individual entrepreneurialism as its core tenets
(Harvey 2).1 However, beyond its role as an economic doctrine, neoliberalism has
engendered what David Harvey describes as “creative destruction,” dismantling not
only political and institutional structures but also labor divisions, welfare systems,
and individual perceptions of life (3). Functioning as a pervasive social rationality,
neoliberalism normalizes competition and compels individuals to adopt the role of
“entrepreneurial actors in a competitive system” (R.G. Smith 2). Within this
system, personal relationships are no longer sustained solely by emotional
connections but are increasingly shaped by economic imperatives, self-
entrepreneurialism, and transactional logic.
Catherine Lacey’s The Answers (2017) offers a compelling exploration
of this transformation. The novel mirrors the neoliberal commodification of
intimacy through the Girlfriend Experiment (GX), a research project led by
Kurt Sky, a wealthy but emotionally detached actor. The experiment hires a
group of Ivy League–educated women to fulfill carefully segmented
emotional functions, treating intimacy as a scientific variable rather than an
organic human connection. Each participant embodies a distinct affective role.
The protagonist, Mary Parsons, takes on the role of the Emotional Girlfriend,
tasked with evoking emotions on demand. As the experiment unfolds, Mary
undergoes a series of affective crises, grappling with her fractured sense of self,
the artificial nature of her romantic relationship, and her estrangement
from social belonging. By fragmenting intimacy into discrete, purchasable
experiences, the novel exposes the affective crises inherent in neoliberal
emotional economies, illustrating how selfhood and personal relationships are
increasingly governed by the same forces that structure the broader economic
order.
In this article, affect is defined according to the Oxford English Dictionary
as “a feeling or subjective experience accompanying a thought or action or
occurring in response to a stimulus; an emotion, a mood” (“Affect”).2 While
this definition frames affect as an individual experience, contemporary scholars
emphasize its social, historical, and economic dimensions. Rachel Greenwald
Smith describes affects as “socially transmissible,” shaped by broader material
conditions (423). Sara Ahmed likewise argues, affects are shaped by histories of
contact and signs through circulation (120).3 Within neoliberal capitalism,
affect is increasingly instrumentalized, shaped by economic imperatives rather
than intrinsic human connection. The term, affective crisis, was introduced
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by Hans Demeyer and Sven Vitse in their study of autofiction, to describe
difficulties of emotional attachment to one's self-identity and the world
under neoliberalism (6). This article adopts the concept in a distinct
sociopolitical context. Here, the term refers to the structural emotional
dislocation experienced by emotional laborers under neoliberal capitalism.
This article examines the commodification of affect and the resulting affective
crisis through the lens of Karl Marx’s theory of alienation, which provides a
structural framework for understanding how neoliberalism estranges emotional
laborers from their selfhood and intimate relationships. In the Economic and
Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx identifies four dimensions of alienation:
estrangement from the product, the labor process, human nature, and fellow
beings (Marx 74, 75; Brook 9, 18). Though originally formulated within the
context of industrial capitalism, Marx’s theory remains indispensable for
analyzing how neoliberalism extends alienation beyond the workplace into the
realm of intimacy and affect. As Eva Illouz observes, Marx’s concept of
alienation carries “strong emotional overtones,” illustrating how capitalism not
only estranges individuals from their labor but also “from one another, from their
community, and from their deep selves” (1). This theoretical lens is particularly
relevant to the analysis of the GX in The Answers, and this article will elaborate
on its application in the section “Alienation and Affective Crises,” focusing on how
the girlfriends experience alienation in the novel.
Despite its incisive critique of neoliberalism’s impact on intimacy, The Answers
has received little scholarly attention. However, its recognition as one of Granta’s
Best of Young American Novelists in 2017 underscores its literary and cultural
significance. Through the GX, the novel vividly depicts and critiques neoliberal
logics. This article argues that The Answers reveals an affective crisis as a structurally
produced condition shaped by the alienation inherent in neoliberal economies,
which commodify affect while sustaining an unequal cycle of emotional extraction
and disillusionment through the illusion of fulfillment.
To substantiate this argument, the article first examines how the novel reflects
neoliberal logic by fragmenting intimacy into marketable goods, conducting
a macro analysis of the GX as a mechanism of commodification. It then offers a
micro-level analysis grounded in Marx’s four dimensions of alienation, examining
how GX workers, particularly Mary and Ashley, become increasingly detached
from their labor process, its outcomes, their authentic selves, and their social bonds,
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ultimately culminating in pervasive aective crises. e article further investigates
the structural causes of an aective crisis, including economic precarity, rising
student debt, and the inadequacies of the American healthcare system, all of which
push nancially vulnerable, highly educated middle-class women into cycles
of emotional labor.Ultimately, this article reveals the unequal cycle of class and
gender exploitation in the GX concealed under the guise of cruel optimism. e
Answers, in turn, exposes the central paradox of neoliberal intimacy: its attempt
to rationalize, optimize, and monetize aect only exacerbates the alienation and
emotional dislocation it purports to resolve.
THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIMENT AND EMOTIONAL LABOR
In The Answers, the GX is introduced as a scientific inquiry into the nature of
love and companionship, ostensibly benefiting both society and Kurt’s emotional
well-being (Lacey 65). This veneer of objectivity masks a deeper capitalist logic
in which intimacy is fragmented, commodified, and reduced to a series of
transactions. Within this framework, romantic relationships are disassembled
into specialized roles, such as the Emotional Girlfriend, the Anger Girlfriend, and
the Maternal Girlfriend, each fulfilling a distinct function. Rather than fostering
genuine connection, the GX reflects a neoliberal model of affective outsourcing,
where emotions are engineered for consumption. Kurt, positioned as the ultimate
neoliberal consumer, delegates intimacy to a curated set of partners. The Intimacy
Girlfriend provides sexual gratification, the Anger Girlfriend introduces controlled
conflict, the Maternal Girlfriend offers domestic warmth, and the Mundanity
Girlfriend simulates companionship. In this system, intimacy is no longer an
organic exchange but a short-term, replaceable resource shaped by market logic.
This utilitarian dynamic reduces the girlfriends in the GX to workers whose
labor aligns with Arlie Russell Hochschild’s concept of emotional labor—a form
of work that “requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the
outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others” (7). Notably,
Hochschild further stresses that “the worker can become estranged or alienated
from an aspect of self—either the body or the margins of the soul—that is used to
do the work” (7).5 Paul Brook further complements that this phenomenon occurs
especially within the “private sphere,” where personal emotions are transformed
into marketable services, ultimately alienating workers from their own emotional
output as management controls the form, timing, and expression of their feelings
(11). For example, as the Emotional Girlfriend in the GX, Mary is tasked with
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manufacturing emotions by listening attentively, maintaining eye contact, sending
comforting texts, and crying on demand, all while suppressing her own discomfort
or detachment. Her role is explicitly framed as a nancial transaction when Kurt’s
assistant, Matheson, states, “the position pays $1,450 a week” (Lacey 69). Similarly,
Ashley, in her role as the Anger Girlfriend, is highly compensated to perform
scripted outbursts on cue, transforming anger from a spontaneous reaction into a
commodied form of emotional labor (98). In both cases, aective expressions are
systematically repackaged for Kurt’s consumption, illustrating how the GX operates
within a neoliberal framework that instrumentalizes emotions and recongures
intimacy as paid labor.
ALIENATION AND AFFECTIVE CRISES
Marx’s theory of alienation, originally applied to material labor, also provides
a powerful lens for understanding emotional labor. Hochschild extends this
framework in e Managed Heart (1983), arguing that the psychological toll of
emotional labor parallels the alienation Marx described in physical and mental
work. She explains that workers risk estrangement from aspects of the self—
whether bodily or emotional—when their feelings are commodied (7). As Rahel
Jaeggi further asserts, alienation is “a disturbance of the relations one has, or should
have, to oneself and to the world” (11).6 Building on this, this section explores how
the GX alienates laborers from the labor process, its outcomes, human nature, and
interpersonal relationships, ultimately contributing to pervasive aective crises
among emotional workers.
e GX’s technocratic design and implementation exemplify alienation from the
labor process. e emotional labor performed by the girlfriends is wholly dictated
by external forces, depriving them of autonomy over their aective expressions. For
example, Mary, assigned the role of the Emotional Girlfriend, does not engage in
emotional interactions freely; rather, her actions are meticulously choreographed
by a research team that dictates when, where, and how she must express aection
toward Kurt. She participates in “Relational Experiments” at prescribed intervals,
sends text messages at regimented times, and adjusts her responses based on
research data (Lacey 68). is rigid structuring of aective labor reects Marx’s
assertion that “labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic
nature,” rendering it “an alien activity not belonging to him” (71, 72). Mary’s emotions,
once spontaneous, become mechanical, dictated not by personal volition but by an
institutional apparatus that treats emotional engagement as a research variable to
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be optimized. As the experiment progresses, she experiences mounting anxiety,
realizing that her emotional labor is not her own but a performance orchestrated
by an external authority—an embodiment of Marx’s claim that under alienation,
“the worker’s own physical and mental energy [. . .] do not belong to him” (72).
is alienation is further entrenched through the hyper-rationalized monitoring
of the girlfriends’ bodies and emotions, which are reduced to quantiable data
points during the experiment. Each participant undergoes invasive biometric
surveillance: cameras track their every move, sensors record physiological
responses, and analytics attempt to map the “logic” of their aective expressions
(Lacey 94). As Rahel Jaeggi explains in her interpretation of Marx, the worker “can
neither comprehend nor control the process as a whole of which [he] is a part”
(Jaeggi 13). Similarly, the girlfriends have no insight into how their performances are
analyzed, nor do they exercise agency over their own aective labor. eir emotions
are transformed into raw material for research, manipulated and optimized for
external ends rather than self-directed expression. is complete loss of autonomy
precipitates an aective crisis, as the girlfriends, particularly Mary, grapple with
the realization that their emotions are no longer extensions of their inner selves
but are circulated within an impersonal system of control. Mary articulates this
experience, remarking: “To be hired as a girlfriend, sure, this seemed abnormal, but
then again so many things seemed abnormal to me that I’d long ago learned not to
trust that instinct” (Lacey 66).
e girlfriends’ lack of agency over their emotional labor is not limited to
the conditions under which they perform; their alienation extends beyond the
labor process itself to the products of their emotional work. As Marx contends,
workers not only lose control over their productive activities but also nd that the
outcomes of their labor are appropriated by external entities, becoming “an alien
object exercising power over him” (71). is estrangement is strikingly evident
when Mary inadvertently discovers that her emotional labor has been repurposed
without her consent. Having spent months within a highly monitored aective
landscape, she assumes that her role concludes with the termination of the
experiment. However, she is confronted with the unexpected realization—through
a passerby’s recognition—that her emotional expressions during the GX project
have been extracted, edited, and incorporated into Kurt’s new lm, e Walk, as
a commercial product (Lacey 283). e research footage, initially gathered under
the pretense of scientic inquiry, has been commodied to generate publicity and
prot, reinforcing Marx’s assertion that “the worker is alienated from the product
of her labor by the simple fact that it is not she who owns or controls its disposal, but
rather the capitalist” (72). Mary’s emotions have been repackaged by her employer,
Kurt, as entertainment, reinforcing her position as an unwitting participant in a
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system that capitalizes on emotional labor while denying laborers any share in its
rewards.
e second major product derived from the GX is Identity Distance erapy
(IDT), a commercialized application of research data extracted from the girlfriends’
emotional labor. Marketed by Kurt’s company, Kerensky Technologies, IDT is
promoted as a breakthrough in relationship facilitation, employing “a system of
highly advanced wearable biotechnology that changes a user’s brain activity and
bodily sensations to create a virtual reality experience” (Lacey 288). e technology
promises that users “can be in a relationship without fruitlessly trying” (288, 289),
eectively reducing romance to an algorithmically engineered state of emotional
attachment. Mary once more discovers this commodication through an external
medium—the radio—emphasizing the depth of her alienation, as her emotional
labor has been transformed into various commercial products without her
awareness or consent.
Hochschild’s analysis of emotional labor further claries this mechanism,
arguing that when labor produces moods, feelings, or relationships, these
emotional products become increasingly owned by the organization rather than the
individual (198). In e Managed Heart, she illustrates how ight attendants mold
their emotions into seamless extensions of the airline’s aesthetic, akin to uniforms,
décor, and in-ight services, and these emotional products become increasingly
owned by the organization rather than the individual, highlighting not only the
institutional control over emotions but also the signicant emotional value lost
by workers beyond mere wages (8). Similarly, Mary’s aective expressions in the
GX are subsumed into a broader corporate apparatus, reconstituted as economic
capital. is represents the fullest realization of alienation from the product of
labor: the girlfriends’ performances, initially framed as research, are later wholly
extracted, recontextualized, and monetized for commercial prot, yet they receive
no residual compensation, credit, or control over how their images and emotions
are used, leaving them completely estranged from the outcomes of their labor.
Upon learning of these developments, Mary articulates her emotional
disorientation, stating, “I felt confused and strange” (Lacey 287). If alienation
from the labor process renders her emotions mechanical and detached from
personal volition, then estrangement from the product of labor ensures that her
aective expressions are reied into commodities in the public sphere beyond her
control. is dual alienation exacerbates the aective crises experienced by the GX
participants, underscoring the profound psychological consequences of emotional
labor within a neoliberal system that divorces individuals from both their emotions
and the material outcomes of their aective engagements.
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is aective estrangement, however, extends beyond the alienation from the
labor process and its product. At its deepest level, it severs the participants from
their very sense of self, mirroring what Marx denes as alienation from man’s
species-being. Marx argues that estranged labor transforms humanity’s species-
being—both its natural and spiritual essence—into an external force, reducing it to
a mere instrument of survival (74). In e Answers, this alienation is most strikingly
embodied in the girlfriends’ dissolution of selfhood, as their identities become
increasingly unrecognizable even to themselves.
Mary, the protagonist, experiences an increasing dissolution of selfhood as her
participation in the GX deepens. She frequently acknowledges a growing sense of
detachment from her own existence. On a personal day, following her role as the
Emotional Girlfriend, she describes herself as feeling “impersonal,” confessing, “I
almost doubted I was alive” (Lacey 78). is existential disorientation intensies as
the experiment progresses: “I had no pain, no need [. . .] I was a stranger living as a
stranger in a stranger’s body in yet another stranger’s home” (253). Her estrangement
is not merely psychological but corporeal, as she becomes alienated from her own
body and her spirituality—her species-being in Marxian terms—losing the ability
to experience emotions as intrinsically her own.
Similarly, Ashley, cast as the Anger Girlfriend, voices a comparable rupture
in self-perception. By the experiment’s conclusion, she expresses a desperate
uncertainty: “I don’t know what I am [. . .] I don’t know what feelings are mine
anymore” (279). Both women, manipulated by the experiment’s rigid structure,
nd their identities fragmented and their emotions rendered unintelligible. As
Hochschild observes, emotional labor engenders an estrangement between an
individual’s perceived “true self” and their performing “on-stage” selves, turning
selfhood into a site of internal conict (136, 184).
Beyond the erosion of selfhood, the participants also confront a profound
uncertainty regarding their feelings in love. Mary, subjected to the program’s
manipulations, begins to question the legitimacy of her feelings for Kurt. She
wonders whether her longing for him constitutes genuine love or is simply “a terrible,
embittering tax” on the high income she earns from the experiment (Lacey 279).
Ashley, too, experiences emotional disorientation, vacillating between attraction
and aversion. She xates on Kurt’s facial expressions and speech patterns (206);
on the other, her biometric resting data—recorded when she is most at ease—
reveals a persistent undercurrent of hostility toward him (205). In an attempt to
resolve this contradiction, a researcher surreptitiously increases the Compassion
concentration in her Internal Directive, an electromagnetic mechanism designed
to modulate hormone and neurotransmitter levels, thereby inuencing her
emotional responses (146). e expectation is that heightened Compassion will
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soften Ashley’s aggression; paradoxically, however, the intervention amplies her
hostility, causing her to lash out at Kurt with even greater intensity (206). is
contradiction underscores the profound dissonance between externally regulated
emotions and genuine aect, demonstrating how the experiment deprives Ashley
of the capacity to experience love in a coherent form, leaving her trapped in an
unresolved dialectic between imposed aect and self-authenticity.
Ultimately, both Mary and Ashley face an irreconcilable rupture between their
authentic emotions and the articial identities imposed upon them, epitomizing
alienation from human nature. eir aective crises transcend mere psychological
distress, signaling a profound estrangement from their own subjectivity. As the
experiment externalizes and manipulates their emotions, the boundary between
genuine feeling and conditioned response blurs, rendering their inner experiences
increasingly opaque. erefore, t he d issolution o f s elfhood s ignals a n a ective
crisis in which the self is not merely performed but ultimately eroded.
If alienation from human nature severs individuals from their own subjectivity,
then alienation from fellow beings extends this estrangement into the social sphere,
disrupting interpersonal relationships and rendering genuine human connection
increasingly unattainable. Marx contends that “an immediate consequence of the
fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life activity,
from his species-being is the estrangement of man from man” (75). In other words,
social bonds are no longer formed through intrinsic human connection but are
mediated by structures of commodification (Marx qtd. in Brook 20). Within such
a system, emotional labor is not only a mechanism of self-estrangement but also a
force that reorganizes human relationships into transactional exchanges, fostering
distance rather than intimacy.
In e Answers, Mary’s fractured relationships with those closest to her epitomize
this alienation. Her detachment from her parents, Aunt Clara, and her closest
friend, Chandra, underscores a long-standing sense of not belonging, one that she
traces back to childhood: “my childhood wasn’t my life—maybe it had been Merle’s
life, but not mine. And the time I lived with Aunt Clara hadn’t really been a life,
more like rehabilitation. And college wasn’t life at all, just a gestational period, four
years of warning and training for this life that was coming, that future thing” (Lacey
11). Her sense of disconnection continues into adulthood, as her relationships with
Clara and Chandra dwindle, leading her to admit that she has begun “drifting
from people” (72, 192). is emotional distancing is not merely circumstantial but
symptomatic of the broader structures that shape her existence. e GX, which
commodies her emotions and dictates her social interactions, further exacerbates
her inability to sustain meaningful connections. Mary does not engage with others
as an autonomous individual but as a manufactured persona. Her relationships
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are not organic but scripted, reinforcing the notion that estranged labor does not
merely impact individual identity but restructures human connection itself.
Determined to regain her sense of self, Mary embarks on a journey to nd Aunt
Clara, convinced that reconnecting with her past will restore her lost identity.
She asserts: “I was determined to reach her, if not by phone, then by plane, by
car, by my legs, by my face, by myself” (Lacey 255). No longer willing to passively
accept the constraints imposed by the GX, she declares, “I was tired of my life
happening to me. I needed to make things happen” (255). However, this attempt at
reconnection is ultimately thwarted. Upon arriving, she discovers that Aunt
Clara has been clinically diagnosed with dementia and relocated to a nursing
home, a revelation that overwhelms her with guilt for her prolonged absence.
Desperate to make amends, she rushes to Tennessee, but her journey is abruptly
interrupted when she receives an enraged call from Matheson, who reproaches her
for neglecting Kurt during his convalescence. Consequently, Mary is forced to cut
her visit short and return to New York, reinforcing her inability to reclaim
either her personal relationships or her autonomy.
Mary’s inability to reconnect with Clara cements her isolation, revealing how
interpersonal relationships are shaped by the same economic and institutional forces
that regulate her labor. ough she briey grasps at autonomy, her agency remains
constrained within the connes of commodied emotional labor. Governed by the
GX, her relationships become secondary to its demands, reducing even her most
genuine attempts at intimacy to transactions dictated by external structures. is
underscores that alienation from others is not merely a byproduct of estranged
labor but an inherent condition of life under neoliberal capitalism. Her aective
crisis, therefore, is not just a matter of individual identity—it reects the systemic
impossibility of sustaining meaningful relationships in a structure that renders
them unattainable.
erefore, the four dimensions of alienation operate in a cumulative progression
in the novel, exposing how neoliberal logic systematically estranges emotional
laborers from the labor process, its outcomes, human nature, and interpersonal
relationships. is escalating disconnection erodes the girlfriends’ sense of identity,
relational stability, and sociopolitical belonging, ultimately culminating in severe
aective crises.
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STRUCTURAL CAUSES: ECONOMIC PRECARITY, RISING DEBT, AND THE
PRIVATIZATION OF HEALTHCARE IN NEOLIBERAL SOCIETY
However, what structural forces generate the prevalent aective crises among the
experiment participants? e Answers identies three interrelated mechanisms that
drive this crisis. is section examines these mechanisms. First, the precarization
of the labor market has dismantled job security, pushing even highly educated
individuals into unstable, low-wage employment. Second, the disciplining power of
debt not only extracts nancial value but also restricts personal agency, particularly
compelling women with student loan debt to commodify their emotional labor.
Finally, the deterioration of the US healthcare system exacerbates economic
vulnerability, perpetuating cycles of dependence and alienation. Collectively,
these interconnected forces, as depicted in e Answers, expose how structural
conditions produce the aective crises of emotional laborers.
First, within the precarious framework of the contemporary neoliberal economy,
higher education no longer guarantees nancial stability. Aaron Benanav (2020)
highlights how the stagnation of the college wage premium since the 2000s has
left graduates vulnerable, with economic growth rates slowing and job creation
failing to keep pace with the increasing number of degree holders. Mary’s nancial
struggles reect this shift: despite working as an accounts manager at a travel
agency for eight years, she remains trapped in nancial insecurity (Lacey 8). As
John Macintosh (2020) observes, the “downward mobility” of the college-educated
middle class has become a dening feature of contemporary economic life, eroding
traditional white-collar job stability and extending labor precarity beyond the
working class (315).
Second, the increasing debt in neoliberal capitalism forces individuals into
precarious labor markets. Mary’s substantial student loan burden makes her
participation in the GX feel like an economic necessity rather than a voluntary
choice. She reects on this entrapment, confessing:
e whole thing seemed at once terrible and logical—my only option. I couldn’t aord to
go back to where I’d started—emptying my bank account each month on pills, treatments,
lab fees, copays, and premiums. I could be redeemed, have a life worth living, maybe
even a chair, socks without holes, maybe even a false tooth to put in the hole where that
molar had been that I could only aord to get pulled. And if I could stand it long enough,
I might even be able to get out of debt completely, to end the calls from the collectors, to
go back to having the freedom to do things again, to live without constraint. e hope
for that freedom steadied me, so I nodded. (Lacey 70)
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Debt, in this context, functions as a disciplinary mechanism, compelling Mary
into emotional labor. Annie McClanahan (2016) asserts that in the contemporary
nancialized economy, debt is not merely an economic burden but a structuring
force shaping subjectivity and social relations. She further elaborates that “behind
both subprime mortgage borrowers and subprime student borrowers, we nd a
shared situation in which the conditions of subsistence and reproduction are no
longer supported by the wage alone and can thus be sustained only through ever-
greater burdens of debt” (191). e GX exemplies this dynamic: Mary’s emotions
and bodily autonomy become sites of economic extraction, illustrating how debt
subjects individuals to cycles of dispossession and dependency.
Student loan debt is a central mechanism of nancial entrapment, exacerbating
the economic precarity of well-educated women like Mary. In the US, student debt
has exceeded $1.3 trillion, increasing at twice the rate of ination (McClanahan 188).
Once regarded as institutions of knowledge production, universities now operate
as nancial enterprises, proting from student indebtedness through Student Loan
Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS). is nancial system normalizes precarious yet
high-paying labor, positioning emotional work not as a choice but as a necessary
survival strategy for young, highly educated women like Mary, weighed down by
debt. As Mary laments, “Even though my paycheck from the travel agency was
decent, the monthly credit card minimums, student loan payments, and last year’s
onslaught of medical bills were all reducing my bank account to cents or negatives
each month, while the debt always seemed to grow” (Lacey 9). erefore, her
experience in the novel reects broader structural conditions in neoliberal society,
where education, rather than serving as a pathway to upward mobility, creates a
cycle of nancial dependence and insecurity for well-educated women.
Beyond student debt, a third structural factor contributing to Mary’s aective
crisis is the inadequacy of the American healthcare system. In the US, where health
insurance is predominantly tied to employment, individuals in precarious jobs
face systemic barriers to medical care. As Macintosh observes, the uninsured are
more susceptible to illness due to restricted access to preventive care (314). Mary
experiences persistent bodily pain, but without a denitive diagnosis, she is forced
to seek costly Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia (PAKing) at a small clinic (Lacey 7).
is treatment, akin to an intense and painful massage, falls outside the scope
of insurance coverage. She articulates the nancial toll: “I needed a minimum of
thirty-ve PAKing sessions, at $225 each, to complete a PAK series, which meant a
complete treatment would cost me the same as a half-year’s rent” (8). Deprived of
nancial resources, Mary is unable to secure the care she requires. Her predicament
exemplies broader neoliberal trends in which healthcare is commodied rather
than recognized as a fundamental right. As a result, economic desperation compels
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her to monetize her emotional labor, reducing her to a site of nancial extraction
rather than an autonomous agent.
Consequently, Mary’s aective crisis results from the interwoven structural
forces of neoliberal society: economic precarity, mounting debt, and healthcare
privatization. Within this framework, an aective crisis is not merely a personal
struggle but a manifestation of neoliberal capitalism’s broader reconguration of
labor and nance. As Mary aptly states, “e problem was, as always, an invisible
one. e problem was money” (Lacey 8).
AFTERMATH: THE CYCLE OF INEQUALITY AND CRUEL OPTIMISM
Although the experiment ocially ends, Mary’s entanglement in the GX and
the systemic inequalities it reects persist. She and the other participants
remain embedded in structures shaped by gendered expectations and class
hierarchies, revealing how the neoliberal system sustains their subjugation. is
section explores the enduring cycle of inequality, concealed beneath the guise of
neoliberal commodication, that forces nancially insecure lower-class women
to accommodate male fantasies and uphold the dominance of the upper class. It
ultimately argues that both the exploiters and the exploited remain trapped in cruel
optimism, as neither successfully fullls their goals through the GX.
e GX reveals the persistent constraints imposed on women, particularly
in relation to emotional labor, which remains a central mechanism of gendered
oppression in both domestic and professional spheres. As Hochschild observes,
“Women more often react to subordination by making defensive use of sexual
beauty, charm, and relational skills. For them, it is these capacities that become
most vulnerable to commercial exploitation, and so it is these capacities that they
are most likely to become estranged from” (164). By replicating patriarchal aective
expectations, the GX reinforces traditional gender roles, commodifying women’s
emotional labor to fulll male fantasies. Mary’s role in the experiment underscores
how neoliberal mechanisms perpetuate gender inequality by reframing traditional
expectations as matters of personal choice and economic necessity.
Mary’s and Ashley’s aective detachments emerge as both a response to and
a challenge against these gendered expectations. While their disengagement
from intimacy and femininity may appear as passive withdrawal, it also functions
as an implicit form of resistance to patriarchal norms that seek to dene their
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identities and behaviors. For instance, Mary’s reection during her GX interview,
“I had forgotten, in a way, that I was a girl, that people had girlfriends, that girls
like me were sometimes those friends” (Lacey 66), highlights her detachment
from both intimacy and the socially constructed role of a girlfriend. Her sense of
estrangement deepens when she experiences menstruation, lamenting, “all you’re
doing is bleeding and dying if you’re not making more life” (115), indicating her
reluctance to embrace traditional notions of female fertility. Similarly, Ashley resists
the conventional valuation of female attractiveness, expressing disdain for the
objectication of women: “the best thing a woman could become was a magazine
page, motionless, silent, shreddable” (99). Her choice to become a professional
ghter, competing against men, marks a deliberate rejection of passive femininity
and an assertion of autonomy within a male-dominated domain.
e detachment exhibited by Mary and Ashley is directly linked to their
experiences of male oppression. Both characters’ spiritual, physical, and
psychological well-being are shaped by men’s exertion of control over their bodies
and emotions. For example, Mary’s upbringing under her survivalist, Christian
fundamentalist father alienates her from mainstream society, creating a profound
sense of isolation that later develops into estrangement from social bonds. Her
reliance on the therapist Ed’s PAKing treatments further exacerbates her loss of
agency. Within the GX, her emotions are meticulously manipulated by Kurt Sky,
Matheson, and the experiment’s researchers, culminating in her realization that
“every minute of her life had been rented or given to someone else” (Lacey 192).
Ashley similarly endures patriarchal domination, articulating her frustration
with the inherent violence of womanhood: “[T]hese men [. . .] didn’t they know
being a woman meant being at war?” (Lacey 100). Her father’s rigid beliefs
reinforce gender inequities, as evidenced by his refusal to teach her how to drive,
dismissing her need for such knowledge (159). Later, the sexual violence
perpetrated by her boyfriend deepens her alienation, leading her to disassociate
from her trauma: “this was nothing, this meant nothing, he was nothing, meant
nothing” (157). Her rejection of femininity stems from the repeated experience of
sexual harassment, which cultivates a desire for invisibility to escape
objectification (100). Thus, both Mary and Ashley resist the expectations of passive,
obedient femininity in response to the pervasive control exerted by men over their
bodies and emotions.
Nonetheless, their participation in the GX and assumption of the role of girlfriends
are reluctant decisions, revealing the ways in which neoliberal society commodifies
and disciplines gendered emotional labor. This form of labor represents a new
iteration of emotional oppression imposed upon women by neoliberal capitalism,
which coerces economically vulnerable women into fulfilling male fantasies while
normalizing their emotional submission to patriarchal authority.
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Beyond gender inequality, the GX exemplies how neoliberal capitalism
perpetuates class-based disparities. For example, during the experiment,
researchers explicitly inform Kurt that Internal Directives are applied to him far
less frequently than to the girlfriends (Lacey 149), underscoring the inequitable
distribution of control within the experiment. is disparity mirrors the lack of
autonomy and agency experienced by workers under neoliberal labor regimes
(Macintosh 319).
Furthermore, the extensive surveillance imposed on the girlfriends, both during
and beyond working hours, exacerbates their precarity and vulnerability. When
Mary informs Matheson that Kurt is hospitalized, Matheson reacts with frustration,
ordering her to “Go home. Don’t come back until I call you” (Lacey 247). Yet, when
Mary later travels to Tennessee to visit Aunt Clara, Matheson suddenly contacts
her, demanding that she return immediately. Confused, Mary responds, “It
was urgent, and I’m on a break [. . .] I thought you told me” (261). Matheson, in
turn, retorts, “So it’s my fault? Is that it? It’s my fault that you don’t care?” (261).
Matheson’s contradictory and erratic treatment of Mary exemplies the broader
imbalance in power dynamics between employer and worker, wherein exibility
is a privilege extended to employers while workers are subjected to erratic and
unpredictable demands. is reects a central feature of neoliberal labor structures:
while marketed as autonomy, exibility primarily functions as a mechanism of
control that renders workers perpetually available. As Brook highlights, “there
is an unequal relationship with the customer: ‘the customer is always right’” (11),
reinforcing an environment where employees must constantly adjust to external
demands. Jason E. Smith further elaborates that under contemporary labor
dynamics, “the true ‘advances,’ such as they are, have been in the domination of the
labor process by employers: their ability to coerce more labor out of a given hour
by means of renement in supervision, oversight, and workplace discipline” (113).
e treatment of Mary thus reects a broader neoliberal reality in which aective
and economic labor intersect, allowing managerial control to extend beyond the
formal workplace into the intimate domains of workers’ lives.
e post-experiment phase further highlights class inequality. Despite
undergoing intensive emotional training, including pre-session protocols, guided
meditations, and compartmentalization exercises designed to prevent emotional
“bleed-over” into their real lives (Lacey 141), the girlfriends continue to experience
aective crises long after the experiment ends. is is evident when Mary watches
the IDT video and reects on Kurt: “I felt a little ache low in my chest. What was
the feeling of missing someone? Was it this?” (289). While she remains emotionally
affected, the data collected from the experiment continues to generate profit for
Kurt, leaving her to navigate the psychological aftermath alone. As Hochschild
observes, the demands of emotional labor may adversely affect individuals' non-
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work emotional experiences and erode their sense of self (7). The GX thus mirrors
broader neoliberal labor conditions, wherein workers invest emotional and
creative energies into their roles but are left to contend with the affective
repercussions without institutional support.
In this context, class disparities within the neoliberal cycle become apparent.
Women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disproportionately subjected
to the exploitative effects of neoliberalization, as their emotional labor extends
beyond waged employment (Macintosh 311).
However, does neoliberal capitalism solely entrap the lower classes? Does Kurt
exclusively benefit from suchan interconnected web of gendered and class-based
inequalities?
Although Kurt is the employer and controller of the laborers, he is also a victim
of mass media’s commodification. His relationships repeatedly fail, as a former
girlfriend candidly tells him, “You don’t love me [. . .] you love the idea of
me” (Lacey 140). As a celebrity, he increasingly struggles to distinguish genuine
love from admiration driven by his status. As Ashley notes about the
disorientation derived from his career, “she’d openly disdained actors [. . .] the more
a man wanted fame, the weaker he became, that craving external approval
atrophied inner strength” (100). Kurt himself also recognizes this weakness, so
he designs the GX as “a sort of recalibration of his understanding of himself in
relationship to others” (66). However, despite generating profits from the data,
the GX does not fulfill his emotional needs. He repetitively asks Mary similar
questions, “Do you think love is the measure of how sad you would be if
someone died?” (186). Ultimately, he remains emotionally disoriented, which
demonstrates the experiment’s failure from an emotional perspective.
Likewise, Mary clings to the promise of financial stability and health recovery
through the experiment, yet she loses her ability to experience real intimacy, thereby
deepening her affective crisis. The resulting mental debilitation of the employees is
evidenced by Mary’s desperate, disoriented questioning at the novel’s end:
I thought of all those billions of hearts beating out there, trying to nd love or keep
love going. All those people, getting in the way of each other—how do we even stand
it? How do we make our way around? [. . .] You know, I’ve really never known what to
do . . . I had a job, then a dierent job, then I was jobless. I was poor or I wasn’t. I was ill
but got better, got worse again, got better [. . .] Money changed hands. People changed.
I changed. (Lacey 290)
us, both Mary and Kurt pursue the promise of fulllment, only to encounter
deeper disillusionment. is fundamental contradiction of the GX is eectively
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explained through the concept of cruel optimism. Lauren Gail Berlant denes
cruel optimism as “an optimistic attachment [. . .] that ignites a sense of possibility”
(2).In the context of e Answers, Mary’s participation in the experiment, initially
framed as an opportunity for nancial stability, instead entrenches her within an
ongoing cycle of dispossession. Despite Kurt’s enjoyment of nancial security and
greater autonomy within the experiment, his inability to experience authentic
intimacy remains unresolved.When Kurt introduces IDT, he claims that it enables
“[u]nhappy couples . . . [to become] fullled again or for the rst time ever,” and
that “[s]ingle people had found sudden and real and lasting and secure love almost
immediately. All their uncertainties ended. ey found a better way to be” (Lacey
289). Yet, even the participants end in doubt, making the experiment and its
product extremely ironic.
erefore, neoliberal systems promise attachment and stability but instead
deepen alienation, trapping both workers and employers in a cycle of cruel
optimism, despite the varying degrees of harm inicted across dierent classes and
genders. is dynamic reveals that even those in control of exploitative structures
are not immune to their corrosive eects, though the intensity and nature of their
suering dier signicantly.However, it is the emotional laborers who bear the
heaviest burden, as they are subjected to economic and aective dispossession,
rendering them the most vulnerable within this neoliberal cycle.
CONCLUSION
Lacey’s e Answers oers a sharp critique of the neoliberal commodication
of intimacy by portraying emotional labor as a transactional relationship that
perpetuates pervasive aective crises. ese crises manifest through four
interrelated dimensions of alienation, reinforcing the systemic pressures imposed
on emotional laborers, particularly women, who are disproportionately aected
by economic instability, debt structures, and inadequate healthcare protections in
neoliberal society. Ultimately, the novel exposes the fundamental contradiction of
neoliberalism’s promise of emotional fulllment: rather than resolving the crisis
of intimacy, the marketization of aect only deepens alienation, exacerbating the
structural inequalities that nancially vulnerable women face.
While e Answers does not propose concrete solutions, its depiction of the
GX vividly illustrates the inescapable and detrimental cycle of neoliberal intimacy.
Furthermore, the novel’s ending is particularly evocative: Mary’s desperate inquiries
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about authentic love provoke an aective “enlistment” of readers, compelling them
not merely to feel emotion but to critically examine their own entanglement in
neoliberal aective economies (railkill 51). By actively implicating readers in
these ideological structures, the novel fosters a deeper reection on stratication,
gendered expectations, and the misdistribution of wealth in neoliberal society,
invoking literature’s power to provoke critique and self-examination.
Moreover, e Answersclearly exemplies contemporary ction’s critical role
in engaging with sociopolitical issues under neoliberalism. Since the COVID-19
pandemic, the demand for emotional labor has intensied, underscoring the urgency
of addressing this often-overlooked crisis (Macintosh 312). By foregrounding the
struggles of women engaged in both paid and unpaid emotional labor, the novel
highlights the severity of aective crises in contemporary neoliberal society. As
Macintosh notes, while e Answers presents an exaggerated premise of a celebrity
orchestrating an experiment to manufacture authentic emotional connection, and
its depiction of Internal Directives remains speculative, the broader implications
resonate with real-world aective economies (18). erefore, through this analysis,
the intricate interplay between aect and neoliberalism is rearmed, underscoring
the novel’s signicance as both a literary critique and a socio-political intervention.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
is article was supported by NTU-SoH Scholarship (SoH-AY-2022-Aug
intake-R2121379).
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Notes
1. For a comprehensive introduction to neoliberalism, see Huehls 47 and Huehls and Smith
4–12. As Mitchum Huehls explains, “e complexity of neoliberalism dees any singular
denition; it operates simultaneously as an economic system, a mode of governance, and
a cultural logic that intersects with broader forces such as globalization, nancialization,
and precarity” (47). is article specically examines neoliberalism through its cultural
and aective dimensions.
2. e term “aect” carries multiple meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary; however,
the most relevant denition here is from the eld of psychology and psychiatry. For
distinctions between aect, emotion, and feeling, see Simecek 419. Karen Simecek
outlines the ongoing debate over these categories and notes that while some scholars
treat them as distinct, there is considerable overlap (419). Given this, the discussion
in this paper includes both emotions and subjectively experienced feelings under the
broader category of aect.
3. For a comprehensive overview of aect theory, see R.G. Smith 15; Clough and Halley 1–3;
and Hardt x–xii.
4. Marxist alienation has been widely debated throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and
remains a crucial framework for critiquing contemporary bourgeois society. Scholarly
interpretations vary, with ongoing discussions in contemporary academia. For a detailed
introduction and critical interpretation of Marxist alienation, see Jaeggi 11–16; Grant et
al. 11–21; and Musto 3–48.
5. For an in-depth discussion of emotional labor, see Hochschild 3–23.
6. is article follows Jaeggi’s interpretation of alienation and denes it as “a disruption in
one’s relationship to oneself and the world” (11).
Huang / Neoliberal Society, Alienation, and Aective Crisis 131
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Abstract
is essay considers the agency of the Philippine tropics in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war lm
Apocalypse Now (), attending to landscape not simply as a stand-in for Vietnam on-screen,
but as a nonhuman agent that participates in the overall creation of the lm. e essay unfolds in
three movements: rst, it recounts the story of the production of Apocalypse Now, underscoring
the crucial role of the tropics in its production and formative interruption, pointing to the
ultimate irony in Coppola’s erasure of the said landscape in the overall mythology of the lm.
Second, the essay considers the postcolonial eorts to recover the vibrancy of the Philippine
tropics in the discourse surrounding Apocalypse Now and extends it through recognizing and
insisting how the landscape, as a nonhuman agent, has never been an inert background to
human actions. Lastly, just as how Coppola consistently evoked the Philippine landscape in his
dissemination of Apocalypse Now according to the specic myth he aimed to project, the essay
then preliminarily attempts to harness the agency of the tropical verdure to open the same lm
toward other possibilities of its reading, especially comparative ones, through the work of the
Filipino contemporary artist Stephanie Syjuco.
Keywords
American War in Vietnam, Apocalypse Now, nonhuman agency, Philippine landscape, tropics
About the Author
Christian Jil R. Benitez is a Filipino poet, scholar, and translator. He nished his PhD in
comparative literature at Chulalongkorn University. He teaches at the Ateneo de Manila
University, where he earned his AB-MA in Filipino literature. His rst book Isang Dalumat ng
Panahon (ADMU Press, ) received the Philippine National Book Award for literary criticism
and cultural studies. His translation of Arasahas: Poems from the Tropics was published by
PAWA Press and Paloma Press. Most recently, he was shortlisted for the inaugural PEN Presents
x International Booker Prize.
A VERDANT READING
On the Agency of the Nonhuman Landscape
in Apocalypse Now ()
Christian Jil R. Benitez
Ateneo de Manila University
Chulalongkorn University
cbenitez@ateneo.edu
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I.
Twenty minutes into Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war lm Apocalypse Now (),
the protagonist Captain Benjamin Willard (played by Martin Sheen) rides a US
Navy PBR not far out in the sea with three other American soldiers. Given the
order to go up the Nung River at the southern part of Vietnam—the “ctional
stand-in” (M. Stewart ) for the Mekong—and further upwards, toward eastern
Cambodia, their group needs to pass through the village of Vin Drin Dop, another
ctional place located at the coastal mouth of the river heavily guarded by armed
Viet Cong. Incapable of making it through the village on their own, Willard’s group
decides to reach out to a passing American air assault unit to seek assistance. e
commander of the unit, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall),
initially hesitates to respond to their call as he did not receive any prior information
about their group or their mission to go north. However, upon learning that one of
Willard’s company is a famous surfer back in California, and that the beach where
the village stands is a great spot for surng, Kilgore, being a big fan of the sport,
agrees to help Willard’s group, in exchange of getting the chance to watch the junior
ocer ride the waves once they successfully raid the village.
e following morning, Kilgore’s unit sets out to attack the village. With armed
helicopters blasting Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” from loudspeakers,
menacing like “winged supernatural furies” (G. Stewart ), they re their machine
guns and rocket missiles at the Viet Cong posts and civilian houses alike. Kilgore
also orders them to drop napalm as he “want[s] the tree line bombed” and have
the “place cleaned up in a jiy” (Milius and Coppola ; Apocalypse Now ::–
::). A few moments later, the verdure transforms into a cloud of red, “a living
hell of burning fossil fuels and gasoline-perfumed explosives” (Ebert ), and in the
midst of the subsequent thick yellowish smoke, Kilgore stands with his hands on
his hips, “sublimely indierent” (Harris ) to the debris falling everywhere and the
sheer violence of everything that just happened. He then remarks how he “love[s]
the smell of napalm in the morning… [how it] smelled—like victory” (Milius and
Coppola ; Apocalypse Now ::–::). is line, and by extension the
entire airstrike sequence, despite Coppola not intending it to be so, became most
remembered from the lm, and among the many lms centered on the American
War in Vietnam.
Apocalypse Now is Coppola’s attempt to adapt Joseph Conrad’s novella
Heart of Darkness to the context of the s, particularly in the American War
in Vietnam (Hagen; Kinder; G. Stewart). e lm follows Willard as he journeys
from the southern part of Vietnam to Cambodia, to locate the outpost of Colonel
Walter Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) who once served in the American Special
Forces but is now suspected to have gone insane. Despite having turned his back on
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the American military, Kurtz has been reported to continue waging a guerilla war
against the forces of the North Vietnamese Army, the Viet Cong, and the nascent
Khmer Rouge with troops of his own, consisting of Americans, Indigenous people
from Vietnam, and local Khmers who all worship him like a deity. So Willard was
given the order by the American army to go through the lush forest of Vietnam, to
brave through the dangers that the tropical landscape poses, as to nally end Kurtz’s
renegade operation “with extreme prejudice” (Milius and Coppola ; Apocalypse
Now ::–::).
While the lm was certainly not the rst to confront the experience of the
American War in Vietnam on-screen, it is commonly regarded as most “instrumental
in shaping [the war’s] image… among the U.S. public” (Wirth ), the considerable
“Hollywood standard for the Vietnam picture” (Tolentino ). Yet Apocalypse Now
did not immediately earn such a reputation: back in , when it was rst released
to the public, the lm was met with criticisms of being “too philosophical, lacking
in answers, and without a clear message” (Rainey; see also Cowie, Apocalypse
Now –, ; Norris n; Zuker –). But even then, its grand vision
was undeniable, made apparent by the incredible amount of resources it had and
brandished. For instance, its promotions list down the materials used during
its making: “, gallons of gasoline burned in ninety seconds… [to] over
smoke bombs, phosphorous sticks, another , gallons of gas, , sticks
of dynamite, feet of detonating cord, plus , rockets, ares and tracers”
(Dempsey ; see also Cowie, Apocalypse Now ; Tolentino ). It was not secret
to the public just how much the lm cost to make; as Coppola himself boasts,
Apocalypse Now was “the rst million surrealist movie” (qtd. in Goodwin and
Wise ).
In , during the Southeast Asian promotion trip for Coppola’s previous
lm, his team had the chance to scout potential locations for the production of
Apocalypse Now. Although Australia made the most “considerable nancial sense,”
Coppola’s team was ultimately dissuaded by the terms set by the Australian actors
guild and the reluctance of the Australian authorities to work with them (Cowie,
Apocalypse Now –). Fortunately for them, Apocalypse Now co-producer Fred
Roos, who previously worked on two lms in the Philippines, maintained several
contacts in the country; furthermore, once in a trip to the capital city of Manila,
another co-producer Gray Frederickson chanced upon his long-time friend
Giovanni Volpi, son of the founder of the Venice Film Festival, who somehow had
connections with then President Ferdinand Marcos. rough Volpi, Frederickson
had the opportunity to meet Marcos, who gave him direct contact with the
Philippine military generals, making the process henceforth “pretty smooth.” On
October , , Coppola’s team signed a contract with the Philippine Department
of National Defense, which granted them free access to necessary equipment and
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manpower, including the fourteen helicopters featured in the airstrike sequence
(Cowie, Apocalypse Now ).
In March , Coppola’s team arrived in the Philippines and began shooting in
the provinces of Zambales, Aurora, and Laguna, all located in the island of Luzon,
with the initial plan of nishing the principal photography within ve months
(E. Coppola ). Early on, however, the production faced several complications,
including reported mishandlings in shooting the airstrike sequence and Sheen’s
replacement of the original actor Harvey Keitel for the role of Willard (Pollock,
“Archival Detailing” ; Cowie, Apocalypse Now –). e greatest disruption was
the ravaging of the typhoon Olga, locally known as Didang, in May, causing what
was then considered the country’s “worst ood in memory” (UPI, “Typhoon Floods
Manila” ). Coppola’s wife Eleanor recounts in her diary that she has “never seen it
rain so hard … barely see[ing] the palm trees in the backyard” (E. Coppola ), while
production designer Dean Tavoularis relates that “if you looked outside [then] the
air seemed white, and the trees were bent at” (qtd. in Cowie, Apocalypse Now ).
In the end, the typhoon destroyed from to of the built set, with damages
amounting to over . million, leaving the production with no choice but to shut
down for six weeks (Pollock, “Archival Detailing” ; G. Phillips ).
e tropical storm, its traumatic experience, and the hiatus it forcibly caused
was pivotal in the overall delay in the making of the lm. Despite the resumption
of principal photography by the last week of July , the break gave Coppola
the time—or perhaps, compelled him, as traumatized subjects are wont—to
“extensive[ly] edit… and tinker…” with the lm, which would then seemingly
become a compulsion for him in the following years (Pollock, “Archival Detailing”
; Cowie, Coppola ). e shooting nally concluded on May , , more than
nine months after the initial target date (Cowie, Apocalypse Now Book ); however,
Apocalypse Now would spend almost another two years in post-production, being
meticulously edited, laid sound, re/written, and given additional sections shot near
Sacramento (–). By this time, the lm’s release had been postponed at least
ve times, and the press, already skeptical of the project, began to mock it with
tabloid headlines such as “Apocalypse When?” and “Apocalypse Never” (American
Film Institute). Surprisingly, by February , Coppola reported to his producers
that Apocalypse Now was to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival the following
May, as a work-in-progress; there, it would be awarded the much-coveted Palme
d’Or, despite negative reviews from its preview screenings held just days prior (AFI;
Cowie, Apocalypse Now ; Pollock, “Film Reviews”).
e long journey that Apocalypse Now had in the verdure of Philippine tropics
laid the foundations for its mythology, which evokes the narrative of taking “risk[s]
in the jungle… based on the untamed frontier” (Trice ). Although Coppola was
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said to be “very frustrated” (E. Coppola ) by the media’s obsession with the
numerous problems of the lm during its production, he nevertheless took part
in the construction of the same myth, “embrac[ing]” it even (Chong ) with his
evident attempt to channel the American War in Vietnam “both on and o screen”
(Tolentino ). For instance, in the program notes distributed during the lm’s
public release on August , Coppola writes that “the process of making the lm
became very much like the story of the lm,” and that he, “like Captain Willard,
was moving up a river in a faraway jungle, looking for answers and hoping for
some kind of catharsis” (“Apocalypse Now: Director’s Statement”). Months prior,
in the presentation of the lm at the Cannes, Coppola went as far as describing it
as being made “very much like the way the Americans were in Vietnam: we were
in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too
much equipment, and little by little we went insane”; ultimately, for him, this makes
Apocalypse Now “not [just] about Vietnam [but] is Vietnam” (Hearts of Darkness
::–::).
Coppola’s statement supposedly stems from his intention to interrogate “the
moral issues… behind all wars” (“Apocalypse Now: Director’s Statement”). And yet,
in such a claim, Coppola also deliberately neglects “the inspired irony of having
forests and Philippine villages napalmed [just] to retrace the hell of South Vietnam”
(Baudrillard ). erefore, in his attempt to turn his lm into “the heart of what
Vietnam was really like—what it looked and felt like” (“Apocalypse Now: Director’s
Statement”)—Coppola also committed a certain violence to the Philippine tropics,
one that “creat[ed] the very situation he went there to expose” by practically “setting
up [there] his own Vietnam” (E. Coppola )—coming to the country, occupied its
land and then obscured it on-screen, used the valuable resources of its government,
and exploited its people (Sussman ; Mydans) and nonhuman environment in
ways “they’d never let you in the United States” (E. Coppola ; Crawford -).
Despite its pretense of political ambivalence, “blam[ing] everyone and therefore no
one for the horrors of Vietnam” (Steier ; see also Sterrit; Tomasulo), Apocalypse
Now ultimately picks a side, not simply because it “inspire[s] a lust for violence”
(Perry), but because it also cultivated a comparable, if not worse, violence just to
bring itself into existence. Indeed, as a French critic sharply puts it: “Was it moral
to massacre the landscape of the Philippines, to napalm entire forests for the sake
of a lm?” (“Etait-ce moral de massacrer des paysages des Philippines, des passer
des forêts entières au napalm pour les besoins d’un lm?”) (Tesson , trans. mine).
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II.
With the erasure of the lm of the verdant Philippine tropics, the claim of Apocalypse
Now being the American War in Vietnam, in and of itself, is “not only incomplete
[but] unethical” (Jacobo ). is has been the critical point of departure for
most postcolonial readings of the lm: Sylvia Shin Huey Chong (–), for
instance, locates Apocalypse Now in the context of Philippine-American colonial
relations, while Rolando Tolentino (–) regards it as an American attempt
to hegemonically confront and move past the trauma of the said war; Christine
Bacareza Balance takes these insights further by recognizing the lm as a product
of the said empire in collaboration with the Marcos dictatorship, “colonial[ly]
lump[ing]” () together various places as a single space. Others, such as Aaron
Nyerges and Christa Wirth, situate the lm in the larger project of decolonization:
while the former reads Apocalypse Now in relation to works by Coppola’s family as
basis for explicating “processes of decolonisation and deimperialisation” (Nyerges
), the latter arrests heat as a metaphor that connects decolonization with the Cold
War and, at the same time, exposes the vulnerability of the empire itself (Wirth
-). Meanwhile, Deirdre McKay and Padmapani Perez focus on the Indigenous
Ifugao hired to “be themselves” in front of the camera, “on the assumption that, by
being Ifugao they would pass as ‘Vietnamese’ in the lm.” Overall, these readings
concur that the Philippines, as a landscape, is never “a space bereft of any locality”
(Jacobo ), but instead a “vibrant place . . . shimmering with … lore, histories, and
politics” (Balance ).
In these engagements with the lm, it bears underscoring that the Philippines,
as a place, is often approached in terms of human agency. While these eorts
do recognize how the violence of Apocalypse Now extends to the nonhuman
environment, they discursively render the latter, perhaps most unwittingly, as mere
background for human actions. For instance, in Danielle Crawford’s preliminary
ecocritical reading of the lm, the said landscape simply appears to be “blatantly
damaged … through its simulation of U.S. warfare” (), hinting at its sheer inertness
in the specic context of the lm production. Indeed, the “network of disruptions”
() to Apocalypse Now she proposes—comprised mainly of texts largely focused
on human agency—had to completely hail outside the text, as if the latter, in and
of itself, with its entanglement with the nonhuman, does not already open toward a
similar possibility for deconstruction. In these attempts, despite their regard of the
environment, the agency of the latter—or precisely how it may “exceed [its] status
as [an] object . . . [and] manifest[s] traces of independence of aliveness” (Bennett
xvii)—remains largely unarticulated, if at all.
is last point is crucial, as it arises from and responds to the persistent
“challenge of the nonhuman” in the present, which demands a “reconsider[ation
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of] human existence, intentionality, and agency as only part of networks that
includes other modes of being and agency” (Heise –). In other words, more
than acknowledging how the violence of colonialism also ruins the nonhuman
environment, for example, this call also persists to recognize that such a power is
never absolute, as the supposed agency of the human, in the rst place, was never
completely whole or autonomous. is is a kind of reevaluation that is especially
made urgent by the reality that most of the pressing problems in the contemporary
times require an engagement with nonhuman matters (Grusin vii). In many ways,
this nonhuman turn, as it may be called, can be regarded thus as an extension of
postcolonial critique: just as how the latter interrogates the long-existent hierarchies
of power between the colonizers and the colonized, the former aspires to examine
the often presumed centrality of human in these discourses and encounters, as to
reveal its ultimate entanglement with and dependence to the nonhuman (Islam
). For a postcolonial context such as the Philippines, this nonhuman turn may
give way for a further articulation of how the overall colonial enterprise is “actually
transformative” too of the colonial power itself, making it apparent how the empire,
in fact, has “never been self-sucient: it has always learned, borrowed, or stolen
from elsewhere” (Driver and Martins ).
Notwithstanding Coppola’s ironic erasure of the Philippine locale, the nonhuman
environment has always been intuited in Apocalypse Now to be more than an inert
background for human agency. In the original script for the lm, John Milius
strived to make the jungle “a major character of the movie” (Milius and ompson
), and so beginning the lm, for instance, with the image of a “primeval swamp,”
with “blue light lter[ing] through the jungle… mist cling[ing] to the trees [as if]
this could be the jungle of a million years ago” (). Meanwhile, Coppola, despite
revising the script several times—including completely overwriting Milius’s
opening—maintained a similar regard to the verdant tropics throughout the lm,
having realized that “the primitive land itself is an element” (Cowie, Apocalypse
) crucial to the making of the lm. For example, in the subsequent jungle
sequence where Willard and one of his companions search for mangoes among
the verdure and then ambushed by a tiger, Coppola intended to make the “jungle
vegetation… look [particularly] surrealistic,” as if “part of man, almost a mother
metaphor” (Cowie, Apocalypse Now , ).
However, more than operating on a symbolic or “conceptual” (Arnold )
level, supposedly as a general metaphor for that which “pose[s] a threat to the
very nature of the civilized order itself” (Ebert )—a dangerous rhetoric anyway,
one that is founded on the imaginary of the verdant tropics as the temperate
“[Euro]west’s environmental other” (Clayton )—the nonhuman agency of the
landscape manifests itself materially, practically, in how it becomes “not merely
[a] passive object… of colonial fascination and fear, but [an] active agent… in
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participation with various instance of encounter” (Benitez and Lundberg ).
is is well demonstrated by the Philippine tropical verdure not simply being
an inert location for the principal photography of the lm but rather becoming
an important contributor as well to its very unfolding. For instance, the coconut
trees that Coppola personally saw during the lming in the Philippines compelled
him to change Milius’s original opening (Cowie, Apocalypse Now ; see note ).
Similarly, the strong typhoon Olga, which ravaged a large part of the lm set as
previously narrated, provided the lm a critical moment that then served as the
core of its eventual myth. From these examples, it becomes apparent that even
without locating the particular places where the lm was shot, by simply attending
to these instances in the available production history of the lm, and recognizing
here that the nonhuman does crucially intervene in the overall process, especially
in ways that disrupts how it has been initially imagined by Coppola and his team,
the entire encounter emerges to be never completely constituted by human agency,
but also by those of nonhumans.
ese realizations might then provide another way to critically approach
Apocalypse Now. Considering again, for instance, how the Philippines came to
be the shooting location for the lm, aside from the dictator Marcos’s excessive
support to Coppola’s ambition, it can be recognized now that the very landscape
also made it possible for itself to be such a site. Here, it bears emphasizing that
most of the locations that Coppola’s team scouted for the lm—from Queensland
in Australia, to the island of Hawaii, and Bali in Indonesia (Cowie, Apocalypse
Now )—belong to the tropics, or that physical and conceptual (Arnold )
worldly zone near the equator, where both Vietnam and the Philippines are also
located. Due to its profuse ora and fauna, the tropics has long been an object
of “fantasies of self-realization, projects of cultural imperialism, [and] politics
of human or environmental salvage” (Driver and Martins ). Particularly for the
Philippines, this relationship with the temperate Eurowest can be traced all the
way back to early th century, when the Portuguese voyager Ferdinand Magellan
was commissioned by the Spanish kingdom to nd a new route to the Spice Islands
(now known as the Moluccas, in Indonesia); his journey, however, brought him
to the shores of an island which would be part of what would be known as the
Philippines (Francia –). is initial encounter led to the colonization of the
islands, their yoking together as an archipelago by the Spanish for more than three
centuries; afterwards, its occupation by the Americans for over ve decades, on the
pretense of a “benevolent assimilation” toward liberation and development of the
Filipino people to becoming “civilized” (Francia –). Seen in this light, it can be
said that the entire history of the Philippines—and its existence as the Philippines
indeed—is shaped, and is continuously shaped, by the botanic matters that abound
its landscape (Diaz).
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When Coppola claims that, at some point, with all the diculties that Apocalypse
Now has encountered in the Philippines, “it struck [him] like a diamond bullet in
[his] head that [he] wasn’t making the lm [but] the jungle was” (qtd. in Roud), his
statement can be read as an unwitting admission of how the nonhuman environment
actively contributed to the making of “his” lm. Aside from the previous examples
that happened during the shooting of the lm, the involvement of this landscape,
and the tropics writ large, also lies in how it has played, and is still playing, a crucial
role in the longue durée that is Eurowestern imperialism—the enduring eects of
which have precisely made Coppola’s lm, like the many others before and after it
(Hawkins –; Leavold –; “On Location”), possible in the rst place. is
participation well extends too in Coppola’s consistent evocations of the tropical
verdure in his eorts to mythologize the lm, to turn it into a “cultural totem”
(Nyerges ) or a singular text with the power to “martial emotions” (Yurick ;
Tolentino ) in terms specically set by Coppola himself and what he discursively
represents, namely the Eurowestern temperate empire.
is last point is crucial, as it underscores how the Philippine tropics partakes not
only in the production of Apocalypse Now, but as well in its dissemination as a text.
However, as previously mentioned, most engagements with the lm, despite their
eorts to acknowledge the involvement here of the nonhuman environment, often
fall short in articulating and exploring the latter’s agency in the overall encounter,
thus unwittingly ending up treating it as an inert background or passive recipient
of the eects of human agency. For instance, Balance’s () “itinerant essay,” which
reects on the methods and frameworks deployed thus far in the existent studies
of Apocalypse Now, mentions the detail of a supposedly -year-old balete tree
(Ficus balete Merr) in the municipality of Maria Aurora, in Aurora, a few kilometers
from the municipality of Baler, where the famous airstrike sequence in the lm was
shot. According to Balance, the tree evokes the capacity to “tune… [one] into the
longer histories and otherworldliness of this place” ()—an eect that others have
also somehow experienced, leading them to also meditate on local legends and
supernatural creatures (see Arvil). And yet, in Balance’s essay, such an opportunity
was ultimately missed, as it then returns to the human historical narrative in which
the lm has long been embedded by the discourse surrounding it; she recounts
her itinerary, rather metonymically: “the tour ride ends in the town’s plaza, at the
Museo de Baler, where I intended to see for myself the Hollywood lm’s archival
remnants…” (Balance ).
If “vision is always a question of power to see” (Haraway ), the challenge of
the nonhuman furthers this interrogation by recognizing and insisting that one
“do[es] not see merely with [their] eyes [and that] interacting with… that world is
part and parcel of seeing” (Barad ). In this sense, beholding becomes “a process
of ongoing critical interpretation among ‘elds’ of interpreters and decoders”
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(Haraway )—a process which must also inevitably include nonhuman matters,
given their own agency or capacity to cause things to happen. In the case of
Apocalypse Now, considering that it must be, just like any other text, a “reservoir”
of “innite” signications (Ebert ), an attunement to and through the nonhuman
may present thus possibilities of seeing the lm in ways dierent from how Coppola
intends it to be seen, based on the surrounding myth that the director himself
has helped to perpetuate. It is then here that the Philippine tropics, as an agentic
nonhuman matter in and of itself, might become instructive in approaching the
lm once more: as to be preliminarily demonstrated in the nal section of this
essay, through turning to its commonly “overlooked” (Lemm ) lushness on-
screen instead of the foregrounded human characters, the said landscape may oer
another way of looking at Apocalypse Now, a verdant reading, so to speak, that
opens it up to comparative and relational possibilities that might remain invisible
if the gesture of reading is conned to simply “privileging [it as] a single”—and,
implicitly, singular—“text” (Nyergas ).
III.
e contemporary US-based Filipino artist Stephanie Syjuco describes Body
Double (Platoon/Apocalypse Now/Hamburger Hill) () as a three-channel video
installation “consist[ing] of silent moving sequences of tropical landscape that
fades slowly in and out, interspersed with varying durations of a completely black
screen.” e work takes the three parenthetical Hollywood lms released between
and , and heavily edits them to remove all the visual traces of their human
characters—and by extension, their structures and machinery—which yields to a
montage of landscapes cropped in squares and rectangles, either taking up small
parts of the screen or, in several instances, its entirety. Considering that the three
lms were all set in Vietnam during the American War but actually shot in various
parts of the Philippines, the overall eect, as the artist envisions, is for “the peripheral
landscapes (if any)” to be foregrounded instead (Syjuco, “Body Double”). Syjuco’s
erasure then becomes a gesture of looking for the Philippine locale, simultaneously
allowing her to refuse its obscuring as a mere “body double” for Vietnam on-screen
and to “attempt… to discover… [her] place of birth” and reconnect with her country
of heritage and identity. So, as much as being a critique to American imperialism
for its violence extending even to the nonhuman environment, the work also
emerges as “a kind of reworked ‘home movie,’” one that Syjuco herself had to
“recover” (Flores )—or perhaps, “plagiarize” (See )—from the cameras of the
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said empire, if only to nally “reveal… native imaginings [or at least, semblances of
such] of her homeland” (Perez ).
Putting together the three lms, Body Double retains the running time and image
sequence of each lm. Despite the imposing erasures on the screen, there remains
a perceptible correspondence to the original, especially with the scenes that lead
up to climactic moments. In Syjuco’s intervention to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now,
for instance, the previously described napalm airstrike sequence mostly appears as
a mere black screen, with occasional patches of green and brown in the periphery
(Syjuco, apocalypsenow ::–::). Yet, even without a prior knowledge
of how the lm unfolds at this point, one is still made conscious of what happens
behind the superimposed darkness, as the dialogue of the characters, the chopping
of helicopters, the ring of arms, the wheezing of missiles, and the explosions
of dropped bombs are still there insisting to be heard. is way, while the work
deliberately “ignores the original lmic narrative” to focus on Syjuco’s search
for the landscape of her birth country, it nevertheless telegraphs a “heighten[ed]
feeling of animplied, but missing, lmic narrative” (Syjuco, “Body Double”). As
Sarita Echavez See writes of her own experience of watching Body Double, the
“edited minimalism creates a growing sense of horror… staging… the unheimlich
that draws its power from its juxtaposition of the familiar and the unfamiliar”
(–). erefore, regardless of the “ambient, minimalist imagery of landscapes
and closeups of ora and fauna” (Syjuco, “Body Double”), one is still left to perceive
here what Kurtz, in both Coppola’s lm and Conrad’s novella, names in his dying
breath as “the horror, the horror” (Apocalypse Now ::–:-; Conrad ;
Milius and Coppola ).
Syjuco eectively rehearses a critique on Apocalypse Now, and by extension, on
similar lms, with their “very American reconstruction of narrative history” (qtd.
in Tay) of a “young, white American soldier protagonist discover[ing] the horrors of
war while being morally tested by…a largely nameless, faceless cast of Vietnamese
[or perhaps even Filipino?] ‘others’” (Mudede)—a narrative that might as well be
Coppola’s, with his own myth of taking risks in a tropical jungle himself (Trice
–). rough erasures that deliberately cover such human gures and their
machineries, and foreground instead the Philippine landscape intended to be a
periphery, Syjuco visually renders how the said “American experience [is] not the
only experience” (qtd. in Mudede), but instead only one among many simultaneous
others. From here, the name that Syjuco decided to give to her own work can be
understood thus in another sense. Aside from pertaining to being “jungle-for-hire”
(Fineman), “stand-in” (Balance ; Day; “On Location”) or “surrogate” (Gonzales
) of the Philippines to Vietnam on-screen, the name body double can also be
referring to such multiplicities of experience that can be seen at the same time from
the same screen; in other words, the body—that is perhaps the lm itself—doubles,
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or simply double—indeed, body double—for the said body, after all, is, are, always
already in plural, a legion.
It bears emphasizing that such a doubling, or even multiplying, exceeds a mere
comparison between the Philippines and Vietnam, as if to regress to how the lm
has been framed by Coppola and subsequently mainly approached in its existent
studies. Instead, this also opens up, as it must, even to places and texts—to places
that are texts—that might seem too distant or altogether unrelated to either
the Philippines or Vietnam. Here, it is instructive to consider, for instance, the
Zimbabwean-American writer Charles Mudede’s account of encountering Syjuco’s
work for the rst time in Seattle, a place that is also historically entwined with
colonialism, even serving as a metropole for many Filipino migrants whose lineages
were ultimately shaped by US militarism and colonialism in the Philippines (see
Fujita-Rony; rush). In Syjuco’s solo exhibition Black Market, composed of photos,
videos, and sculptures “exploring aspects of place, specically [her] place of birth”
(James Harris Gallery), Mudede came upon the earliest iteration of Syjuco’s Body
Double, featuring only the movie Platoon (). e experience, while “generic, if
a bit conning” (Enriquez) for some, showed Mudede “another body double.”
Here, Mudede pertains to his own Zimbabwe, which became the shooting
location for the lm King Solomon’s Mines (), directed by J. Lee ompson
and based on the novel of the same title by Sir H. Rider Haggard, rst published
in . e lm, as it was in the novel, follows the adventure of Allan Quatermain
(played by Richard Chamberlain) in the ctional place of Kukuanaland, to look for a
missing professor who got lost during his own search for the fabled King Solomon’s
mines, the biblical Ophir, where remains of the royalty’s wealth are believed to
be located. at Zimbabwe was chosen to be the stand-in for Kukuanaland was
not a mere coincidence: as pointed out by the scholar Akiko Mizoguchi (–),
the imaginary of the said mines is “fully engaged” with the Victorian perspective
during the s on the ruins in Zimbabwe and old gold mines in Mashonaland
as “an ancient biblical city [and thus, King Solomon’s] rather than the product of
African civilization”; such is a view that, according to Laura Chrisman, embodies the
characteristic Eurocentric “will to discover the remnant of lost ‘white’ civilization
in non-European countries” (). So, when Mudede, inspired by Syjuco’s work,
rehearsed for one of his projects the same gesture of erasure to ompson’s lm,
leaving out only “the large, partially covered and fully exposed rocks that make the
Zimbabwean landscape distinct,” it then becomes possible for “the [imperial] gaze
[to be] reclaimed” somehow.
More interestingly, and perhaps unwittingly on Mudede’s part, his evocation
of the discourse surrounding King Solomon’s mines also inevitably summons the
Philippine tropics: the latter landscape, as it turns out, has long been implicated too
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in the mythology of Ophir, by way of an early th document, titled “Descripción
geográca desde el Cabo de Buena Ezperanza hasta China” (Geographical
description from Cape of Good Hope to China), found in Colección general de
documentos relativos a las Islas Filipinas existenses en el Archivo de Indias de
Sevilla (General collection of documents related to the Philippine Islands existing
in the Indian Archive in Sevilla). Here, the fabled place, described as an island or
a group of such, seems to be suggested as the Philippines indeed; however, even
to this day, no evidence exists to support this claim. Nevertheless, the myth has
been mentioned every so often in attempts to conjure a supposedly precolonial
imaginary of the archipelago (Cristobal; De Leon; Ortuoste), despite the ironic fact
that such an imaginary, similar to the Victorian search for traces of Eurowestern
origins in distant places, rests on the same fantasies of the Other.
While this overall instance of comparison can be easily attributed to Mudede’s
own positionality being a Zimbabwean himself, what bears underscoring here is the
fact that such an encounter, in the rst place, has been also made possible through
the Philippine tropics, particularly as such blocks of verdure on-screen that are
Syjuco’s attempt to foreground this very landscape after being peripheralized by
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now as well as the two other lms that were ironically shot
in the same landscape—lms that were ultimately products of the violent longue
durée that is Eurowestern imperialism over this worldly zone. In other words, the
said nonhuman environment, as deliberately harnessed in Syjuco’s work, is indeed
agentic: channeling its “scenographic interchangeability” (Perez ), its capacity to
render “location [to be] anywhere” (Enriquez), activates the possibility to “reverse…
the ethnographic sublime and restore…, as it were, the natural” (Flores ), and
to exceed thus even Syjuco’s own propensity for the identitarian (See ), and
perhaps, the human. In recognizing this agency of the tropics on and through the
screen, Mudede’s comparison turns out to be, in fact, not entirely his own, but
an eect of his entanglement with this nonhuman environment, “through and
against… distances” (Benitez, “Telepathic Visions” ) with various agentic matters,
both human and nonhuman, throughout history.
rough Syjuco’s patchwork sequences, what the tropical verdure thus makes
possible is an instant of the apocalyptic, not as how Coppola imagines it in his
lm as the breaking down of an order presupposed by the Eurowest, but in its
very etymological sense: as a kind of uncovering, an unveiling that is also an
ending, precisely because it concludes the time of something as yet to be exposed
(Benitez, “Tungo sa Posibilidad” ), giving way to a “lingering coexistence with
strange strangers” (Morton ). In the case of Syjuco’s Body Double, this manifests
in how the images of the Philippine landscape permit for a blurring of boundaries,
not only between the Philippines and Vietnam, as Coppola has simply intended it
in his Apocalypse Now; but also with other parts of the world, such as Mudede’s
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Zimbabwe. is is also a distortion in time, as it allows for the seemingly disparate
moments throughout history to come together in a contemporaneity (Benitez, Isang
Dalumat -), and thus, even for an instant, “interrupt… [the] linear historical
time” (Diaz ) that is predominantly conceived by the Eurowest (McClintock
-). Yet, unlike in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, the provocation to see double, “and
even triple” (Syjuco qtd. in Tay)—certainly multiple—in Syjuco’s work does not risk
obscuring the Philippine locale, for in its performance of erasure, which makes
itself known and acknowledges its own rehearsal, the evoked sense of universal is
also insisted to be provisional. In other words, contrary to Coppola’s heralding of
the singular American historical narrative, Syjuco’s Body Double reminds that even
the seemingly natural is not so: something certainly lurks behind the black boxes, it
says, albeit temporarily suspended, if only to open possibilities for relations beyond
Vietnam and the Philippines.
Looking then at Coppola’s lm once more, this time through Syjuco’s work, a
comparative moment only becomes imminent: now, the Philippine nonhuman
environment appears to be more than performing the role of an inert body double for
the Vietnamese landscape; instead, it also evokes other places and texts, elsewheres
whose juxtaposition to Apocalypse Now might give way to understandings dierent
from what has been largely said in the existent discourses surrounding the lm.
erefore, what Body Double and its demonstrated critical attention to the tropical
verdure ultimately activate is a tendency for “diraction,” or that aspiration for
“making a dierence in the world… commit[ted] to understanding which dierences
matter, how they matter, and for whom” (Barad ; see also Geertz and Van der
Tuin). In other words, through turning to these nonhuman matters that are often
peripheralized and overlooked, it becomes possible to rehearse the practice of
reading, perhaps once again, perhaps for the rst time, to move toward the most
unexpected of endings—the commitment for which can rescue what is the truly
apocalyptic, critical, in critique. And so, as a nal turn of this essay, as to begin
again elsewhere, an instance of comparison, all the way to an almost Philippine
antipode, now—
Toward the end of Apitchatpong Weerathesakul’s Memoria (),
a lm set and shot in Colombia, a lush tropical verdure appears. Smoke wafts on
the ground as a sound softly booms, and then again, before a small ring of bluish
light begins to blink. Suddenly, the green matter begins to hover, revealing itself to
be a large papaya-like object with more rings of light on its surface; it makes the
booming sound, and much louder, one more time, and then ies o, leaving a ring
of smoke, eventually vanishing into the distant white clouds (Memoria ::–
::). e lm then cuts to shots of seemingly normal afternoon in various
places in the mountainous region of country, with one or two people staring into
nothing. At some point, a woman can be seen facing a window overlooking the
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mountains, appears to be writing on a desk, her back toward the camera; afterward,
a man sits by a balcony, his face also turned away from the camera, looking at
the same mountains. rough these two moments, a radio—presumably in the
woman’s room—can be heard, reporting the news of an earthquake that just shook
parts of the country, which has unearthed an archaeological site that scientists have
been excavating for throughout the lm (Memoria ::–::). A few more
shots then follow: a garden or a backyard, with what look like armrests of a missing
bench at the center; clouds passing by; the Andes—which could have also been
the Sierra Madre in the Luzon island in the Philippines or even the Phetchabun
Mountains in the Isan region in ailand, where Apichatpong’s lm used to be
always set—sitting quietly as ever. Eventually, with cicadas singing, the clouds
darken, and thunder begins to roll, before the screen abruptly cuts to black.
Prior to all this, the same booming sound that the unidentied ying object
made haunts the character of Jessica (played by Tilda Swinton), a Scottish ex-pat
in Bogota, starting one night when she was roused from her bed with the sound
suddenly banging inside her head (Memoria ::–::). For most of the
lm, Jessica tries to nd out what the sound she hears imitates, even seeking the
help of the mysterious engineer Hernan (played by Juan Pablo Urrego) to perhaps
replicate it (Memoria ::–::). One time, as she visits her archaeologist
friend in Pijao, Jessica stumbles upon a recluse also named Hernan (played by
Elkin Díaz), who curiously looks like an older version of the sound engineer she
previously met. As the two of them talk, Hernan shares with Jessica his peculiar
connection to the environment—his possession of memories that are not only his
own and from this lifetime alone—and his supposedly being from space, belonging
to a “kind that never dreams” (“especie nunca sueña”) (Memoria ::–:-).
e revelation, however, does not seem to bother Jessica, as she even sits beside
him while he lays on the grass and sleeps for a while with his eyes open (Memoria
::–::). Eventually, when the two nally enter Hernan’s home, they
hold each other’s hands, which appears to let them be telepathically linked to each
other, both hearing memories that are not their own (Memoria ::–::).
After this rather intimate moment, Jessica approaches a nearby window, leans in,
and listens outside (Memoria ::–::), the camera cutting then to the
aforementioned shot of a lush verdure. In the end, it remains unclear whether
Jessica learns the cause of the sound she hears or even witnesses the taking o of
the unidentied ying object.
In fact, it is altogether unclear how the entire concluding sequence gures to
the rest of the lm. Although Apichatpong conrms his own fascination with
extraterrestrial life—a fascination that he shares with his collaborator Swinton—and
even cites the works of Steven Spielberg and Arthur C. Clarke as inspiration for his
cinematic practice, the conclusion of the lm still largely remains a question, left
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wanting for further interpretations (see Phrae –; Roy). However, considering
Apichatpong’s own familiarity with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, as he mentions it
as one of his “visual references” for his own work, given the “greens in [Coppola’s]
movie are fantastic” (Hunt ; see also “Films Chosen”), one can perhaps propose
Memoria thus as a kind of counterpoint to the said American war epic: here, for
one, unlike Coppola’s American Huey helicopters, it is simply imaginable for an
unidentied ying object of a supposedly far more superior technology to be
among the nonhuman landscape of this planet, without necessarily bombing the
latter. Indeed, the guration of such an object to be seemingly resembling a tropical
fruit—albeit in a proportion much larger than life—amidst the verdure already hints
at such a prospect of coexistence among the strangest of strangers. Something has
to be said if the supposedly extraterrestrial, a nonhuman, turns out to be more
humane. At the core of Apichatpong’s lm is something truly apocalyptic, one that
oers the possibility to have “the station that had been playing inside [our] head[s]
all [our lives]… tuned out to another channel,” and leave us “[un]sure if [we can], or
even want… to, get the old one back again” (O’Sullivan).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
is study is part of my dissertation, Matters of Comparison: A Nonhuman
Comparative Poetics on Selected Botanic Texts Engaged with Philippine Context,
under the supervision of Dr. Phrae Chittiphalangsri, for the PhD program in
Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. Parts
of this essay were also presented at the th Trans-Asia Graduate Conference at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and the International Congress on New
Materialisms at the Complutense University of Madrid, my attendance to which
has been supported by the Oce for the Assistant Vice President for Research,
Creative Work, and Innovation of the Ateneo de Manila University. I would also
like to express my gratitude for the reviewers of this essay, whose comments helped
in the renement of its argument.
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Notes
. During an exclusive screening of Apocalypse Now on May , , Coppola asked the
invited nine hundred exhibitors to ll out a form detailing their reaction to the lm. He
was then “horried to discover that viewers liked the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ sequence—
which he considered merely an action scene, with no philosophical depth—better than
anything else in the picture” (Goodwin and Wise ). e next day, his wife Eleanor
would then see a note that the director had written: “e movie is a mess… the lm
reaches its highest during the fucking helicopter battle… My nerves are shot—My heart
is broken—My imagination is dead…” (qtd. in E. Coppola ).
. e Australian Actors Guild demanded an all-Australian cast, while the Australian
authorities, as Cowie (Apocalypse Now –) suggests, might have hesitated largely due
to the fact that the US Department of Defense (DoD) did not generally like the Apocalypse
Now screenplay (see Mnatzakanian –; Robb ).
. is connection between Volpi and Marcos is barely explored. A Filipino blogger, for
instance, could only speculate whether Volpi was helping the Philippine government then
to organize the st Metro Manila Film Festival, which took place in (see “Ferdinand
Marcos’ Greatest Achievement”). Another possible connection between the two might be
the Italian entrepreneur and paleontologist Giancarlo Ligabue, whose engagement with
Venetian sports linked him to Volpi (see Giorgi) and whose business and anthropological
endeavors, including his visit to the controversial Tasadays (see Hemley), benetted from
Marcos’s support (see Casarin ; see also Oce of the President).
. Frederickson’s turn of phrase is worth noting, as it is symptomatic of what the scholar
Siddharta Perez names as “diplomatic ease” that the “eternal jungle that the Philippines
could provide” () for Western war productions shot here.
. However, this did not put an end to Coppola’s attempt to seek assistance from the
American government. In Lawrence Suid’s outline of the correspondence between the
American DoD and Coppola’s team, by November , despite the latter having already
signed agreements with the Philippine DND, the said country was still considered as a
merely possible, and not yet denite, shooting location for Apocalypse Now. Furthermore,
as late as February , Coppola wrote a letter to then US President Carter, still asking
for support similar to what the government gave to John Wayne’s Green Beret (see F.
Coppola, in Mnatzakanian ).
. Eleanor Coppola writes about a conversation she once had with Francis: “[T]he longer
you remain in a state of ambiguity, the more change can take place. We have this urge
to dene things, make them denite, x them so we know that they are and can deal
with them. Francis was talking about wanting to get the lm cut, nished; yet the longer
he can stand the pressure of not knowing the ending, not dening it, the more it can
evolve” (E. Coppola –). is compulsion arguably continued as late as , with
Coppola’s rerelease of Apocalypse Now for the third time, in its dubbed “nal cut,” still
with considerable changes (see Fuller). While most accounts attribute the director’s
urge to rework his lm to the pressure accumulating as the lm production got more
delayed, it is also worth noting here the traumatized characteristic in Coppola’s actions,
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considering especially his previous experience of typhoon Olga. After all, as Cathy
Caruth puts it, “repetition at the heart of catastrophe—the experience that Freud will
call ‘traumatic neurosis’—emerges as the unwitting reenactment of an event that one
cannot simply leave behind” ().
. Similarly, Eleanor Coppola, by October , , writes: “I began to see more and more of
the parallels between the lm and Francis’s life. Willard’s journey starts o in one context
and, little by little, he goes father upriver until he is in a very dierent place, almost
without realizing the progression of changes that have brought him to that point” ().
Could it be that the director got the idea from his wife?
. is comparison between the lm and the war, similar to the parallels between Francis
Coppola and the character of Willard (see note ), could already be gleaned in earlier
notes by Eleanor Coppola, where she remarks, for instance, how the director “was setting
up his own Vietnam [in the Philippines] with his supply lines of win and steaks and air
conditioners” (; see also Norris ).
. ough not overtly mentioned in McKay and Perez’s work—perhaps a gesture that insists
on particularity of the Indigenous people involved—the overall interaction between
Coppola and the Ifugao actors echoes the violent appearance of Indigenous Filipino
people at the St. Louis World’s Fair (see Fermin).
. In particular, Crawford considers the following texts: Rodney Morales’s short story
“Maka’s Lei Day” (), Barbara Jane Reyes’s poetry collection Poeta en San Francisco
(), Jessica Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle (), and Viet anh Nguyen’s e
Sympathizer ().
. In , while in the Philippines, Coppola changes Milius’s opening of the lm with the
following: “A Simple Image of Trees: coconut trees being VIEWED through the veil of
time. Occasionally coloured smoke wafts through the frame. We HEAR music suggestive
of , psychedelic… Perhaps the Moody Blues’ ‘Knights of White Satin,’ or e Doors’
‘e End’” (Cowie, Apocalypse Now ; see also Apocalypse Now ::–::;
Milius and Coppola ).
. Such an insight came to Coppola after reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, where, for
instance, a “great wall of vegetation” is described to be “a rioting invasion of soundless
life, a rolling wave of plants” (Conrad ).
. Such a capacity to trac aect is a considerable part of what Sol Yurick names as “the
Coppola complex,” which “redistribute[s] wealth and power [for itself] … considering
the price and attention paid to [Coppola]” () Being a hybrid “military, cinematic and
industrial system” (Chong ), such a complex also involves “psychic commodities as well
as the expensive technological means to realizing those psychic commodities” (Yurick
). Discursively, this is demonstrated by the existent writings on Apocalypse Now, which
tend to solely focus on it as a seemingly closed text (see Ebert); juxtapose it with Conrad’s
novella, which the lm overtly references anyway (see Hagen; Kinder; Stewart); or read
it against the context of its own production, the narrative of which Coppola himself has
helped in shaping (see Balance; Chong –; Tolentino; Wirth). e last approach is
also often complemented with a reading of a literary text that directly engages with the
lm or its production, such as those mentioned in note (see Crawford ch. ; Hawkins
ch. ; Wirth).
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. Balance never mentions the name of the municipality of Maria Aurora in her essay,
giving the impression that the balete tree is indeed located in the municipality of Baler.
Moreover, in the ocial description of the tree on the local government website, the
supposedly “largest tree of its kind in Asia” is estimated to be only years old (see
“Millennium Tree”).
. In particular, Balance is looking for such “remnants as featured in Cornejo and Jimenez’s
indie lm [that is, Apocalypse Child ()]” ().
. In her work, See (-) rereads plagiarism, particularly through the work of the Filipino
writer Carlos Bulosan, as a form of postcolonial cultural production. is translates for
Syjuco as a kind of “interven[tion] in the viewer’s ability to see a given narrative—in this
case a Hollywood lm,” if only to highlight the total construction of this gaze and how it
works to reinforce systems of power and racial hierarchies” (qtd. in Mudede).
. As Syjuco herself also puts it, “double (and even tripling) comes up in [her] work often,
both as a metaphor for the dual function of needing two eyes to create a -dimensional
image, but also as a nod to the Du Bois-ian notion of double consciousness and how the
colonial/post-colonial subject has to inhabit two distinct forms of knowledge at once”
(qtd. in Tay).
. Mudede did this erasure for the music video of the Zimbabwean musician Tendai
“Baba” Maraire’s single “rhodZi,” the latter’s “gift to his native home,” as “a celebration of
Zimbabwe’s Independence Day and a tribute to the Zimbabwean people’s ght against
Cecil Rhodes and European imperialism” (see Baba Maraire).
. Ophir is thus described to be “in front of the said China and its land, where there are
many islands to the sea, and beyond the said islands, there is a very large land that they
say is the mainland to the other islands, where they go to Molucca in three or four junks,
these very great and rich white merchants, bringing a lot of gold… and silver and sild
and a lot of very ne wheat and very beautiful porcelain and other merchandise” (“de
frente desta dicha china y sus terras [donde] estan muchas yslas a la mar y aliende de las
dichas islas va una terra mus grande que dizen que es terra rme otras islas donde venian
a malac cada tres o cuatro juncos de gentes blancas que son muy grandes mercaderes y
muy ricos traen mucho oro… y plata y seda y mucho y muy bien trigo y muy hermosas
porcelanas y otras mercaderias”) (Compaña, -; trans. mine). Geronimo Cristobal,
in his essay, quotes the supposed translation by Wilfred H. Scho (–) of the said
passage as follows: “in front of China towards the sea, of many islands where the
Moluccans, Chinese, and Lequios (allegedly a group of ancient Hebrews who supposedly
settled around Ophir) met to trade…” Looking at the indicated pages in Scho, however,
reveals its non-existence.
. Isan (อีสาน), in the northeastern ailand, is an agricultural region with extreme climate,
and which borders the country with Laos and Cambodia. Prior to the drawing of the
borders between Siam and French Indochina in (see Baker and Pasuk –;
ongchai ch. ), the region was predominantly open for people across the three
eventual distinct nations of ailand, Laos, and Cambodia to move through. Being such
a place for uxes of dierent populations, as Isarn became ocially under the territory
of ailand, it then became a subject to much of the nationalist campaign of the country
in the s, consequently “omitting the diversication of [its] ethnic origins” (Boehler
Benitez / A Verdant Reading 153
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–; see also Keyes). Yet, despite its purported assimilation into the national project,
given its physical distance from the capital of Siam and adjacency instead to foreign
nations, Isarn still remains closely associated with Otherness, if not the “enemy,” of the
center (ongchai –). With its complex history, the region gures in Apichatpong’s
cinema as a crucial liminal space, where the seemingly irreconcilably dierent, in
forms both human and nonhuman, come to meet (see Boehler; Szymanski). Most of
Apichatpong’s lms are set and shot in Isarn; his recent decision to stop doing so in the
said region, and even ailand writ large, which was the case with Memoria, has been
largely due to the political climate in the country (see Kohn). According to Apichatpong,
the place felt “familiar” for him, given its similar tropical climate and comparable social
history to ailand (in Rayns).
. In an interview, Tilda Swinton relates how she and Apichatpong share a fascination with
aliens, “both in the most extreme sci- sense, and also in the most mundane, humane,
completely universal sense of feeling alienated by society…” (Marchini Camia and Brady-
Brown). Elsewhere, Apichatpong cites as his lmmaking inspiration Steven Spielberg’s
Close Encounters of the ird Kind (), Raiders of the Lost Ark (), and E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial () as well as the writings of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur
C. Clarke (see Rayns; rift). In fact, Apichatpong’s next lm, planned to be set and shot
in Sri Lanka, is inspired by Clarke’s e Fountains of Paradise () (see Shackleton).
Here, it is worth noting that science ction, as a genre, similar to Coppola’s Apocalypse
Now, is often related to the Cold War (see Seed).
Benitez / A Verdant Reading 154
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Shang & Reyes / Nonhuman Narrattives In World Literature 161
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Abstract
is essay briey introduces the parameters within which the nine articles included in the
special issue of Forum Kritika explore the topic of nonhuman narratives in world literature. It
oers brief summaries of the articles, and it also outlines a few possible directions for future
research.
Keywords
narratology, nonhuman turn, nonhuman narrator, nonhuman character, interoperative options
About the Author
Biwu Shang is a professor of English at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and editor-in-chief of the
De Gruyter journal Frontiers of Narrative Studies. His research interests include contemporary
British ction, narratology and ethical literary criticism. He is the author of In Pursuit of Narrative
Dynamics (Peter Lang, ), Contemporary Western Narratology: Postclassical Perspectives
(People’s Literature Press, ), and Unnatural Narrative across Borders: Transnational and
Comparative Perspectives (Routledge, ). His work has appeared in Comparative Literature
Studies, Philosophy and Literature, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Partial Answers,
Neohelicon, Journal of Literary Semantics, Semiotica, Comparative Literature and Culture,
Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, and Arcadia among other journals.
Maria Luisa F. Torres Reyes is a professor at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), where she is also
appointed scholar-in-residence. She was the editor-in-chief of UNITAS, the university’s peer-
reviewed online international journal of advanced research in literature, culture, and society.
UNITAS is the oldest extant multidisciplinary journal in the Philippines, established in . At
NONHUMAN NARRATTIVES IN WORLD
LITERATURE
AN INTRODUCTION
Biwu Shang
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
biwushang@sjtu.edu.cn
Maria Luisa T. Reyes
University of Santo Tomas
lureyesx@gmail.com
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the Ateneo de Manila University, where she was full professor at the English Department for
many years, she is the Founding Editor and Editor Emerita of the widely-indexed international
journal Kritika Kultura. She is the author of Banaag at Sikat (), the award-winning book
of literary criticism on the rst “socialist” novel in Asia of the same title, and SipatSalin (),
a collection of her poems and their translations in various foreign and local languages. In her
international publications, her scholarly interests and publications include the exploration of
the ways in which “Western” ideas and literary and critical categories—like the theories of
Bertolt Brecht, a major German theater theoretician and practitioner—have been “refunctioned”
in the Philippines and other non-Western contexts. Active in various international professional
organizations of academics, she has founded an international network of scholars, teachers,
and artists, the Cultural, Literary, and Art Studies Society, Inc. (CLASS), which meets regularly
in colloquia, working together toward undertaking international collaborative research and
publishing co-authored works in literary and cultural studies. She is currently the president of
CLASS and a member of the editorial board of a number of international journals on literature,
culture, and the arts.
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INTRODUCTION
e recent decades have witnessed a wide and profound paradigm shift in humanities
and social science. e burgeoning development of intellectual trends led by
Jacques Derrida, Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, Graham
Harman and the others call into question the long-standing anthropocentric
ideology and the intrinsic superior essence of humanity. e in-depth reection
in various elds on traditional humanistic values based on an anthropocentric
myth productively brings the “nonhuman turn” both in literary writing and literary
criticism. Responding to the nonhuman turn, more light has been cast on the
nonhuman narratives in literature. At issue are the questions of how the nonhuman
entities are involved in events, and in what aspects do nonhuman narratives oer
the experientiality in more-than-human world?
e nonhuman turn is dierent from the posthuman turn in the sense that the
latter is an issue generally explored in the broad context of articial intelligence.
Katherine Hayles claims that the posthuman largely refers to “the union of the
human with the intelligent machine” (). In the posthuman, according to Hayles,
“there are no essential dierences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence
and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot
teleology and human goals” (). In contrast to the posthuman turn, the nonhuman
turn refers to those approaches that are engaged “in decentering the human in
favor of a turn toward and concern for the nonhuman, understood variously in
terms of animals, aectivity, bodies, organic and geophysical systems, materiality,
or technologies” (Grusin vii). Richard Grusin argues that the human “has always
coevolved, coexisted, or collaborated with the nonhuman and that the human is
characterized precisely by this indistinction from the nonhuman” (Grusin ix-x).
Why and how does the nonhuman turn matter in the eld of narrative studies?
In the eyes of Sanna Karkulehto, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, and Essi Varis, the upsurge
and popularity of the nonhuman turn is largely caused by “the need to nd new
ways of encountering, discussing, and thinking of entities and environments where
human and nonhuman entangle in increasingly intricate patterns” (Karkulehto et
al. ), and accordingly narrative studies “should develop new methods of taking into
account not only the traditional trinity of text, the author, and the reader but all the
relevant agents and factors contributing to a given text, whether they are beings,
spaces, or historical, natural, textual, cognitive, or social processes” (Karkulehto et
al. ). However, narratology has failed to pay sucient attention to the nonhuman
agents and factors in narrative texts, which makes current narrative studies more
or less anthropocentric.
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Take Monika Fludernik as an example. In her oft-quoted book Toward a
‘Natural’ Narratology, Fludernik equates natural narratives with oral narratives with
reference to William Labov, arguing that “oral narratives (more precisely: narratives
of spontaneous conversational storytelling) cognitively correlate with perceptual
parameters of human experience and that these parameters remain in force even
in more sophisticated written narratives, although the textual make-up of these
stories changes drastically over time” (). In Fludernik’s view, narrative is a matter
of “human experience,” which largely contributes to the “narrativity” of a work. She
further points out that experientiality “reects a cognitive schema of embodiedness
that relates to human existence and human concerns’ (Fludernik ). It is true that
narrative is written by human beings, in which sense men are “storytelling animals,”
but it does not necessarily mean that narratives do not necessarily represent
nonhuman experience. In other words, it would be a misconception if one drew a
direct line between stories told by humans and stories about humans.
Donna Haraway claims that “[i]t matters which stories tell stories, which
concepts think concepts. Mathematically, visually, and narratively, it matters which
gures gure gures, which systems systematize systems” (). In Haraway’s view,
it will make a big dierence to both stories and storytelling if gures are employed
dierently. However, current narrative theory mainly focuses on the stories about
human gures while neglecting those about nonhuman gures, which leads to
the incompleteness of the theory on the one hand and fails to do justice to those
literary works about nonhuman entities on the other hand.
In “Towards a eory of Nonhuman Narrative,” Biwu Shang proposes a minimum
denition of nonhuman narrative: “the representation of events with participants
of nonhuman entities” (). In particular, Shang examines four categories, of
nonhuman narrative: narrative about natural things, such as animals, plants, hills,
rocks, water, salt, etc.; narrative about supernatural things, such as gods, goblins,
demons, monsters, etc., narrative about articial objects, such as cloth, coins,
chairs, ink, toys, etc., and narrative about articial humans, such as robots, clones,
machines etc. Shang assumes that nonhuman entities mainly exist on both levels
of story and discourse: nonhuman characters on the story level, and nonhuman
narrators on the discourse level. With reference to three the roles of narrator,
character, and focalizer played by nonhuman entities, Shang also examines their
telling function, acting function, and observing function. To further extend our
understanding of the nonhuman issue as well as invite thought-provoking debates
and original ideas, Kritika Kultura launches this forum on “Nonhuman Narratives
in World Literature,” which includes nine articles.
e forum begins with Yafei Li’s article “Encountering the Non-Human with
Narrative Form: J. M. Coetzee’s e Lives of Animals,” in which he attempts to
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address the issue of the unique function of ctional narrative in approaching
human-nonhuman relations. rough conducting close reading of J. M. Coetzee’s
e Lives of Animals, he delineates in detail how ctional narrative form is
exploited by Coetzee for the sake of constructing an “ethics of otherness” towards
animals, forcefully arguing that e Lives of Animals approaches the human and
non-human relationship through narrative form, which is dierent from most of
the narratives dealing with non-human issues by means of thematic engagements.
Echoing Rita Felski’s idea that “Fiction is the only medium in which the interiority
of persons is promiscuously plumbed, where narrators routinely know more about
the minds of characters than they know themselves” (Felski ). Li concludes his
paper by delving into the signicance of narrative ctionality. He nally argues that
the signicance of ctionality is that it can construct a non-human ethics through
narrative resources, free imagination and textual dialogism in particular, thereby
realizing the ethical value of literature.
Siqi Zhao addresses the alien narrative in Liu Cixin’s science ction, with
a particular focus on his interpretation of the Fermi paradox. By examining
Liu’s unique approach to depicting alien entities, especially regarding how they
comprehend human existence, material civilization, and spiritual civilization, the
article argues that Liu critically reects upon Chinese epistemology with particular
features of moral epistemology, relational epistemology and onto-epistemology.
She contends that Liu’s exploration of Chinese epistemology sets him apart from
other science ction luminaries and oers a distinct Chinese response to the
Fermi Paradox and beyond. Zhao Siqi’s argument sheds new light on Liu Cixin’s
contribution to world science ction, highlighting his inheritance and reection of
Chinese philosophical traditions.
Li Zou focuses on analyzing the role of non-human narrative in the formation
of world literature. He takes the narrative of non-human elements in the American
writer William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer (), and the Chinese
writer Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide () as examples to explore how non-human
narrative can make visible the unnoticed connections between literary, social,
cultural and economic structures of dierent countries. He argues that the non-
human elements in these literary narratives act as “centre of calculation” and
conduits for transporting the presence of one system to another, thus, connecting
dierent literatures, societies, and cultures in a way resembling star-shaped
networks and mesh networks in computer science. Zou’s argument reveals a new
episteme to reassemble the literatures and cultures of dierent countries, as well as
to break the existing national and cultural boundaries.
You Wu’s article delves into the “nonhuman turn” observed over the past decade,
which challenges prevailing anthropocentric notions and elevates nonhuman
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narratives to a pivotal role. Taking Wang Jinkang’s e Articial Human as a
representative work within this genre, she examines the narratives surrounding
articial humans, or “new humans,” in contemporary Chinese science ction
as a signicant category of nonhuman narrative. Arguably, these narratives
explore the ethical and technological dilemmas at the intersection of human and
nonhuman existence. Based on a careful analysis of the various types of “new
human” narrators in both physical and digital forms in Wang’s novel, Wu argues
that, through these narrators’ observations, actions, and ethical choices, the
readers are invited to reexamine the limitations of human existence, contemplate
previously unconsidered aspects of humanity, and explore the deeper meaning of
being human. Wu believes that the ethical decisions made by the “new humans”
in the novel, inspired by Chinese wisdom that transcends binary logic, foresee a
harmonious coexistence between humans and articial humans. is perspective
provides valuable insights for addressing the challenges posed by technological
advancements in today’s world.
Kanjing He combines game and narrative studies to analyze Philip Kindred Dick’s
e Game-Players of Titan. She explores the concept of game narrative and delves
into the nonhuman nature of the Blu game narrative, which encompasses alien
characters and focalization and the anti-realistic setting and events. She argues that
by employing a nonhuman game narrative, the novel portrays malevolent aliens
with a luck-centered culture, challenging the conventional literary representations
of extraterrestrial beings. She also examines how this nonhuman game narrative
defamiliarizes historical colonization by using alien invasion and colonization as a
metaphor for human colonial history, positioning humans as the colonized Other
to reect on its long-lasting consequences. In terms of ideological colonization,
she focuses on how luck-based board games like Blu deprive human players of
their agency and hinder them from taking ethical responsibility to defend their
families and humanity as a whole.
Xiaomeng Wan embarks on an exploration of the ethical intricacies presented
by David Foster Wallace in his essay “Consider the Lobster,” which acts as a
microcosm for the broader debate on balancing human desires with animal welfare.
Extending Wallace’s discourse, the main body of this article employs Anna Barcz’s
zoocriticism framework to examine a triad of dilemmas within animal narratives,
ranging from the anthropocentric impact on animal autonomy, the tension between
anthropomorphism and the preservation of animality, to the varying perceptions of
animals shaped by these narratives. By acknowledging these persistent dilemmas,
the article posits that they not only reect the unique aesthetic qualities of animal
narratives but also provide a critical lens through which we can deepen our
understanding of the human-animal relationship.
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In his article “From Clones to Robots: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Non-human Narrative
and Its Ethical Implications,” Minrui Li examines Ishiguro’s two uncanny novels
Never Let Me Go () and Klara and the Sun (), with the emphasis on the
portrayal of the complex relationships between humans and cloned beings and
robots from the perspective of non-human narration; For Li, the two novels
demonstrate Ishiguro’s contemplation on the contemporary articial intelligence
such as the current robots androids, and the in vitro creation of human beings, and
further indicate what it really means to be a human.
Xinyue Yuan engages us in exploration of the subverted power dynamics
between human beings the food in Roald Dahl’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory (). It delves into the unsettling chocolate fever in the ctional world
that profoundly challenges anthropocentric assumptions and human arrogance.
Specically, food prominently controls people by occupying their desiring psyche,
being embedded in the hierarchical societal system, and imparting didactic
signicance through its autonomous power. e study urges a re-evaluation of
the human-food relationship, highlighting food’s proactive role in society and
prompting a vision of an interconnected world where humans and nonhumans
coexist inseparably .
e forum ends with Hongbo Lv’s paper, which examines Anthony Browne’s
picture books. In her view, Browne’s works include three types of non-human
entities: animals, human transformations, and toys. In particular, the chimpanzee
Willy presents the inner world of a child growing from weakness to strength, with
rich emotions and diverse identities. From the perspective of ethical literary
criticism, Hong argues that Browne uses visual language to depict the struggle
between human and animal factors, illustrating that the animalness of animals
and the humanness of humans are equal, each with its strengths and weaknesses,
containing postmodern characteristics and signicant ethical value.
e forum is featured by its papers with diversied perspectives on nonhuman
narrative, ranging from theoretical exploration to critical practice, from science
ction to children’s literature, and from Chinese literature to western literature.
Despite their respective emphasis on relevant narratological issues, all papers
collected in this forum attempt to do new readings of narrative texts and to
reconsider and evaluate the human-nonhuman relations. It is our hope that the
forum will open up avenues for further discussion of nonhuman narrative in world
literature in the future.
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Works Cited
Felski, Rita. Uses of Literature. Blackwell Publishing, .
Fludernik, Monika. Towards a Natural Narratology. Routledge, .
Grusin, Richard. “Introduction.” e Nonhuman Turn. Ed. Richard Gruisin. U of
Minnesota P, , pp. vii–xxix.
Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making
kin.” Environmental Humanities, no. , , pp.–.
Hayles, Katherine. How We became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature,
and Informatics. U of Chicago P, .
Karkulehto, Sanna, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, and Essi Varis. “Reconguring Human,
Nonhuman and Posthuman: Striving for More Ethical Cohabitation.” Reconguring
Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture. Edited by Sanna
Karkulehto, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, Essi Varis. Routledge, , pp. –.
Shang, Biwu. “Towards a eory of Nonhuman Narrative.” Neohelion, vol., no., ,
pp. –.
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Abstract
is article argues that e Lives of Animals approaches the human and non-human relationship
through narrative form, which is dierent from most of the narratives dealing with non-human
issues by means of thematic engagements. Coetzee’s rhetorical experiment in this ction pushes
novel form to its limit, opening new possibilities for ways of discussing animality. For Coetzee,
ctional narrative form possesses a unique and irreplaceable advantage in representing the
living conditions of the non-human entities, thereby helping readers to get into their interiority.
Specically, by free imagination and textual dialogism, ctional discourse presents animals as
free individuals with subjectivity and constructs a kind of “ethics of otherness,” which in turn
facilitates readers’ understanding of the non-human world and multiplies the chance for them
to empathize. Novelistic writing then becomes an ethical action through which the novelists
are expected to fully exploit the novel’s formal resources to promote the discussions of social
issues.
Keywords
ethics, e Lives of Animals, narrative form, other
About the Author
Yafei Li is an associate professor of English at the School of Foreign Languages, University of
Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests include narrative theory
and contemporary Anglophone ction. His articles were published in both Chinese and English
journals, such as Comparative Literature Studies, ANQ, Foreign Literatures, Contemporary
Foreign Literature, and New Perspectives on World Literature.
ENCOUNTERING THE NON-HUMAN
WITH NARRATIVE FORM
J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives Of Animals
Yafei Li
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
liyfine@uestc.edu.cn
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INTRODUCTION
In , J. M. Coetzee was invited to give speeches for the annual Tanner Lectures
organized by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.
Instead of giving the lectures through philosophical interpretation, Coetzee read a
ctional story about an aging Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello, who is invited
to pay a three-day visit to Appleton College and give lectures for the Department
of English. e story of Costello delivered by Coetzee was later published as a novel
by Princeton University Press, with an introduction by political philosopher Amy
Gutmann and four responsive essays by scholars from elds of religious studies,
primatology, literary studies, and philosophy. erefore, e Lives of Animals
synthesizes multiple forms of signifying practices into a single piece of work,
forming a novel with rich formalist connotations. As shown by the title of the novel,
the topic of animal rights is easily discernible. Modeling a ctional novelist invited
by a university to give lectures, Coetzee constructs an alter ego to express opinions
on animal rights. In doing so, he foregrounds narrative form and its signicance
in dealing with human-animal relationships. But how is the issue of animal rights
uniquely approached by Coetzee in this narrative? What does Coetzee really want
to convey by telling a ctional story for an actual invited lecture on human values?
ese are questions that this essay intends to address.
FREEDOM OF FICTIONAL WRITING AND THE ETHICS OF OTHERNESS
What literature can do to our understanding of both ourselves and the world we live
in is a question constantly asked by literary scholars since literary theory’s genesis—
when Aristotle eloquently emphasized tragedy’s unique function of katharsis. Since
the beginning of the new century, it is common to read, from both journal articles
and monographs, the argument that literary criticism as a discipline is deteriorating.
Terry Eagleton in his book After eory () expresses such melancholy by saying
that “the golden age of cultural theory is long past” (). Notwithstanding Eagleton’s
bemoaning is about the decline of cultural theory, this worsening situation is not
restricted to theory itself. More alarmingly, the legitimacy of literature—on which
theory is grounded—is persistently questioned in current conversations of literary
criticism. e special issue “Why, How, and Where Literature” organized by Poetics
Today in can be taken as an iconic event in this regard. Omri Herzog and
Tamar Hager, the issue’s guest editors, demonstrate that the disciplinary ambiguity
of literature is caused by “the bidirectional transmission of nonliterary material
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to the discipline of literature and literary texts to other realms of knowledge” ().
Herzog and Hager’s observation more or less identies the transformation of
literature in our age as a major symptom of the challenges that literary studies
encounter. e value of literature, by the same token, has been frequently explored
in contemporary academy, as Rita Felski argues, “e question of what literary
texts reveal or conceal has been so emphatically hashed out that any further
commentary seems hard-pressed to get beyond the desultory afterthoughts and
caveats of epigones” ().
For Dorothy J. Hale, the value of literature, even in the contemporary moment,
still lies in “its ethical power,” and one of the tasks inuential novelists today engage
is to expound “the ethical capacities of literary reading and writing” (). Hale
further argues that the realization of such ethical involvement, to a large extent, is
dependent on “making the best use of the narrative resources particularly to the
novel to bring to life a character’s individuality” (). Fictional narratives such as the
novel, compared with other forms of signifying practices, is capable of enabling
readers to see the characters’ consciousness. With the narrative resources possessed
by novels, it is more likely that characters are presented in ctional possible
worlds as autonomous individuals. Since novelist form constructs characters as
identities with distinctive dispositions, characters in novels, originally perceived
as fabricated puppets without autonomy, become free individuals with subjectivity.
erefore, Hale posits “ethics of alterity” as the central idea while she accounts for
contemporary novelistic aesthetics. She proposes the overarching argument that
“contemporary novelists and academic theorists increasingly dene the social value
of literature more and more exclusively as the ethical encounter with otherness
made available through novelistic form” (Hale ). Novel writing has been regarded
as a kind of ethical action of telling stories about “the other,” which is fullled by
novel’s unique narrative form.
Hale’s “ethics of otherness” nds its evident presence in Coetzee’s e Lives of
Animals. is novel is a typical work which constructs ethics of otherness towards
animals through narrative form. e ctionalized novelist Costello, who more
or less can be taken as Coetzee’s alter ego, is constructed as a liberal intellectual
with total autonomy, which gives her the courage to express provocative views
concerning animal rights and her reections on the human-animal relationship.
In the storyworld, Costello launches her sharp critique upon humans’ discourses
of reason and their anthropocentric value systems of ethics. rough her critique
of rationalism, Costello reects on how human beings’ minds are restrained by
modern knowledge systems as power discourse, arguing that rationalism has been
exerting negative impact on the public’s perception of the relationship between
human beings and those with dierent identities. For Costello, human rationalism,
inaugurated by Descartes and under which all social relationships are conceptualized
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and modeled from human beings’ own perspectives, is anthropocentric in essence.
One of the most prominent expressions of human rationalism is modern language.
It is the signifying systems constructed by human language that constitutes the most
robust mechanisms for them to build and maintain varieties of social relationship.
Among Costello’s criticisms upon human institutions, language of reason bears the
brunt. She refuses to deliver her lecture about animals by using language of reason:
Such a language is available to me, I know. It is the language of Aristotle and Porphyry,
of Augustine and Aquinas, of Descartes and Bentham, of, in our day, Mary Midgley
and Tom Regan. It is a philosophical language in which we can discuss and debate what
kind of souls animals have, whether they reason or on the contrary act as biological
automatons, whether they have rights in respect of us or whether we merely have duties
in respect of them. (Coetzee )
Language of reason to Costello provides theoretical endorsement for humans’
unidirectional understanding of human-animal relations; therefore, she gives up
such language and refuses to give any philosophical interpretations of animal ethics.
While conceptualizing human-animal relationships, the process of referring to
reason, according to Costello, is equal to the process of otherizing animals. Reason,
supported by human’s philosophical language, constructs anthropomorphized
conceptualizations towards nature for the sake of maximizing human interests.
Human beings’ emphasis of reason brings out the divide between “men of reason”
and “animals who lack reason,” then naturally the dierentiation between “those
who govern” and “those who are governed,” as Costello says:
e universe is built upon reason. God is a God of reason. e fact that through the
application of reason we can come to understand the rules by which the universe works
proves that reason and the universe are of the same being. And the fact that animals,
lacking reason, cannot understand the universe but have simply to follow its rules blindly,
proves that, unlike man, they are part of it but not part of its being: that man is godlike,
animals thinglike. (Coetzee )
Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am” implies a body-mind dichotomy, suggesting
that the essence of dierentiating human and other organisms is that “human
beings can realize their body’s existence” through thinking (Dan ). erefore,
Costello launches a sharp attack on Descartes in her lecture by arguing that “It
[‘I think, therefore I am’] is a formula I have always been uncomfortable with. It
implies that a living being that does not do what we call thinking is somehow
second-class” (Coetzee ). Reason, from Costello’s perspective, not only cuts o
the possibilities for humans to sympathize with animals’ actual experience, but also
legitimizes their slaughter of animals.
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Against the backdrop that reason stands as a fundamental obstacle for
human beings to approach animals as the other, Costello oers her alternative
by emphasizing the importance of “heart” in imagining and sympathizing the
other. Quoting intuitive mathematician Ramanujan’s story as a supporting
example, Costello desacralizes the established doctrine that reason is the exclusive
epistemic capacity leading to truth. Instead of referring to a “laborious notion
of mathematical proof or demonstration,” Ramanujan does his math by means
of pure intuition and many of his speculations prove to be true. e exercise of
heart becomes an alternative way to gain an understanding of nature as well as
the relationship between human and nature. As a perceptual capacity opposite to
logical thinking and philosophical articulation, the heart is capable of transcending
the subject-object dichotomy and providing humans the ability of imagining the
other as individuals with existential and emotional autonomy, since, as Costello
argues, “e heart is the seat of a faculty, sympathy, that allows us to share at times
the being of another” (Coetzee ).
Endowed with rich rhetorical resources, ctional narratives, especially the
novel, are exclusively advantageous in walking into the characters’ hearts or
minds, which make them an ideal form for presenting the other’s life experiences,
thereby evoking sympathy among readers. Heart, intuition, and other emotional
subtleties can be captured to the fullest through ctional discourses, since it owns
incomparable freedom of imagining characters, which can hardly be fullled
through rational argumentations. As Palumbo-Liu suggests, “It used to be that
art, and particularly imaginative literature, was seen as the antidote to too much
rationality: it was through art that the sphere of the irrational, the emotional, the
intuitive, could help us understand the human being in a more complex and rich
sense” (). “e constructions of the minds of ctional characters by narrators and
readers are central to our understanding of how novels work, because readers enter
storyworlds primarily by attempting to follow the workings of the ctional minds
contained in them” (Palmer ). erefore, the vividness gained in presenting the
other’s experience grants ctional narratives forceful discursive power of aecting
readers, oering the possibility of arousing their sympathy. In other words, ctional
literature provides authors with all the conveniences for constructing ethics of
otherness. rough two lectures respectively entitled “e Philosophers and the
Animals” and “e Poets and the Animals,” Costello not only gives her critique of
the philosophical ways of approaching animals but also pays tribute to the poetic
ways of presenting animals by imaginative literature. She suggests that ctional
narratives as a way to construct an ethics of otherness is both essential and eective.
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FICTIONAL DIALOGISM AND THE ETHICS OF OTHERNESS
Narrative resources possessed by ctional literature allow it to build
multidimensional dialogism, which further facilitates the construction of an
ethics of alterity towards animals. e Lives of Animals, with the help of dialogism,
presents multiple competing ethical orientations, creating possibilities for readers
to contemplate the issue of animal rights from dierent angles. Dialogism permits
all subjects, regardless of their identities, the chance of expressing themselves with
so much freedom that they can explain their ideas from dierent stances, which
accordingly builds a metaleptic network of communication among implied author,
reader, and characters.
e multidimensional dialogism of e Lives of Animals is demonstrated both
at the level of story and discourse. e dialogism at the story level happens among
characters. Costello is a ctionalized novelist who is invited by a university to give
lectures. She has dialogism with the audiences in the storyworld by giving opinions
about animal rights and responding to the audiences’ questions. Such dialogic
mechanism gives Costello total autonomy of boldly presenting her controversial
and even paranoid arguments, especially her analogy between human beings’ killing
of animals with the ird Reich’s slaughter of Jewish people: “we are surrounded
by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything that the
ird Reich was capable of….” (Coetzee ). Costello’s radical statement naturally
sparks heated discussions among listeners, who question her real objective of giving
the lectures. e ctional dialogism in the storyworld culminates with the debate
between Costello and a philosophy professor from Appleton. e nal session of
Costello’s visit is to have a debate with philosophy professor omas O’Hearne.
Professor O’Hearne challenges the main argument presented by Costello in her
lecture, “e Philosophers and the Animals.” He, through eloquent philosophical
rhetoric, refutes Costello’s idea that rationalism divides human beings and animals
and thereby legitimize the former’s killing of the latter. e debate not only is a
direct reection of ctional dialogism constructed by the novel but also highlights
the gap and confrontation between emotional narrative and rational discourse.
e dialogism of e Lives of Animals also lies at its discourse level, which is
rst and foremost demonstrated by the interplay between “realist ctionality” and
“ctionalized reality.” e story about novelist Costello’s visit to Appleton College
and her lectures about animal rights is in fact Coetzee’s real speech delivered
at Princeton University, which turns the ctional story into Coetzee’s discourse
with potential ideological reference and results in a kind of “realist ctionality.”
In addition, although e Lives of Animals is a ctional narrative, the characters
within the storyworld are conditioned by the same laws and principles and would
never reckon themselves as ctional beings, which produces a kind of “ctionalized
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reality.” As the characters exist in the same narrative world mediated by a narrator,
they cannot realize that they are created beings by the implied author. As Richard
Walsh argues, “e function of the narrator is to allow the narrative to be read
as something known rather than something imagined, something reported as
fact rather than something told as ction” (Walsh ). e audience in the story
challenge Costello’s ideas about animal rights rightly because of their strong belief
of being in “the real” world. e tension constructed by presenting such “realist
ctionality” and “ctionalized reality” turns out to be the discursive dialogue in the
novel.
e mixture of multiple signifying forms within the same work also can be seen
as its dialogism at the discourse level. Unlike Waiting for the Barbarians, Age of
Iron, and Disgrace, which are characterized by their “searing social drama,” e
Lives of Animals “may seem to be less a novel than the deconstruction of a novel,”
since it lacks typical attributes expected to be possessed by a novel, such as thick
descriptions of setting and physical environment, adequate backstory of characters,
and compact storylines (Hale ). Hale’s insight is not meant to illegitimize the
work’s status of being a novel, but emphasize its extension of the boundary of
novel form. One of Coetzee’s strategies for achieving such formalist innovation
is to blend various forms of narrative discourse. e issue of animal rights is
approached in the novel though lectures, addresses, conversations, debates and
letters. When Costello compares the cruelty to animals with the killing of Jewish
people, the poet Abraham Stern refuses to attend dinner with her and challenges
her idea by sending her a letter, arguing that such comparison not just “insults
the memory of the dead,” but also “trades on the horrors of the camps in a cheap
way” (Coetzee ). In addition to the ctional story told by Coetzee, the book also
includes four responsive comments by scholars from literary criticism, ethics,
philosophy and anthropology. Such textual designing further consolidates the
novel’s status of being a metaction, and produces the Bakhtinian heteroglossia
through presenting how the issue of animal rights is perceived in dierent elds
of scholarship, turning the work into a truly dialogic novel, which “can be dened
as a diversity of social speech types (sometimes even diversity of languages) and
a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized. e internal stratication
of any single national language into social dialects, characteristic group behavior,
professional jargons, generic languages, languages of generations and age groups,
tendentious languages, languages of the authorities, of various circles . . .” (Bakhtin,
e Dialogic Imagination –).
e dialogic discourse in e Lives of Animals is Coetzee’s attempt at showing
how ctional discourse (imaginative literature) can explore ethical issues like animal
rights. Dierent from most of the philosophical rhetoric dealing with animal ethics,
Coetzee, in e Lives of Animals, does not mean to create a compromising ethical
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mechanism through philosophical discourse so as to synthesize disagreements.
Instead, he refers to ctional discourse. e above interpretation demonstrates that
ctional discourse is able to bridge the divide among characters, authors, and readers,
which provides equal opportunities for dierent subjects to express themselves and
creates communicating channels for dierent subjects. Such dialogic activity helps
each subject establish their self-consciousness. What Coetzee constantly reects
is how to discover the other’s consciousness through ctional narratives. Dialogic
discourses created by ctional narratives fully reveal dierent subjects’ inner worlds,
giving them opportunities to deeply reect on animal ethics. Besides, compared to
monologic philosophical narratives which constrain people’s minds by essentialist
ideas, dialogic ctional form presents competing ethical orientations within a
same storyworld, opening new possibilities for people to approach animal ethics
from a variety of perspectives. By oering various competing ethical orientations,
e Lives of Animals implies more unnished dialogues, rather than a xed and
denitive argument.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NARRATIVE FICTIONALITY
Rhetorically, e Lives of Animals, through its postmodern metactional narrative,
builds up multidimensional dialogic space. is novel becomes a fruitful attempt for
constructing the ethics of otherness, since it guides people to fully reect the issue
of animal rights so as to realize the value of life. As mentioned, the story of Costello
in e Lives of Animals is the speech Coetzee gives at Princeton University. Coetzee
deals with the issue of animal rights through telling a ctional story, in which he
blends various perspectives about animal ethics through fabricating the character
Costello, who can be seen as Coetzee’s second self. Not surprisingly, instead of
talking about his literary ideal, Coetzee also delivers a ctional story in his Nobel
Prize acceptance speech. Why is Coetzee so obsessed with telling ctional stories
in real-life speeches? It is sensible for him to discuss the issue of animals in the
form of ctional narrative, because all the criticizing voices concerning the radical
ideas presented in the novel might be perfectly responded by the reason that it is
not real. In other words, such discursive practice helps Coetzee draw a categorical
line between “reality” and “ctionality,” therefore holding no responsibility for the
ctional arguments.
However, Coetzee’s rhetorical practice in itself is a kind of narrative action. e
Lives of Animals, by documenting an aged novelist’s lectures, not only explores
how humans can empathize with animals but also reects the value of literature
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as a kind of ctional narrative form. In other words, although the novel is about
animality, what Coetzee really tries to do through the narrative is to question
“representation” (Pughe ). Specically, e Lives of Animals’s “experimental
metactional form brings the full potential of literary method to meet the ethical
demands that animals place upon us” (McKay ). erefore, in addition to
promoting people’s understanding of animal rights, the novel also enriches the
scholarly conversation about the uses of literature. As Marjorie Garber, a literary
critic who responds to Coetzee’s speech in e Lives of Animals, puts out, “In these
two elegant lectures we thought John Coetzee was talking about animals. Could it
be, however, that all along he was really asking, ‘What is the value of literature?’”
(Coetzee ). e above analysis of the novel shows that the ctional form has its
unique advantage in imagining the other, particularly animals, which can hardly be
possessed by other forms of narrative discourse. Moreover, comparing with other
signifying forms, ctional narratives extend much wider in building dialogues. For
Coetzee, the value of ction is that it can employ a set of narrative resources to fully
present the other’s lives, thereby generating empathy among readers. erefore,
literature becomes one of the “social practices that employ narrative as a way of
making sense of reality” (Caracciolo et al. ).
Aristotle distinguishes historical narrative and literary narrative in Poetics by
arguing that history “speaks of events which have occurred,” whereas literature
describes “the sort of events which could occur,” the reason for which is that the
latter “is both more philosophical and more serious” than the former (Halliwell ).
Literature, from the perspective of Aristotle, “speaks more of universals, history
of particulars” (). What I would like to say is that the reason that literature can
speak more of universals lies in its narrative forms. Literary writing gives authors
free imagination so that they can fully explore universal social issues. Although
literature is ctional, it nally projects to the reality, as Shang Biwu and James
Phelan keenly observe, “Fictionality, then, is the use of invention to depart from
a direct description, interpretation, or evaluation of the actual world. But it’s a
departure that’s designed to indirectly engage with, and eventually connect back
to the actual world” (Shang and Phelan ). When Coetzee is asked in an interview
about the dierence between being a writer and a literary critic, he bluntly states
that, “I feel a greater freedom to follow where my thinking takes me when I am
writing ction than when I am writing criticism . . . e feel of writing ction is
one of freedom, of irresponsibility, or better, of responsibility toward something
that has not yet emerged, that lies somewhere at the end of the road . . . Where I
do my liberating, my playing with possibilities, is in my ction” (Doubling the Point
). Literary criticism today is becoming increasingly philosophical, and such
a discursive mode, for Coetzee, constrains people’s thought. On the other hand,
ction writing empowers the writer with adequate freedom of imagination, which
is impossible for other narrative modes.
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e freedom of ctional narrative, especially in the novel, rst lies in its
incomparable power of mind-reading, the ability to walk into people’s minds. is
mind-reading ability of ction is regarded by Rita Felski as the most notable way in
which novel is dierent from history: “ird person ction allows the narrator an
epistemological privilege that accrues neither to real life nor to the writing of history:
unrestricted access to the inner life of other persons. . . . Fiction is the only medium
in which the interiority of persons is promiscuously plumbed, where narrators
routinely know more about the minds of characters than they know themselves”
(Felski ). e mind-reading ability of the novel not only allows readers to have
a deeper understanding of characters, but also further inuences the readers’
perception of the implied author. While reading ction, readers “watch characters
engaged in reading each other’s minds and simultaneously read those minds
themselves, making further inferences about the implied author’s mental activities”
(Phelan ). In addition, the dialogic narrative discourses in the novel also give it
freedom. Unlike historical or philosophical narratives, novels do not point to single
essentialist truth, but rather present an open and unnished storyworld through the
integration of “independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses” (Bakhtin,
Problems ). e dialogic discourses in ctional narratives can fully reveal authors’
and characters’ subjective consciousness. Bakhtin observes that characters in
novels are “not voiceless slaves (as does Zeus), but free people, capable of standing
alongside their creator, capable of not agreeing with him and even of rebelling
against him” (Bakhtin, Problems ). In novels, characters and author are equal or
even compete with each other, since the novelistic discourses allow them to engage
in equitable dialogues, which can liberate their self-consciousnesses. Both the
narrative creators and the characters in the narratives discover their consciousness
through novelistic dialogues, which means that concerning oneself about subjects
other than oneself is the prerequisite for realizing self-consciousness. If literature is
“one of the most dynamic domains” in terms of worldmaking (Shang, “Approaching
the World” ), mind-reading and dialogic discourse are two essential techniques
for literature to fulll its worldmaking engagements.
One of the most important functions of ctional narrative discourses is to
present the other’s subjectivity. Humans dene themselves through perceiving
and interacting with subjects who have dierent identities with them. Fictional
narratives, especially novels, provide humans with the opportunity of getting into
the other’s inner world. As it has been shown, the novel, with its ability of doing
mind-reading, is capable of describing the other as independent individuals, rather
than subordinate objects. More than that, the ctional narrative form is famous for
its advantage of constructing dialogic space within which the subject and the other
both have the chance to express, debate and challenge. Instead of being lifeless
objects judged and interpreted by creators of historical and philosophical narratives,
the other in ctional discourses stand as individuals with full subjectivity. Biwu
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Shang identies nonhuman narrative’s three major functions, narrating, acting
and observing (Shang, “Non-Human Narratives” –). In novels, non-human
entities like animals are not presented as subordinative objects but narrators,
actants and even observers, who have their own capacity of speaking, experiencing
and perceiving. One of the core arguments Coetzee wants to convey in e Lives
of Animals is that establishing animals’ subjectivity is the premise for humans to
understand human-animal relationships and ctional narrative provides the most
suitable and benecial platform. “In other words, when a human being relates to
an individual nonhuman being as an anonymous object, rather than as a being with
its own subjectivity, it is the human, and not the other animal, who relinquishes
personhood” (Coetzee ).
e presentation of the subject consciousness of the other provides readers with
the bridge to enter into the world of the other and the opportunities of empathizing
with the other, which constitutes the way for literature to get into the discussion of
real social and ethical issues. Coetzee emphasizes the importance of empathizing
for the other in e Life of Animals, as Costello says,
ere are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination. If you want proof, consider the
following. Some years ago I wrote a book called e House on Eccles Street. To write
that book I had to think my way into the existence of Marion Bloom. Either I succeeded
or I did not. If I did not, I cannot imagine why you invited me here today. In any event,
the point is, Marion Bloom never existed. Marion Bloom was a gment of James Joyce’s
imagination. If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed,
then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any
being with whom I share the substrate of life. (Coetzee )
Fictional narratives guide readers to think like the other so as to gain a deeper
understanding of their true living states, rather than dening the other through
closed rational rhetorics. erefore, reading ctional stories about the other to a
large extent is not only the reader’s conscious journey of approaching the living
experience of the other, but also their emotional process of empathizing with the
other. Put it another way, ctional writings about the other shorten the distance
between readers and the other. e signicance of ctionality lies in the fact that
it can portray dierent characters, including non-human ones, as free individuals
with subjectivity by referring to its rich and exclusive narrative resources, which
can turn the audience’s reading of stories about the other into an experience of
empathetic action. erefore, novelistic writing becomes as an ethical action.
To conclude, e Lives of Animals fullls its ethical ambition of perceiving the
human and non-human relationship through narrative form. Coetzee’s rhetorical
experiment in the novel pushes the novel’s formal conventions to its limit,
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exploring new possibilities of novelistic form. What he endeavors to demonstrate
is how ction can be an ethical means to approach universal issues faced by human
beings and reect the function of ctional narrative in imagining and accepting
the other so as to deepen humans’ understanding of themselves and the world they
live in. Fictional narrative form possesses unique and irreplaceable advantage in
representing the living condition of the non-human entities and helping readers get
into the interior heart of them. e signicance of ctionality is that it can construct
a kind of non-human ethics through narrative resources, free imagination and
textual dialogism in particular, thereby realizing the ethical value of literature. To
extend this point further, a novelist’s mission is to fully utilize the formal resources
of the novel to promote the discussions of social issues, taking novel writing as
an ethical action, as Coetzee states, “Seriousness is, for a certain kind of artist, an
imperative uniting the aesthetic and the ethical” (Giving Oense ).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
is article is supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (CWW).
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WORKS CITED
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Coetzee, J. M. Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews. Edited by David Attwell, Harvard
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Zhao / Beyond The Fermi Paradox 183
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Abstract
Liu Cixin’s e ree-Body Problem () not only impressively addresses the Fermi paradox
about where alien civilizations are, but also delves deeper into a more profound inquiry: How
are they? rough shaping alien images, Liu oers unique nonhuman viewpoints to expose
and critique the limits of human perceptions. is article examines Liu’s exploration of three
fundamental questions within his science ction: How do aliens comprehend the existence of
humans? How do aliens perceive human material civilization? And how do aliens regard human
spiritual civilization? By analyzing Death’s End (), “e Micro-Era” (), and “Cloud of
Poems” (), this article contends that Liu critically reects upon Chinese epistemology with
particular features of moral epistemology, relational epistemology, and onto-epistemology to
grapple with human cognitive limitations from alien perspectives. Liu challenges the validity
of moral epistemology in the context of an unfathomable “dark forest,” yet draws insights
from relational and onto-epistemology to envision pathways for advancing human civilization.
is article situates Liu’s science ction within a broader discussion of alien narratives and
Chinese epistemology, highlighting his distinctive contribution to world science ction beyond
conventional discussions about his responses to the Fermi paradox.
Keywords
alien narrative, Chinese epistemology, Fermi paradox, Liu Cixin, , nonhuman narrative, science
ction
About the Author
Siqi Zhao is an assistant professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University. Her research mainly focuses on comparative literature, science ction, and Australian
literature. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Comparative Literature Studies,
Australian Literary Studies, and the Journal of Australian Studies.
BEYOND THE FERMI PARADOX:
Alien Narratives and Chinese
Epistemology in Liu Cixin’s Science Fiction
Siqi Zhao
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
cherylchao@sjtu.edu.cn
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INTRODUCTION
For centuries, humanity has been mesmerized by the prospect of encountering
extraterrestrial civilizations. In , the pioneering nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi
posed a provocative question: “Where are they?” Drawing on his professional
expertise, Fermi highlighted a profound paradox—the apparent logical contradiction
between the high probability of extraterrestrial civilizations existing and the absence
of tangible evidence or contact. is striking conundrum, famously known as the
Fermi paradox, has since sparked widespread interest among scientists worldwide,
epitomized by the fervent pursuit of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
research. Scientists have not only developed conceptual frameworks, such as the
Drake equation to estimate the potential number of intelligent civilizations, but
have also managed to transmit signals into space with advanced technologies. Yet,
despite these eorts, conrmed discoveries or direct evidence of extraterrestrial
life remains elusive. Leading experts from disciplines across astronomy, biology,
chemistry, and physics even organize meetings to exchange ideas and seek
cooperation in response to the Fermi paradox. In Extraterrestrials: Where Are
ey? (), a collection of papers from “A Symposium on the Implications
of Our Failure to Observe Extraterrestrials” with contributions from a group of
eminent scientists, Michael H. Hart argues that four categories—namely, “physical
explanations” that extraterrestrials have not arrived on Earth due to physical
diculties, “sociological explanations” that extraterrestrials have chosen not to visit
Earth, “temporal explanations” that extraterrestrials have not yet reached Earth,
and “perhaps they have come but have not been observed”—should be exhaustive
of the plausible alternatives to address the Fermi paradox (Hart and Zuckerman ).
When it comes to sociological explanations represented by “the self-destruction
hypothesis” that indicates that the nature of intelligent life is to destroy itself, Halt
shows some resistance, saying that “to accept any such explanation would be to
abandon our scientic approach to the question (the Fermi Paradox)” (). However,
where scientists stop may be where science ction writers start.
e Fermi paradox has also ignited the imaginations of science ction writers.
In contrast to rigorous scientic studies, science ction serves as fertile ground for
speculative exploration, providing writers with a platform to engage deeply with
the enigma of the Fermi paradox. e Encyclopedia of Science Fiction enumerates
eight classic answers proposed by science ction writers:
() Flaws in the Drake equation or unique circumstances could render humanity alone;
() Rare occurrences of intelligent life or short-lived civilizations due to various factors
like war or resource depletion may hinder meaningful interstellar encounters; () e
universe is a perilous place where any civilization drawing attention to itself risks being
eradicated by extraterrestrial predators, which prevents contact; () Aliens may choose
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to conceal themselves or deem humanity unt for contact; () Humanity could be
shunned or considered repulsive by other beings; () Lack of compatible communication
technology may prevent detection of alien transmissions; () Earth’s location or
circumstances may inhibit contact with galactic society; () Fundamental dierences
between species may hinder recognition of sentience and impede First Contact until a
breakthrough occurs. (Langford)
Unlike scientists, who primarily focus on the ecacy of theoretical models and
search methodologies in response to “Where are they?”, science ction writers
grapple with a broader and more intricate inquiry: “How are they?”, especially
concerning how aliens perceive humanity. rough their narratives, science ction
writers delve into sociological and psychological dimensions, oering diverse and
nuanced perspectives on the Fermi paradox and beyond.
At the Hugo Awards ceremony, Chinese writer Liu Cixin impressed
readers around the world with e ree-Body Problem as “a Chinese response
to the Fermi Paradox” (Han and Liu ). In ree-Body, humanity naively sends
signals into the universe to look for extraterrestrial civilizations, unaware of the
danger of the “dark forest.” As the sequel novel Dark Forest vividly illustrates, “e
universe is a dark forest . . . In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that
any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. is is the picture
of cosmic civilization” (Liu, Dark Forest ). Critics often interpret Liu’s solution
of the “Dark Forest eory” to the Fermi paradox as an intertextual exploration
of Chinese history, including the Cultural Revolution or the history of the (semi-)
colonized (Qu ; Sun ). However, it would be misleading to exclusively link
Liu’s portrayal of the perilous universe as a “dark forest” solely to Chinese history,
as a similar solution has been echoed by many other science ction writers as well
as scientists from other cultural backgrounds. For example, H.G. Wells depicted
the conict between humans and Martians in e War of the Worlds as early as
the nineteenth century, while Stephen Hawking also cited humanity’s history
of treating its own kind harshly in meetings of civilizations with a signicant
technology gap to warn extraterrestrial intellgence could be highly dangerous. in A
Brief History of Time. is article shifts readers’ attention from the classic question
“Where are they?” to Liu’s artistic exploration of “How are they?” Specically, it
examines how aliens perceive humanity, echoing N. Katherine Hayles’s assertion
about “science ction’s ability to use the viewpoints of aliens to critique the limits
of human perceptions” (viii).
Against the backdrop of the nonhuman turn in recent years, increasing scholarly
attention has been geared toward nonhuman worlds, nonhuman agents, and
nonhuman experiences in literature (Shang ). Aliens, as a kind of nonhuman
entity that usually appears in science ction, may dier from another closely related
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concept, the posthuman entity. As Seán Hand points out, “while post-human is
connected with a teleological notion of development into a ‘beyond’, non-human
is more grounded in today’s and yesterday’s reality” (Zou and Hand ). Drawing
from my research with Qinglong Peng, aliens are strategically designed as a form
of ontological alterity, functioning to defamiliarize the verities of humanism
and criticize the parochiality of anthropocentrism. Although the term “alien”
inherently suggests existence beyond the boundary of humans, it is untenable to
preconceptionally place aliens as mere opposites of humans, since “any meaningful
act of defamiliarization can only be relative” and what is utterly alien is unimaginable
(Parrinder ). is resonates with Jan Alber’s argument that “even the strangest
text is about humans or human concerns” (). erefore, I argue that shaping
aliens in science ction means to reconsider the situations of human civilization,
especially in a vast universe and in a radically uncertain future. Focusing on “how
aliens are,” this article delves into Liu’s responses to three sub-questions in his
science ction, namely, “How do aliens understand the existence of humans?” in
Death’s End (), “How do aliens perceive the material civilization of humans?” in
“e Micro-Era” (), and “How do aliens comprehend the spiritual civilization
of humans?” in “Cloud of Poems” (). is article examines how Liu exposes
the limits of human perception in his alien narratives, employing the framework of
moral epistemology, relational epistemology, and onto-epistemology proposed by
Jana Rošker to analyze Liu’s critical reections on Chinese epistemology.
“HIDE YOURSELF WELL; CLEANSE WELL”: ALIENS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD THE
EXISTENCE OF HUMANS IN DEATH’S END
Liu’s most prominent portrayal of extraterrestrial beings emerges within e ree-
Body Trilogy, taking readers on a captivating journey through the cosmic mystery.
If the inaugural novel e ree-Body Problem is seen as a direct response to the
Fermi paradox by ensuring the existence of alien civilizations, and Dark Forest as
a theoretical explanation for the silence in the universe, we can safely consider
Death’s End as a revelation of how the cosmic civilizations are like. In Death’s End,
Liu subtly shifts the focus from the detailed conicts between human civilization
and Trisolaran civilization delineated in the earlier two novels, to the brutal survival
competitions among myriad civilizations existing in the unfathomable universe.
is thematic shift is delicately realized through the third perspective of Singer,
a humble “cleanser” from a technologically advanced alien civilization to view
the pivotal event of the rst contact between human civilization and Trisolaran
civilization. rough Singer’s narrative, Liu deftly deconstructs the “truths” in the
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eyes of humanity, exposing the inherent limitations of human perspective and
providing profound insights into how extraterrestrial life may interact with human
civilization.
It is necessary to retrospectively examine the contact between human civilization
and Trisolaran civilization from dual perspectives: those of humans and Trisolarans.
Humans, represented by astrophysicist Ye Wenjie at the Red Coast SETI Base,
innocently transmit signals into space in search of extraterrestrial civilizations.
One day, Ye receives a cryptic message repeating a dire warning: “Do not answer!
Do not answer! Do not answer!” Her initial excitement turns to confusion as she
later receives a follow-up message from a Trisolaran self-described as a pacist,
explaining the warning’s intent:
“ere are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this
world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission. But if you do answer,
the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be
conquered!” (Liu, ree-Body )
e message indicates the perils of the universe and explains the way people may
expose or protect themselves. Readers cannot help but wonder why this Trisolaran
is convinced that his civilization will invade Earth after knowing its location.
According to the Trisolaran narrator, Trisolarans have faced perpetual existential
crises due to a precarious tri-solar system. By the time the human message reached
Trisolaris, the planet has witnessed the rise and fall of over two hundred separate
civilizations. How to keep their civilization continuing is the priority of Trisolarans.
erefore, securing a habitable planet like Earth, with favorable conditions, is
extremely attractive to them. Despite the security warning, Ye impulsively responds
to the message because she has been disillusioned by humanity’s history of apathy,
venality, and violence, exacerbated by her suerings from the Cultural Revolution.
She pins her hopes on the alien power to save humanity. e communication
not only exposes the contradictions and vulnerability of human civilization, but
also reveals the distance between human and Trisolaran civilizations. Both Ye
and the Trisolaran message sender are internal focalizers to narrate the event
of their rst contact, oering intricate insights into their respective motivations
and civilizational backgrounds. is connection later leads to millions of years of
confrontations between human civilization and Trisolaran civilization.
Singer, however, serves as an external focalizer in recounting the event of human-
Trisolaran contact, oering a distinctly dierent perspective. Working as a cleanser,
Singer is responsible for eradicating exposed civilizations and archiving their data
based on broadcast coordinates. Singer observes a set of broadcast coordinates,
but nds that they have been wiped out by others before he can take action: “Of the
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three stars, one was missing” (Liu, Death’s End ). According to the description,
the coordinates unmistakably belong to the Trisolaran civilization. When Singer
archives the cleansed coordinates, he discovers three communications: initial
greetings from human civilization, a subsequent warning from the Trisolaran
civilization, and a nal invitation from human civilization. ese exchanges expose
the spatial distance between Trisolaran civilization and human civilization. Singer
aptly dubs Earth the “Star-Plucker,” noting its propensity for broadcasting locations
of civilizations to the universe. Singer has to evaluate whether the “Star-Plucker”
poses a threat and decide whether to cleanse its coordinates.
Unlike narratives from internal focalizers, which detail the reasons and contexts
of communications, Singer’s external perspective relies solely on logical analysis.
Singer is perplexed by the apparent contradictions in the Star-Plucker’s behavior—
sending signals into the universe without concealment and subsequently
broadcasting the coordinates of Trisolaris, leading to its destruction. e former
action suggests that the Star-Plucker does not possess a “hiding gene” or a “hiding
instinct,” implying a relatively low level of technological development. Conversely,
the latter action indicates a “cleansing gene,” necessitating the “hiding gene.” is
raises the confusing question: Why does the Star-Plucker not hide itself, given that
the broadcast coordinates have been cleansed and it “must have realized that their
own position had been revealed”? (Liu, Death’s End ). Singer conjectures that
either the Star-Plucker lacks the technology to send a safety notice to the universe,
or it attempts to expand and attack other civilizations without concern.
By juxtaposing narratives of the same event from both internal and external
perspectives, Liu reveals how alien civilizations are and invites readers to
reconsider the verities of humanism. How do aliens perceive the existence of
human civilization? According to Singer’s stark admonition, “Hide yourself; cleanse
well!” Aliens are depicted as indierent to understanding human civilization; their
response upon discovering its existence is simply to eradicate it. At the end of the
alien narrative, Singer’s attempt to scrutinize the situation further with the “big
eye” is halted by the Elder, who asserts that cleansing is “not a precision task and
didn’t require absolute accuracy” (Liu, Death’s End ). e underlying notion is
that any exposed coordinates will eventually be cleansed, subject to the varying
assessments of dierent cleansers regarding the perceived threat posed by those
coordinates.
Cheng Xin, the protagonist portrayed as the embodiment of humanism, nally
opts for the Bunker Project, which prioritizes the collective well-being of humanity.
However, the outcome demonstrates that the Lightspeed Spaceship Plan, oering
escape to a select few, is the only viable path to ensuring the continuation of human
civilization. Humanistic ideals like equity and kindness are defamiliarized and
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deconstructed from the alien perspective. Opinions among readers about Cheng
Xin and her choice vary: Some show their contempt for such a soft-hearted decision,
while some critics believe that Cheng Xin’s choice is the only possible way to “stand
up to the inhuman sublime, to the cosmic indierence” (Song, Fear of Seeing ,
). Does Cheng Xin make the right choice or not? is question posed by Liu
prompts a reassessment of humanism within the context of a perilous universe.
I would like to draw attention to Liu’s potential critique of moral epistemology,
a distinctive aspect of Chinese epistemology, by analyzing his depiction of Cheng
Xin’s response to alien indierence. While many critics interpret the meaning of
“Xin” 心 in the protagonist Cheng Xin’s name as “heart” to emphasize “goodness
and morality” (J. Fan, “e World Constitution” ; Song, Fear of Seeing ; Li and
Liu ), I propose an alternative interpretation as “heart-mind.” is interpretation
highlights the dual connotation of “Xin” as both “cognitive potential” and “goodness
and morality.” Such a layered interpretation embodies a central tenet of Chinese
thought on knowledge acquisition, which asserts an intrinsic connection between
virtue and truth, morality and reason. Within this philosophical framework,
morality is considered indispensable for the pursuit of knowledge, and epistemology
and axiology are seen as intertwined (Xu and Huang ). It is due to Cheng Xin’s
adherence to humanistic goodness that the Lightspeed Spaceship Plan is called
to a halt, preventing humanity’s pursuit of knowledge about the truth of the“dark
forest strike.” Subsequently, only a small section of scientists and engineers illicitly
conduct experiments in secret, eventually aiding Cheng Xin and her company in
escaping from the solar system. What needs to be reected upon is not merely the
choice between goodness and survival, but the moral epistemology that combines
morality and knowledge tightly together in the unprecedented context of a perilous
and unfathomable universe.
“POWER DOES NOT COME FROM SIZE”: ALIENS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE
MATERIAL CIVILIZATION OF HUMANS IN “THE MICRO-ERA”
At the end of Death’s End, Earth suers a catastrophic blow as it is struck by a
dual-vector foil and unfolded into a two-dimensional plane, resulting in a
complete devastation of the material civilization of humans. e devastating
event evokes a profound sense of mourning among readers for the loss of once-
vibrant human society. is prompts a compelling question: What might aliens
think of human material civilization, if they were to encounter it? In “e Micro-
Era,” Liu contextualizes the encounter between humans and aliens on the severely
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destructed Earth. Both of them harbor curiosity about each other’s civilizations. As
the communication deepens, their initially prejudiced impressions of each other’s
civilizations based on their respective values are gradually deconstructed. e
material civilization, believed to symbolize human identity and dignity, is critically
examined from the perspective of aliens.
e story begins with Forerunner returning to Earth as the last human survivor,
only to nd a barren, decaying planet inhabited by nano-sized aliens who introduce
themselves as “micro-humans.” As the Earth’s leader of the micro-human civilization
recounts their history, readers learn that both Forerunner and micro-humans are the
results of two contingency plans that humans prepared to cope with an impending
disaster. Forerunner is one of the spaceship pilots entrusted with the mission of
seeking a new home for human migration, but returns alone after failing to nd a
suitable planet. Micro-humans, whom Forerunner perceives as aliens at rst, are the
outcome of an alternative plan relying on genetic engineering and nanotechnology.
ese nano-sized humanlike beings are created by humans, supposed to hide
underground for survival and eventually reoccupy Earth once conditions permit.
Forerunner, uninformed of the plan conceived after his departure, is surprised by
the existence of micro-humans. e arrival of Forerunner is also a shock to micro-
humans, who thought all “macro-humans” (micro-humans’ term for the humans
who created them), including the spaceship pilots, should have died. e dramatic
encounter initiates a debate between Forerunner and micro-humans: What exactly
are micro-humans? Are they humans or aliens? What denes humanity?
Hegel’s “Master-Slave Dialectic” may oer a framework for interpreting
the identity debate between Forerunner and micro-humans. Dierent from
Enlightenment philosophers represented by Descartes and Kant, who view humans
as isolated beings, Hegel posits that human identity and consciousness can only
be achieved socially and historically through the recognition of the Other. With
his famous archetypal scenario of the master-slave relation, Hegel illustrates the
development of self-consciousness and the interplay of power dynamics in human
relationships. When two self-consciousnesses initially confront each other, each
one sees itself as the measure of all things and seeks to establish the certainty of its
being not only for itself but also for the other. Micro-humans address Forerunner
and his ancestors as “macro-humans” rather than “humans” by taking themselves as
the standard. And, faced with those tiny lives, Forerunner asks: “If micro-humans,
with their microscopic brains, can achieve the intelligence levels of macro-humans?”
(Liu, “Micro-Era” ), inadvertently implying his superiority.
Both macro-humans and Forerunner hope to be objectively armed by others
as subjects, mirroring Hegel’s master seeking recognition from the slave, who in
turn seeks recognition as a self-conscious being in his own right. According to
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Hegel, the two self-consciousnesses will experience a struggle, as each sees the
other as a threat to its status. is struggle for recognition culminates in a historical
war between macro-humans and micro-humans. With increasing social inuence,
micro-humans demand the sovereignty of the world, which demonstrates micro-
humans’ desire for recognition as subjects. e intensied confrontation nally
leads to a war. To Forerunner’s surprise, micro-humans triumph over macro-
humans through their small size and rapid inltration of macro-humans’ battle
systems before being detected. e victory grants micro-humans the recognition
they seek from macro-humans. Given the struggle for recognition among their
ancestors, Forerunner and micro-humans are faced with similar problems in the
new context.
In their pursuit of recognition, it is the change in both Forerunner’s and
micro-humans’ understanding of the material civilization in the macro-era that
nally conrms the consensus about their identities. e young Earth’s leader
of the micro-human civilization cites the example that disinfectants have never
wiped out bacteria in the history of human civilization to justify their success
in the war. “Power does not come from size,” as she explains (Liu, “Micro-Era”
). Being small does not necessarily mean being inferior, but even suggests
unparalleled advantage. What truly persuades Forerunner to reassess his value
are micro-humans’ comments on the material civilization of macro-humans. At
the request of micro-humans, Forerunner invites them aboard his spaceship for
a tour. e huge spaceship is the epitome of human material civilization in the
macro-era. It is the rst time that micro-humans witness a product of that era
rsthand, tasting the food and alcohol produced in that period. Nevertheless, they
also come to realize that the macro-humans’ pursuit and worship of greatness
leads to the end of the macro-era. Earth’s leader remarks, “Now we understand.
Even without the Sun’s energy ash, the macro-era could not have endured …. You
consume billions of times more resources than we do!” (Liu, “Micro-Era” ). In
terms of environmental sustainability, being tiny is no longer a disadvantage, but a
superiority under the condition of limited resources. By comparison, Earth’s leader
continues to justify the structure of feelings of their micro-human society: “We
were optimistic precisely because of our micro-society’s tiny scale. It meant that
humanity’s ability to survive in this universe had been increased many millions
of times over” (Liu, “Micro-Era” ). Persuaded by her insights on the material
civilization in the macro-era, Forerunner acknowledges micro-humans’ identity,
saying that “I see that humanity’s civilization has persisted. In fact, civilization has
achieved much more than just survival; yours is the true apex of civilization! We are
all human, originating from the same source” (Liu, “Micro-Era” ). Undergoing
a profound shift in consciousness, Forerunner comes to desire recognition from
micro-humans as an equal and voluntarily applies to join their society. With
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Forerunner’s integration, both Forerunner and micro-humans undergo a process
of reconstructing their identities through mutual recognition.
In “e Micro-Era,” Liu disenchants and deconstructs the “myth” of human
material civilization from an alien perspective through the intricately designed
plots centered on identity recognition. e cognitive process suggests inspiration
for the fast-changing modern world from relational epistemology, another key
feature of Chinese epistemology. Relational epistemology views the world as a
complex structure composed of relations, intersections, and interacting feedback
loops. In the story, the disenchantment of the macro-era and its material civilization
is inseparable from the specic context of limited resources caused by the disaster.
It is Forerunner’s and micro-humans’ renewed cognition of these changeable
relations, rather than an arbitrary total negation of the macro-era and praise of the
micro-era, that forms the foundation for their identity reconstruction.
Some scholars criticize the lack of historical consciousness in the posthuman
future of hedonism depicted in the story, questioning whether the pursuit of
hedonism by micro-humans can lead to a fullling existence devoid of moral and
historical consciousness (Song, e New Wave ). Such concerns arise from
treating the integration as homogenization. Forerunner does not outrightly reject
macro-human material civilization but learns to perceive it dialectically in relations.
His decision to remain aboard the spaceship rather than on Earth symbolizes his
continuity amid change. His plan to cultivate seeds into trees reects his subjectivity
within micro-human society. erefore, Forerunner’s integration also imbues the
“society of hedonism” with a historical consciousness rooted in the macro-era,
aligning with the aspirations of the micro-humans as they endeavor to forge their
identities within this evolving dynamic social landscape.
“YET I CANNOT GET HOLD OF THEM”: ALIENS’ PERCEPTION OF THE SPIRITUAL
CIVILIZATION OF HUMANS IN “CLOUD OF POEMS”
In “Micro-Era,” compared with the material civilization susceptible to destruction
by the Sun’s energy ash, spiritual civilization pertains to intangible forms such as
arts, literature, and philosophy has been resiliently inherited and developed. Micro-
humans argue that these cultural achievements validate their claim to humanity.
As Earth’s leader complains, “We have inherited all that was beautiful about
civilization, even though those Macros thought that we had no right to… the right
to become the carriers of human civilization” (Liu, “Micro-Era” ), implying that
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spiritual civilization arguably better denes human identity. Is this true? How do
aliens perceive human spiritual civilization? Liu addresses this intriguing question
in his short story “Cloud of Poems” (), a representative work of “pure science
ction” that aims to present “strange beauty and power that thrills the imagination”
(Liu, “Beyond Narcissism” ). Focusing on the literary form of poetry, Liu reects
upon the spiritual civilization of humans and attempts to relocate the decentered
human civilization in the universe through alien narrative.
In “Cloud of Poems,” Liu satirically posits an alternative explanation for the
Fermi paradox: Alien civilizations are reluctant to contact human civilization due
to its perceived deciencies. However, Liu suggests that human art, particularly
poetry, has the potential to challenge and change such prejudice. In the story, a
technologically advanced “god civilization” initially expresses contempt for human
civilization when presented with Yi Yi, a human poet, as a gift by a dinosaur named
Bigtooth who seeks guidance in technological development from the god. At this
time, humans have lost their homelands to the Devouring Empire of dinosaur
civilization and are treated as livestock for consumption. e god says: “I only like
perfect organisms. Why did you bring me such a lthy insect?” (Liu, “Poems” ).
When Yi Yi is about to be discarded into a trash incinerator, some loose pieces of
paper containing Classical Chinese poems utter out of his pocket, catching the
god’s attention. After reciting some poems, such as Li Bai’s “Downriver to Jiangling,”
“Still Night oughts,” and “Bidding Meng Haoran Farewell at Yellow Crane Tower,”
the god, an intergalactic art collector and researcher, expresses fascination: “Using
so few symbols, in so small and clever an array, to encompass such rich sensory
layers and subtle meaning, all the while operating under such sadistically exacting
formal rules and rhyme schemes? I have to say, I’ve never seen anything like it” (Liu,
“Poems” ). What provokes him is Yi Yi’s assertion that this form of human art is
unsurpassable. Yi Yi contends, “We have gods too, in our minds. We worship them,
but we don’t believe they can write poems like Li Bai and Du Fu” (Liu, “Poems” ).
Oended by Yi Yi’s condence, the god decides to demonstrate that technology can
surpass anything.
e story unfolds around the central question: “Can technology surpass human
poetry art?” e god furtively shifts this question to: “Can technology create
better poems than the most eminent Chinese poet, Li Bai?” and addresses it in an
unconventional manner. He proposes: “ere are two ways to surpass Li Bai. e
rst is to write poems that surpass his. e other is to write every poem!” (Liu,
“Poems” ). Utilizing advanced quantum computation technology, the god can
exhaust all possible combinations of Chinese characters within poetry frames to
realize the second plan. Among this vast collection, there must exist works superior
to those of Li Bai. e story concludes with a compromise: On the one hand, Yi
Yi who is initially skeptical becomes deeply impressed by the myriad possibilities
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within poetry presented by technology; on the other hand, the condent god, “Li
Bai,” becomes disheartened upon failing to identify superior works within the
Cloud of Poems.
Much critical attention has been drawn to the “duel between technology and
art” in “Cloud of Poems.” By contextualizing the story in the debate between
scientism and humanism in s China, Fan Yilun argues that the peaceful
compromise suggests Liu’s tentative solution to the inherent contradictions
between technological determinism and humanism after a vacillation (). In
response to Fan’s criticism, Xiong Ying focuses on the confrontation in a broader
sense between modernism represented by computative thinking and humanism
represented by poetic thinking. Using the approach of Walter Benjamin’s theory
of postmodernism, Xiong interprets the dialectical image of “Li Bai” as both a
dystopian trope to deromanticize the technological future and a Heideggerian
antidote for the danger of modern technology (). I agree with their insights, but
I would like to draw attention to the overlooked dynamics of power relationships
between the three characters and the epistemological paradigms behind them to
shed light on the ending of compromise.
It is noteworthy that the god addresses an ontological question about the
potential existence of poems superior to those of Li Bai, yet remains silent on the
epistemological question regarding the aesthetic judgment of these works. His
evasion suggests a change in power relationships. A signicant but ignored scene in
previous analyses underscores unequal power relationships between Yi Yi, Bigtooth,
and the god within the human language system. After jauntily introducing his
plan, the god rejects Bigtooth’s proposal to delete meaningless and anti-prosodic
poems, saying, “Emissary, you are not the one who decides whether a poem is
meaningful. Neither am I, nor any other person. Time decides” (Liu, “Poems” ).
e argument implies that the god evades his responsibility of judging the value
of poems, preferring to hand over the power of selection to “time.” In response,
Bigtooth angrily questions the value of the rst poem generated by technology:
“a a a a a
a a a a a
a a a a a
a a a a ai” (Liu, “Poems” )
Bigtooth, who has learned Chinese as a foreign language, doubts this poem’s
potential to become a masterpiece one day. In contrast, Yi Yi, a native speaker of
Chinese, unreservedly praises the poem:
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“Wow! Who needs mighty Time to choose? It’s a masterpiece right now! e rst three
lines and the rst four characters of the fourth are the exclamations - ah! - of living beings
witnessing the majestic grandeur of the universe. e last character is the clincher, where
the poet, having witnessed the vastness of the universe, expresses the insignicance of
life in the innity of time and space with a single sigh of inevitability.” (Liu, “Poems” )
Yi Yi’s interpretation of the poem is grounded in his own situation and integrated
with personal experience and understanding. is appreciation provokes Bigtooth’s
wrath and lls the god with pride. Invisibly, the power dynamics between the three
characters subtly shift. No longer is technological development the sole criterion;
instead, mastery and prociency of language emerge as the new arbiters of authority.
Is human poetry art which is considered the “soul and essence of intelligent
life” (Liu, “Poems” ), surpassable or not? Liu seems to lean toward a negative
answer through the alien god’s frustration at his failure in selecting masterpieces.
However, embracing a simplistic victory of humanism over technicism would be
hasty, as it overlooks the nuanced epistemological disparities between the human
poet Yi Yi and alien beings. Both the god and the dinosaur struggle to perceive
and select meaningful poems within the limited corpus of the Chinese language.
e dinosaur does not believe the rst poem created by a quantum computer is
meaningful because the combinations of words are rare in the corpus, and the
godobserves the same principle by saying, “Since the Cloud of Poems encompassed
all possible poems. . .e bug-bug Yi Yi would certainly nd a poem that describes
how he felt one night thirty years ago while clipping his ngernails, or a menu from
a lunch twelve years in his future” (Liu, “Poems” ). In such cases, the existence
of meaning precedes understanding.
Yi Yi’s approach to interpreting poems echoes an onto-epistemology deeply
rooted in Chinese philosophical traditions, where cognition and ontology
intertwine, presenting every object of cognition as a form of cognition itself. For
Yi Yi, the master of Chinese language, the existence of meaning and cognition are
interdependent, liberating him from the constraints of historical data found in the
limited corpus and encouraging fundamental innovation as how he interprets the
rst technology-generated poem. is perspective elucidates why Yi Yi remains
unperturbed by the same anxieties about value assessment that trouble the alien
god in the face of the Cloud of Poems. From the perspective of onto-epistemology,
the myriad combinations of words expand the realm of human imagination and
foster potential for multifaceted interpretations and innovations.
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CONCLUSION
Elana Gomel says, “While aliens may, or may not, exist, the nonhuman is already
here, inhabiting and undermining our most cherished verities of humanism. We
need aliens because we are already alien to ourselves” (). We need aliens, as
Marco Caracciolo suggests, to “question the centrality of the human” (Wang
and Caracciolo ). In the context of science ction, aliens serve as a trope of
ontological alterity, challenging the cultural and psychological conation of reason
and humanity. is article examines how human civilization is perceived through
the eyes of aliens in Liu’s three science ction works. As the literary analysis
demonstrates, the existence of human civilization poses a potential threat to alien
civilizations, leading to scenarios where any exposure or encounter will result in
the devastation of the Earth. e material civilization that humans are proud of
is deconstructed and disenchanted by alien life in certain circumstances, while
the spiritual civilization established on human language continues to signify the
uniqueness and indispensability of human civilization.
rough the lens of alien narratives, Liu oers critical reections on the
epistemological paradigms prevalent in Chinese philosophy. In Death’s End,
Liu questions the feasibility of moral epistemology that focuses on the internal
relationship between goodness and truth in the context of a “dark forest,” suggesting
that any assumed empathy of aliens based on human ethical principles reects
anthropocentric arrogance. Furthermore, Liu highlights relational epistemology
in “e Micro-Era,” urging individuals to consider objects in specic relations to
others, society, and nature, thereby, challenging the authority of anthropocentric
values. Additionally, in “Cloud of Poems,” Liu emphasizes onto-epistemology, which
underscores the mutual interdependence between ontology and epistemology,
oering insights into the anxieties surrounding technological dominance in the
modern era.
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Notes
1. In “Epistemology in Chinese Philosophy” included in e Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Rošker puts forward three specic features of epistemology in Chinese
philosophy that distinguish it from prevailing traditional European epistemologies.
First is relational epistemology. In contrast to Western naturalistic epistemology, which
treats the external world as independent of the subject, relational epistemology views
the subject and the object of comprehension as intertwined and dynamically integrated.
Second is the axiology of comprehension that emphasizes that Chinese epistemology
encompasses moral and ethical dimensions, focusing on the relationship between
virtue and reason, which diers from the dominant European view that knowledge is
primarily acquired through reasoning. I propose to use the term “moral epistemology,” as
Rošker alternatively uses in the text, to highlight the moral concern involved in Chinese
epistemology. ird is onto-epistemology, which posits that the existence of objects and
comprehension of them are interconnected and inuence each other reciprocally. is
is dierent from Western epistemology that often treats ontology and epistemology
as distinct elds, with a tendency to separate the subject from the object, focusing on
objective reality as independent of human perception and cognition. is article discusses
the three features in the order of moral epistemology, relational epistemology, and onto-
epistemology, allows for a progression from the specic to the general. Moral epistemology
sets the foundation by focusing on the ethical dimensions of knowledge. Relational
epistemology builds on this by expanding the scope to include the interconnectedness
of knowledge within a broader system. Finally, onto-epistemology encompasses both
moral and relational aspects by addressing the fundamental relationship between being
and knowing, providing a holistic view of epistemology that integrates moral values and
relational dynamics into the very fabric of reality. Following this logic, this article explores
how Liu shows critical thinking about Chinese epistemology in his science ction.
2. is happens in Dark Forest when the protagonist Luo Ji gures out the secret of “the
Dark Forest Rule” and tests his tentative theory by broadcasting a set of coordinates of an
unknown civilization. Soon, the destruction of the coordinates conrms his conjecture.
Later, Luo Ji sets up the deterrence system by threatening to expose positions of both the
Trisolaran civilization and human civilization.
This research was supported by the Youth Project of Humanities and Social Sciences
Research Fund of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (Project No.
24YJC752026).
Acknowledgments
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Abstract
is article analyzes the narrative of nonhuman elements in the American cyberpunk novel
Neuromancer (), by William Gibson, and its Chinese counterpart, Waste Tide (), by
Chen Qiufan, in the context of world literature, aiming to explore the way they congure the
connections and networks of the world system. It argues that, similar to the role of literary
forms and contents in Franco Moretti’s research and articial sites in David Damrosch’s world
literature theory, the articial humans in both novels are narrated as a center of calculation that
connects dierent classes, cultures, and domains both inside and outside their home countries,
forming a network resembling the star-shaped typology. Meanwhile, the technical products
in these narratives act as conduits for transporting the presence of the ancient, distant, and
current systems in the world into one another, showcasing a mesh global network that directly
connects individual sites and domains in dierent countries and cultures. ese agencies of
nonhuman narrative in the East and West not only reveal a new episteme to reassemble the
connections between the literary, social, cultural, and economic structures in both developed
and developing countries, but also help address the recent concerns of multiculturalism by
breaking down cultural boundaries and incorporating nonhuman objects as part of the material
basis of the “form” of dierent cultures.
Keywords
agency, mesh connection, nonhuman narrative, star-shaped network, world literature
About the Author
ZOU Li is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the Department
of English, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research focuses on world literature theories,
comparative literature, and nonhuman narrative studies. His publications have appeared in
MAKING THE WORLD OF CONNECTIONS
VISIBLE
Nonhuman Narrative As World Literature
Zou Li
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
zouli@sjtu.edu.cn
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journals such as European Review, Journal of Modern Literature and Comparative Literature
Studies.
e past few decades have seen the rise of nonhuman actors, such as cyborgs, cloned
biotechnology, and high-tech products, in the global cultural and literary spheres. is shift
has signicantly altered our understanding of the interconnectedness among nations, cultures,
societies, and literatures. Jon Roe and Hannah Stark address this phenomenon as the
“nonhuman turn” and claim that “at this present moment in intellectual history it is impossible
to consider the human without contextualizing it with the nonhuman turn” (qtd.in Shang ).
is article responds to this trend by taking the nonhuman narrative in the American cyberpunk
novel Neuromancer () by William Gibson and the Chinese cyberpunk novel Waste Tide
() by Chen Quifan as examples to explore the ways they congure the connections and
networks of the world system. In analyzing these novels and connections, I will draw on actor-
network theory from the French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour (–), world
system analysis theory from the American sociologist and historian Immanuel Wallerstein
(–), and the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s (–) argument on social
habitus. While a large body of scholarship has emerged in recent decades on the concept of
world literature, to my knowledge, this analysis is the rst to examine the way nonhuman
narrative shapes our understanding of world literature.
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WORLD LITERATURE AND THE NONHUMAN NARRATIVE IN NEUROMANCER AND
WASTE TIDE
Before analyzing the nonhuman narrative in these two novels in the context of world
literature, I will rst outline the renaissance of world literature criticism over the
past two decades and its relationship with both books. Since the beginning of the
modern times, Western countries have constantly strived to position their literary
works and forms at the center of the world’s literary system. is trend is evident in
Immanuel Kant’s claim in his inuential article “Idea for a Universal History with
a Cosmopolitan Purpose” (), where he argued for a need to re-conceptualize
human history based on parameters drawn from an assumed universality of reason
that is, in fact, “the result of a universalization of the cultural particularity of the
bourgeoisie” (qtd. in Siskind ). e voices and agencies of literary creation in
developing countries, as well as peripheral literary works in developed countries,
within the global system of literary production, exchange, and consumption, often
remain invisible.
e Italian literary historian and theorist Franco Moretti sought to address
this situation in his inuential essay “Conjectures on World Literature” () by
exploring the associations between the literary contents and forms of developing
countries and those of the center. Moretti proposed a method of “distant reading”
to replace traditional close reading in order to create space for the large number
of marginalized works in both central and peripheral countries, and to explore the
“law of literary evolution” in the world. is approach destabilizes the literary form
and content at the center and, importantly, allows for the rediscovery of the traces
and agencies of literary works previously considered unimportant in shaping world
literary development. As such, “distant reading” becomes an eective articial
situation invented by Moretti to account for the actions and performances of those
from the periphery. rough these newly discovered associations, literatures from
the East and the West, the center and the periphery, converge into a well-connected
uid system, presenting a balanced view of world literature.
e American literary critic David Damrosch continued to explore articial
sites that could reveal new associations within the literary system. In his book
What is World Literature? (), he delves into the processes and impacts of our
traditional reading and translation practice, examining their roles in mediating the
relations between dierent national cultures and literatures. He argues that “World
literature is writing that gains in translation,” and “World literature is not a set
canon of texts but a mode of reading: a form of detached engagement with worlds
beyond our own place and time” (). In this conception of world literature, the
cultural contexts and readers in the developing countries step out of the background
and become visible actors akin to those of the developed countries within the
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world literary system. By focusing on these articial occasions, as demonstrated
in the research of these two scholars, we can bring back the non-Western and
non-canonical works as visible, accounted, and distributed actors. is approach
also allows us to identify the conduits and vehicles that transform the literature of
dierent nations and cultures into a coherent form, therefore creating a collectively
integrated entity that circumvents the previous hierarchies.
eir intent to reframe the way world cultural and literary history is narrated
echoes Gibson’s eorts in Neuromancer and Chen’s in Waste Tide, where both
authors explore the nonhuman as another productive site to reveal actions and
performances of literature at the margins and peripheries of the world literary
system. Neuromancer, considered the progenitor of the genre of the cyberpunk
novel, uses high-tech as a nodal point to connect low-life characters and cultures
with the center. is novel mainly describes the way a low-level hacker named Henry
Case, living in the ctional Chiba City, Japan, uses his capability of connecting
his nervous system with the articial cyberspace to participate in competitions
between giant cross-national high-tech enterprises, engaging peripheral and
mainstream cultures, business networks in center countries, such as the US, Japan,
and the UK, as well as those in developing countries, such as China, Turkey, and
Brazil. Along with the progression of globalization, the inuence of the cyberpunk
novel has spread across national and cultural boundaries. In , this novel was
translated into Chinese and became the archetype of many literary creations of
Chinese writers, including Chen Qiufan, Yang Ping, and Zhao Lei. Chen Qiufan’s
novel, Waste Tide, serves as an illustrative example that also takes the nonhuman
cyborg as its narrative focus. It shows how the peripheral Chinese bio-engineered
laborers in the imaginary place “Silicon Isle,” represented by the character Mimi,
are linked with dominant forces both in China and in Western countries. While
the specic type of nonhuman that the two novels address varies, their respective
narrative approaches to nonhuman elements from the viewpoint of developed
countries and developing countries make it appropriate to study them together so
as to provide a global view of the narrative of nonhumans in literature.
As Bruno Latour notes, “agencies are always presented in an account as doing
something, that is, making some dierence to a state of aairs, transforming some
As into Bs through trials with Cs” (-). erefore, in order to bring back cultures
and literatures at the margins into the light, we need to locate suitable “accounts,”
“trails” and “dierences.” With the advancement of information technology in
developing countries as well as their participation in technological innovation,
technological products become meaningful sites to render visible the account,
trail, and information of the often-silenced non-Western agents in shaping the
world literary and cultural system. is is because the process of manufacturing,
circulating, and maintaining these nonhuman objects lies within the multiple
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and complex lives of marginalized cultures and marginalized people. ey are
connected with their Western counterparts as well as various other dominant
agencies through meetings, regulations, and dierent forms of incorporation. In
light of these features of nonhuman narrative, Neuromancer and Waste Tide retain
what I believe to be Moretti’s and Damrosch’s core insight: namely, the uidity of
the relationships among nations and cultures resides in articial occasions as a
question of nodal points. In the next two sections, I will comparatively analyze the
ways nonhuman narratives in these two novels perform as centers of calculation for
the ow of dierent cultures and peoples, and as global redistributors that connect
distant individual sites and dierent scales.
ARTIFICIAL HUMANS, CENTRES OF CALCULATION, STAR-SHAPED GLOBAL
CONNECTIONS
When the character Armitage, the main patron of the crew in Neuromancer,
biochemically edits the neurosystem and other organs of Henry Case, a poor
and drug-addicted hacker, to restore his ability to “project his disembodied
consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix” (), and to
fulll a mission assigned by the ctional articial intelligence named Wintermute,
the articial human becomes what Latour terms as a “centre of calculation”. is
“centre,” according to Latour, oers tangible shapes for the map of global knowledge,
trade, and cultural interactions. e articial human is dened as an important
category of nonhuman by Shang Biwu in his article “Towards a eory of
Nonhuman Narrative” (). Unlike other nonhuman actors, such as water, rocks,
plants, and animals, the articial human resembles the mythical creature sphinx,
with its body constituted by elements crossing the boundaries of human, animal,
and natural things. e articial components used to transform the cyborgs, such
as chips and chemicals, are usually a fusion of new technology, natural materials,
and human intelligence. With these articially intelligent devices, articial humans
can acquire extraordinary capabilities that enable them to traverse dierent classes,
cultures, and domains, making them a calculation center for a star-shaped network
connecting classes, cultures, technologies, humans, and the natural world.
e “centre of calculation,” developed by Latour, refers to a kind of central
“venue” in which “knowledge production builds upon the accumulation of resources
through circulatory movements to other places” (Jöns ). In other words, an
analysis of the input and output network of the center of calculation could reveal a
geographical map of conduits and vehicles for the mobility of people, information,
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technology, and other resources that lead to the formation of macro knowledge,
such as society, the world system, and globalization. Heike Jöns further notes the
way the center of calculation makes visible the world of networks by explaining
what transpires within the center: “the accumulated resources” from dierent elds
and parts of the world are “systematized, classied, transformed, tied together and
re-represented,” creating “a strong web of associations” that “act as a unied whole”
().
In Neuromancer, the articial human Henry Case acts as the primary venue to
converge information and resources from the lower class and the upper class in
global society. Before being biochemically modied, Case belongs to his society’s
lower stratum. Gibson describes Case’s living conditions, stating that “now he
slept in the cheapest cons, the ones nearest the port, beneath the quartz-halogen
oods that lit the docks all night like vast stages; where you couldn’t see the lights
of Tokyo for the glare of the television sky, not even the towering hologram logo
of the Fuji Company . . .” (). rough the focal point of Case, the assembling
of information about the chaotic and unclean living environment in Tokyo, the
deserted streets and the dusty and lifeless neolight of the lower-class areas in
Manhattan are described. e same applies to the lives and experiences of other
lower-class characters in the novel, such as the cybernetically modied razorgirl
Molly, the physically and psychologically injured ex-military ocer Colonel Willis
Corto, and the thief and sadist Peter Riviera. After Case undergoes biochemical
modication, his technologically enhanced abilities enable him to accomplish the
mission of assisting the AI Wintermute in merging with another AI, neuromancer,
to become a superintelligence. Both AIs are developed and owned by the auent
industrial clan organization Tessier-Ashpool, which operates branches in many
countries. rough this mission, Case becomes the site where the information of
the habitus of the rich people and the frontiers of articial intelligence technology
are narrated. Gibson describes a journey to Paris where the characters “sat together
in First class, Molly in the window seat, Case beside her, Riviera and Armitage on
the aisle. Once, as the plane banked over water, Case saw the jewel-glow of a Greek
island town. And once, reaching for his drink, he caught the icker of a thing like
a giant human sperm in the depths of his bourbon and water” (Gibson -).
Clearly, through the mediator of the articial human, images and ways of life from
the upper class, such as the “rst class” ight seat, the “jewel-glow” of a Greek
island town, and the “bourbon,” are juxtaposed with the culture of the lower class
embedded in individuals such as Case and Molly.
With Case, Molly and similar characters’ actions in both the habitus of the upper
class and the lower class during the abovementioned mission to assist Wintermute
in merging with Neuromancer, the culture and ideas of the auent are transported
and translated through the cyborg to the less fortunate sectors of life. At the same
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time, the skills and cultures of the ordinary people are also transplanted into the
realm of dominant forces. e articial human has given a successful ride for both
the rich and poor, as well as the articial intelligence technology, to travel from
one habitus to another, forming a geographical map of the network of interclass,
intercultural, and interdisciplinary communication. More importantly, these
elements from dierent categories do not remain inactive when transported to
another site. While Case and Molly act within the habitus of the wealthy, the
“calculative abilities of individuals,” according to Latour, constitute the only part of
the agencies leading to the transformative eect of their action. Latour notes that an
actor “is not the source of an action but the moving target of a vast array of entities
swarming toward it” (). is suggests that these characters are actually delegates
of the forces of their cultural, economic, social, and educational backgrounds,
which shape their minds, behaviors, and ways of life. In this sense, the superego
that Case and Molly acquired in the con hotel in places such as China, Japan, and
the deserted and lifeless streets of Manhattan, work together with the agency of the
new information technology to shape these characters’ actions and thus transform
the conguration of the eld of the upper class.
Chen Qiufan, in his cyberpunk novel Waste Tide, further explores the role of
articial human narrative as a center of calculation. He pays special attention to the
way cyborgs defragment the existing hierarchical order and remap the geographical
network of dierent classes, cultures, and nations from the perspective of
developing countries. As a rapidly growing economy, China grapples with conicts
caused by a widening wealth gap and reduced class mobility while also dealing
with its peripheral status in the international production chain. e Chinese town
“Silicon Isle” in the novel is one of the largest sites dealing with e-waste discharged
by Western countries. Chen writes that “countless workshops, little more than
sheds, were packed tightly together like mahjong tiles along both sides of every
street . . . Meta chassis, broken displays, circuit boards, plastic components and
wires, some dismantled and some awaiting processing, were scattered everywhere
like piles of manure with laborers, all of them migrants from elsewhere in China,
itting between the piles like ies” (). While sending highly polluting e-waste
to Silicon Isle, the ctional US company “TerraGreen” in the novel also develops
a technology for recycling rare earth elements used in waste products, such as
batteries and chips. ey sell it to recycling companies in China on the condition
that they are given priority access to purchase at a substantial discount the valuable
rare earths produced (Chen ). us, Silicon Isle becomes a site that runs the risk
of environmental pollution and health damage to treat waste for Western countries
and also provide cheap raw industrial materials.
In addition to the disadvantaged international productive relations, Chen also
writes about the unresolvable class divides within society in Silicon Isle. In the
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novel, the waste recycling business is monopolized by three familial clans: the
Luo family, the Lin family, and the Chen family. Most of the people working for
their companies are migrant workers from other parts of China. ese workers
are treated inhumanely, akin to slaves, and are disdainfully referred to as “waste
people.” ey live amid trash, and their employers provide them with no protective
gear while dealing with the toxic waste (Chen ). In such a hierarchical social
order, the connections between the three groups resemble a Russian Matryoshka:
the weaker one is enclosed by the more powerful ones. Once enclosed, the smaller
part’s voice and agency become invisible, creating a sharp divide between classes
where the marginalized voices remain unheard.
e articial human, Mimi, initially opens up and defragments the Matryoshka-
like relationships between these groups, paving the way for a possible restructuring
of their ties later. Mimi in the novel is a poor girl coming from the countryside to earn
her living as waste worker in the ctional Silicon Isle. She becomes infected with a
virus developed by the Waste Tide project in the United States during World War
II and subsequently serves as the host for an omniscient consciousness. As a result,
she is able to use her consciousness to operate an exoskeleton robot made from the
e-waste. In a manner akin to Case in Neuromancer, the Mimi-machine serves as a
center connecting three categories of people and also acts as a convergence point
for resources and agencies from dierent elds: the consciousness of the Mimi-
machine comes from the poor waste girl; the force controlling the “exoskeleton
robot” is derived from articial intelligence developed by Western countries, and
the robot itself is a product purchased by the dominant Luo family along with other
e-waste.
After the properties, capacities, and structured propensities of the three are
eectively integrated in the new Mimi, she begins to retroactively intervene in
the existing social structures. Due to Mimi’s resistance to the exploitation of the
dominant Luo family, the local superstitious sacrice culture and later her value in
studying the human-machine species, as she is controlled and repeatedly tortured
by Luo Wenjin, the head of the Luo family, and the American businessman Scott
Brandies. Specically, as a local capitalist, Luo seeks to control Mimi in order to
bargain with Brandies, who wants to take her back to the US to investigate the
technology of how to converge machines with human minds. In resonance with
Bourdieu’s claim that habitus is “the way society becomes deposited in persons in
the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities
to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them in their creative
responses to the constraints and solicitations of their extant milieu” (Wacquant
), both Luo’s and Brandies’ actions represent the social dispositions and
structures of the local ruling class and the international company. When the
Luo clan sends their “thugs” to ght the waste people with the aim of controlling
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Mimi, the Mimi-machine joins the fray: “twisted metal fragments ew in every
direction, and a few slicked through the limbs of the slow-moving phosphorescent
men, suspended in air, and stuck into the ground” (Chen ). Also, when Brandies
attempts to transport Mimi back to the US via the sea, the articial intelligence
uses its superpower to thwart his plan by crashing the boat into the bridge piers,
and later, damaging his heart functions (Chen ). e defeat of the Luo clan
and Brandies’s power to control and exploit the waste girl Mimi shows that, with
the intervention of the articial human, the previous social topography is being
defragmented.
e linear hierarchical connections between the three are transformed into an
equitably linked network through Mimi. None of them is superior or overarching.
e cyborg Mimi-machine, similar to that in Neuromancer, further connects these
habitus by transplanting behavioral patterns from one to another. In the novel,
despite the waste people being dehumanized by the ruling clan, even with the
waste man Li Wen’s sister being killed by them, when a typhoon-induced ood hits
the town, the Mimi-machine chooses to organize the waste people to rescue their
previous exploiters and enemies, an action showing how kindness, a structured
action that is a propensity of the lower-class waste people, is transported to the
habitus of the prot-driven ruling class through the articial human. rough
the narrative of the articial human, Chen makes the agency of the lower-class
waste people visible and shows a map of equal and reciprocal interactions between
dierent categories of actors.
TECHNICAL PRODUCTS, TRANSPORTED PRESENCE, AND MESH GLOBAL
CONNECTIONS
While the previous section analyzed the way the articial human in both novels acts
as a center of calculation to materialize the conduit of star-shaped connections in
the global network, this section focuses on how the authors use technical products
as a means to dispatch and distribute the presence of local sites to their counterparts
so as to make another aspect of the global network visible to the readers: the mesh-
like interconnections between individual sites. Indeed, there are various kinds of
centers similar to articial humans that possess continuous agency in dierent
elds across the world map, such as the headquarters of the United Nations and
the WTO, the central oce of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the General
Sta oce of the Ukrainian troops. rough the accumulation and retroactive
analysis of resources and information, these centers assemble related structures
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and objects into individual, self-sucient systems. en, the way in which these
centers or individual systems are connected or assembled into an integrated world
system becomes an important issue to be solved. Latour notes that “there exists
no other place in which to sum up all those sites,” and “it would be quite foolish
to ask in which ‘super-mega-macro-structure they all reside’” (). Instead of a
“‘super-mega-macro-structure they all reside,’” Gibson in Neuromancer and Chen
in Waste Tide seek to use the transported presence of one site into another as a
way to construct interconnections between dierent centers, building a topology
resembling a mesh network in computer science.
When the cybernetically modied character Molly arrives in Istanbul with her
colleagues Case and the Finn to recruit Peter Riviera to their team, Gibson describes
the elements that frame the social activities in the city, including the Hilton hotels,
Mercedes-Benz, and a Citroën sedan with a primitive hydrogen-cell conversion.
Riviera in the novel is a thief and sadist who can project holographic images by using
his implants. While Istanbul operates as an independent site with its own social,
cultural, and political orders and is geographically distant from the other centers,
these nonhuman actors reveal the winding path through which the traces of actions
from ingredients in other sites enter and shape the local interaction within this city.
After conrming details of Riviera’s capabilities and his usual locations, Molly and
her colleagues set o from the Hilton hotel in a Mercedes-Benz to visit “the city’s
central market for spices, software, perfumes, drugs” (Gibson ). When Riviera
is anesthetized by Molly’s “etcher,” they transport him away using a Citroën car.
rough Gibson’s narrative, we see that the inter-subjective actions between Molly,
her colleague, and Peter Riviera would not be possible without the inter-objectivity
between the car, the etcher, and the anesthetic drugs it carries.
To some extent, the German intelligence and design activities behind the
Mercedes car, the ancient wisdom used in creating the etcher, and the technology
of anesthetic drugs invented in distant times and places are transported to the
present in Istanbul through the relay of these specic nonhuman mediators.
ese elements act as structuring templates that shape Molly’s actions in this
city. is is because delivering action through the transport provided by the car
and anesthesia, or via other transportation vehicles and drugs made in Istanbul,
would require dierent patterns of actions. Without the temporary incapacitation
caused by anesthesia or the speed of the car, it would not be as easy for them to
apprehend Riviera and take him away, as he has the ability to manipulate others’
subconsciousness (Gibson ) and project a “holographic aura” (Gibson ) using
the power of his articial implants. In his article “e Representation and Criticism
of the ree Spaces in Neuromancer,” the Chinese scholar Wang Yiping also points
out the outcome of Gibson’s narrative on the connections of dierent spaces:
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e writing of space in Neuromancer is meaningful, as apart from describing the
local stories of megacities, it demonstrates a world picture full of mobility against the
background of globalization, showcases a bird’s eye view of the frequent movement of
people, material and information in the ‘global village’, and on the basis of this, imagines
an era with highly developed urban civilization governed by technology and capital. (;
my trans.)
e world picture in Wang’s commentary, in fact, is not formed by mechanically
bonding dierent spaces together, which, in Latour’s words (), could create
an impression of jumping from one context to another because the spaces of
the dierent cities are distant and dierent. It is the nonhuman mediators that
transport the presence of one site to another, both in terms of time and space, and
thus how the world picture in Gibson’s narrative takes shape.
While Neuromancer illustrates the way technical products render visible the
interconnections between distant sites, Chen in Waste Tide employs electronic
waste to further showcase the way nonhuman actors form mesh connections
among distant sites between the East and West, with special attention paid to the
disadvantaged position of developing countries within these global connections.
e ctional town of “Silicon Isle” in Chen’s narrative, as mentioned earlier, is the
largest e-waste recycling center in southeast China. is e-waste, comprising waste
electrical and electronic equipment, encompasses end-of-life products produced
and consumed through the Digital Revolution and scientic and technological
innovations in Western countries. e novel explains that this e-waste is transferred
to China’s Silicon Isle because, with the technology developed by the ctional
American company “TerraGreen Recycling,” “more than percent” of the valuable
rare earths used in this electronic equipment could be recovered. However, “the
pollution generated by the process far exceeded EPA standards, and the processor
would be required to contribute to a trust fund to cover anticipated environmental
harms” (Chen ). Immanuel Wallerstein’s argument in world system analysis
provides an explanation for why Silicon Isle continues to accept the transport of
e-waste to their land:
“e strong states, which contains a disproportionate share of core-like processes, tend
to emphasize their role of protecting the quasi-monopolies of the core-like processes.
e very weak states, which contain a disproportionate share of peripheral production
processes, are usually unable to do very much to aect the axial division of labor, and in
eect are largely forced to accept the lot that has been given them.” ()
With Wallerstein’s argument in mind, it is the forceful global division of labor that
drives the presence of e-waste to what was once a quiet, clean, and self-sustaining
Chinese town. Nevertheless, through the imposed transported presence of e-waste,
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both Silicon Isle and the various Western electronic product production and
consuming sites are, to some extent, provisional endpoints of the shaping force
for each other, distributed across time and space. On the one hand, the economic
and social structures in the Chinese town are a direct result of the production and
consumption of electronic devices in Western societies. Developed countries, as
noted by Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller, dump about “twenty to fty million tons
of electronic and electric waste” into developing countries (). Correspondingly,
the seaside Chinese town has abandoned its traditional life pattern characterized
by shing, forming an economic and social structure composed of local recycling
companies dominated by three ruling clans and migrant laborers. On the other
hand, the ecient disposal of electronic waste, and the industrial resources they
sell back, such as rare earths, are critical actions to maintain the operations of
Western society and the high-tech industry. In other words, the continuous prot
of Western high-tech companies, the highly paid jobs, and the clean environment
are, in a sense, the endpoint of the work of migrant laborers and the “respiratory
diseases, kidney stones, and blood disorders among the inhabitants of Silicon Isle”
(Chen ). e e-waste in Chen’s narrative acts as veins that build connections
between two sites in the world system.
CONCLUSION
e above analysis shows that while the American debut cyberpunk novel
Neuromancer provides a view of how nonhuman narrative makes visible the
world of connections from the perspective of developed countries, its Chinese
counterpart Waste Tide oers a complementary insight into the global networks
from the perspective of developing countries. In the journey of the cyberpunk
novel’s travel from the center to developing countries, while the specic social
structures they address change according to dierent contexts, the properties
of their nonhuman actors remain stable. In both novels, they work as centers of
calculation to make visible the star-shaped networks in the world system and as
global redistributors to connect cross-cultural and cross-national sites, as well
as to link interdisciplinary scales, such as global health, environmental pollution,
and labor exploitation. What is meaningful about these agencies of nonhuman
narrative is that they not only connect the Western and Eastern literary elds by
forming a uent world literary picture with few ssures or gaps, but also reveals
a new episteme to showcase the specic trails of global connections. ey nest
social, economic, cultural, and geographic structures within both developed and
developing countries into one another, stage the world as a well-connected totality,
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and reassemble the asymmetric relations between the hegemonic and peripheral
cultural and economic forces on the world map.
Moreover, the agencies of nonhuman narrative oer a way to consider the
recent concerns about the shortcomings of multiculturalism. While contributing
signicantly to undermining the hegemonic force of Western culture, with the
wave of post-structural criticism, Paul Stasi points out that multiculturalism might
be termed as “multicultural formalism” because of “the abstract demand to respect
dierent cultures and systems of belief alongside a prohibition about lling in those
dierences with content, in order to avoid any tinge of cultural essentialism” ().
Ulrich Beck further notes that multiculturalism also proposes a vision of culture as
a “closed self-sucient and sacrosanct unity” (), which poses barriers to bridging
dierent cultural entities. It is clear that the nonhuman narrative’s eort to render
visible the complex traces of connections between the East and West, as well as
dierent elds, breaks down cultural, national, and disciplinary boundaries and
represents diverse cultures as an interconnected whole. Meanwhile, its emphasis
on nonhuman objects in dierent countries and cultures as individual functioning
entities makes these objects suitable components of the “form” of dierent cultures.
Nonhuman entities have just as much to tell us about our society, culture, and
literature.
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Notes
. For instance, Pascale Casanova published her book e World Republic of Letters
(French version in and its English translation in ), in which she argues that
the world status of certain literary work relies on the cultural capital it accumulates
through its travel in the center countries; Moretti in his inuential essay “Conjectures
on World Literature” () emphasizes the hybridity of literatures in dierent regions
as manifestations of world literature; Damrosch in his book What is World Literature?
() argues that world literature takes its form in translation, global circulation, and
production, etc.
. Svend Erik Larsen argues that, in an era of globalization, world literature studies need
to focus on everyday experiences in both highly developed and marginalized societies
(). In line with this argument, I selected a text, Neuromancer, from the developed
country the United States and another text, Waste Tide, from the developing country
China.
. A star-shaped network refers to a paradigm of network typology in computer science
in which each individual site is connected to a central hub. e central hub serves as a
conduit to transmit messages among individual sites, therefore, making every individual
site as a connected network. Similarly, the articial humans in the two stories’ narrative
act as a global “calculation centre” which could make connected the classes, cultures,
technologies, humans, and natural world of dierent countries.
. Unlike a star-shaped network in which a center is responsible for transmitting messages
among dierent sites, a mesh network is a type of connection used in computer science
where dierent points of the network connect with each other directly and non-
hierarchically. Every point equally participates in the relay of information in the network.
. e original Chinese text is: 《神经漫游者》中的空间书写极富意味，除了细描(美
国等)大都市的内城故事， 还在此之上，展现了一幅全球化背景之下极富流动感
的世界性画卷，显现出一种对人、 物与信息高频运动的“地球村”的俯视，藉
此设想了一个技术和资本共治、世界大都 市文明高度发达的时代。
. is argument is in resonance with Seán Hand’s and Maria Mäkelä’s view that literary
narrative possesses agency upon people’s consciousness to deal with problems such as
climate change and environmental pollution. For details, see Maria Mäkelä, “Climate
uncertainty, social media certainty: A story-critical approach to climate change
storytelling on social media,” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, no., , pp. –;
Li Zou and Seán Hand, “Literary and critical encounters with the Anthropocene: An
Interview with Seán Hand,” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, no., . pp.–.
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Works Cited
Beck, Ulrich. “e Cosmopolitan Society and Its Enemies.” eory, Culture & Society,
no.-, , pp. –.
Casanova, Pascale. e World Republic of Letters, translated by Malcolm DeBevoise.
Harvard UP, .
Chen, Qiufan. Waste Tide, translated by Ken Liu. A Tor Book, .
Damrosch, David. What Is World Literature? Princeton UP, .
Gibson, William. Neuromancer. ACE Books, .
Jöns, Heike. “Centre of Calculation.” e SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge,
edited by John Agnew and David N. Livingstone. Sage, , pp.–.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-eory.
Oxford UP, .
Li, Shuling, and Svend Erik Larsen. “Literature as an Experience of Globalisation: An
Interview with Svend Erik Larsen,” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, no., , pp.
–.
Li, Zou, and Seán Hand, “Literary and Critical Encounters with the Anthropocene: An
Interview with Seán Hand,” Frontiers of Narrative Studies, no., , pp.–.
Mäkelä, Maria. “Climate Uncertainty, Social Media Certainty: A Story-Critical
Approach to Climate Change Storytelling on Social Media,” Frontiers of Narrative
Studies, no., , pp. –.
Maxwell, Richard, and Toby Miller. Greening the Media. Oxford UP, .
Moretti, Franco. “Conjectures on World Literature.” New Left Review, Jan.-Feb. ,
pp. –.
Wacquant, Loïc. “Habitus.”” International Encyclopedia of Economic Society, edited by
Jens Beckert and Milan Zarovski. Routledge, , pp. –.
Siskind, Mariano. “e Globalization of the Novel and the Novelization of the Global.
A Critique of World Literature.” Comparative Literature, no. , , pp. –.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. World System Analysis: An Introduction. Duke UP, .
Shang, Biwu. “Towards a eory of Nonhuman Narrative.” Neohelicon, vol. , Mar.
, pp. –.
Stasi, Paul. “’A Sane Balance of Values’: ‘e Cantos’ as World Literature.” Comparative
Literature, no., , pp. –.
Wang, Yiping. “e Representation and Criticism of the ree Spaces in
Neuromancer.” ( 《神经漫游者》的三重空间书写与批判.”) Foreign Literature
Studies, no., , pp.–.
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Abstract
e past decade has witnessed a “nonhuman turn” as a challenge to prevailing anthropocentric
notions, with nonhuman narratives assuming a pivotal role. e narrative about articial
humans, or “new humans” in contemporary Chinese science ction, stands as an important
category of nonhuman narrative, probing the dilemmas encountered at the intersection of
technology and ethics. As a representative work of “new human” narrative, Wang Jinkang’s
e Articial Human depicts various types of “new human” narrators in both physical and
digital forms, through whose observations, actions, and ethical choices readers are invited to
reexamine the limitations of human existence, reect upon the unthought-of of humanity, and
explore the in-depth meaning of being human. By drawing inspiration from Chinese wisdom
that transcends the either-or logic, the ethical choice made by “new humans” in the novel
anticipates a harmonious coexistence of humans and articial humans, which also provides
valuable insights for reecting on the challenges brought about by technological advancements
in today’s world.
Keywords
Articial human, Chinese science ction, ethical choice, narrative, “new human,” nonhuman,
Wang Jinkang
About the Author
You Wu is Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at East China
Normal University. She is the author of Un Siècle de Révolution: Le rôle des intellectuels comme
initiateurs et soutien du processus des mouvements des femmes en Chine, en Grande Bretagne
TOWARDS AN ENVISIONED HUMAN-
NONHUMAN COMMUNITY
The “New Human” Narrative and Ethical Choice in Wang
Jinkang’s The Artificial Human
You Wu
East China Normal University
ywu@zhwx.ecnu.edu.cn
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et en France de 1850 à 1950 () and Diversity and Dialogue: François Jullien and China (多
元与对话：弗朗索瓦·于连与中国, ). Her work has been featured in journals such as
Babel, Interventions, Critical Arts, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, CLCWeb
and Archiv orientální, among others. Her research interest lies in the elds of comparative
literature and cultural studies.
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INTRODUCTION
Arising as both a response to myriad problems facing today’s world and a challenge
to dominant anthropocentric notions, the past decade has witnessed a “nonhuman
turn” that aims at “decentering the human in favor of a turn toward and concern
for the nonhuman” (Grusin vii). By emphasizing the reciprocal relationship
between human societies and nonhuman entities, the nonhuman turn appeals to
challenging dichotomies between subject and object, and rethinking the human-
nonhuman binary (Caracciolo et al. ). A new perspective known as the “object-
oriented ontology school of thought” has surfaced, which provides a unique
lens for analyzing narratives by focusing on the role and signicance of objects
within a story, challenging the emphasis on human existence over nonhuman
objects (Hand ). Of note is that an increasing number of literary texts shift
away from the conventional human perspective, opting to narrate through the
viewpoint of nonhuman entities or to incorporate the voices of mixed races into
narratives. e ubiquity of nonhuman matters of concern in the st century gives
rise to “nonhuman narrative,” which refers to “the representation of events with
participants of nonhuman entities” (Shang, “Towards a eory” ). Within its
framework, nonhuman entities, regardless of being animate or inanimate, play an
important part in the story, by serving as either participants or the storytellers
themselves (Shang, “Towards a eory” ).
Science ction (SF)has a strong tradition featuring nonhuman entities such as
extraterrestrial civilizations, sentient robots, and genetically modied creatures.
ese nonhuman characters have consistently inhabited the realm of science
ction, ranging from stereotypical portrayals of alien races as menacing “Others” to
a more recent revisionist trend, seeking to depict them as victims of mistreatment,
misunderstanding, or human manipulation. e narrative about articial humans
stands as an important category of nonhuman narrative (Shang, “Towards a eory”
). Regardless of how humanlike articial humans are, they are nonhumans
by nature (Shang, “Towards a eory” ), who, in contemporary Chinese SF,
are often endowed with a futuristic-sounding appellation, “new humans.” e
Articial Human (类人) (abbreviated as TAH hereinafter) by Wang Jinkang is one
representative work of the Chinese SF narrative about “new humans,” featuring both
humanoids in a physical form and superintelligence in the form of digital life. e
“new human” narrators in TAH drive readers to project human experiences onto
articial life forms and empathize with their situation of being “othered” or unfairly
treated, bringing them closer to the putative experience of being an articial human
and provoking their reections upon the meaning of being human.
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THE “NEW HUMAN” NARRATIVE: THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF NONHUMAN
NARRATORS IN THE ARTIFICIAL HUMAN
In contrast to the “natural” human, the “new human,” such as humanoids, cyborgs,
genetically modied humans, or clones, refers to a new species created through
partial modications of humans by using scientic technology. Arguably, an
“alternative history” of human civilization has always been an important theme
in SF imagination, with the latter forming an important domain for continuously
constructing humanity and shaping the imagination of “new” humans. Noticeably,
within the context of Chinese SF, “new” is relative to “old,” or “traditional,” which
reveals a lingering nostalgia for the era of purely natural humans. In this sense,
carrying remnants of the past and harboring deep-seated imprints of the traditional
(old) society also forms the keynote of Chinese new human narratives in science
ction.
From his debut work “e Return of Adam” (亚当回归, my trans.） (), Wang
Jinkang is a leading Chinese SF writer who is dedicated to portraying “new humans.”
Wang’s New Human Tetralogy (新人类四部曲, my trans.) represents a seminal
work in this genre, in which he depicts dierent types of techno-imagination about
“new humans.” ese highly speculative technologies fall into four categories: he
envisions a sprinter with improved speed through cheetah gene enhancement
in e Cheetah Man (豹人, my trans. (See Wang, e Cheetah Man), a cloned
“cancer human” derived from immortal cancer cells in e Cancer Human (癌
人, my trans. (See Wang, e Cancer Human), dolphin-human hybrids perfectly
adapted to marine life in e Marine Human (海人, my trans.)(See Wang, e
Marine Human) as well as articially-created humans through synthetic genes
assembled entirely from common atoms like carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in
TAH. Apparently, New Human Tetralogy focuses on questioning the relationship
between technological advancement and humanity. Arguably, technology is a
powerful tool driving the development of human society, but if pursued without
regard for objective principles and ethical concerns, it will only lead humanity into
deeper developmental dilemmas. Just as Fukuyama appeals to the intervention of
political policy in biotechnologies and advocates for drawing red lines between
“therapy” and “enhancement”, because the original purpose of medicine is “to
heal the sick, not to turn healthy people into gods” (). e concern about the
alienation of human nature by technology is essential in Wang’s “new human”
narratives. Although these technologies are still SF imagination, Wang believes
that “their realization will only be a matter of time” once scientists cross the ethical
boundary by using them to serve purposes from “medical treatment” to “genetic
enhancement,” with the latter leading inevitably to the emergence of “new species
(humans)” (Wang, “A Manifesto”). Of note is that ethical concern is at the center of
his new human narratives.
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First published in , e Articial Human is the rst volume of his “new
human” series, which is particularly important from the perspective of nonhuman
narrative for it accommodates various types of “new humans” to a maximum
extent, in both physical and digital forms. e rst category of “new humans”
in this novel is the humanoid (类人), namely articial humans in a physical
manner. Specically, humanoids refer to a type of articially created humans with
synthetically engineered DNA materials in three special articial human factories
located respectively in the USA, China, and Israel, who share the same physical
traits and attributes as the natural-born human according to Wang’s setting, except
being deliberately fabricated without ngerprints as the fundamental criterion of
dierentiation. Wang categorizes natural-born humans as A-type humans and
humanoids as B-type humans, with the latter being the protagonists depicted
and emphasized. Humanoids are made to serve humans, whose main role in the
story is the A-type human’s servants. e most important protagonist of this story,
Yuhe Jianming (宇何剑鸣), also embodies such a B-type human. However, when
Jianming was a baby humanoid, he was smuggled out clandestinely by He Buyi (何
不疑), the chief engineer of Factory No. , and raised as his “son,” thus possessing
an identity as an A-type human from infancy. When his real identity was exposed
by Qihong Degang’s (齐洪德刚) investigation, he abruptly “became” a B-type
human, a de facto humanoid, precipitating a profound ethical dilemma to drive the
novel’s storyline.
Of note is that, in the story, a special type of “A+B hybrid” human appears, after
the humanoid servant RB Ji’en (基恩)secretly undergoes a brain-swapping surgery
with his master Jiye En (吉野恩) to cure the latter’s senile dementia. As commented
by the police chief when he plotted to “destroy” these newly “hybrid” humans, by
denition, one should be categorized as B-type as long as any part of the body
is composed of articial structure (Wang, TAH ). is brain-swapping event,
led by the humanoid servant in collaboration with the supercomputer, is central to
the narrative, sparking profound ethical, legal, and technological reections on the
boundaries between humans and nonhumans.
e second category of “new humans” depicted in the novel is essentially AI in a
digital form, which in turn falls into two sub-groups, supercomputers, and digital
life. On the one hand, both HALL (霍尔), the central control system of Factory
No. (one of the three humanoid factories located in China), and Julius (尤里
乌斯), the central computer in Jiye’s space residence, are supercomputers, who
lack human-like physical forms, but possess human consciousness and emotions,
and surpass humans in intelligence. On the other hand, if a supercomputer like
HALL is an obvious homage to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the second
type of AI in this novel, the digital life represented by Sima Linda (司马林达), is
even more thought-provoking concerning the interrelations between technology
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and life ethics in the future. Besides the narrative revolving around the mystery
of Jianming’s identity being unveiled, another narrative thread of this novel is the
investigation into the death of Sima Linda, a late scientist at the Chinese Academy
of Intelligence Research Institute. As the investigation progresses, readers discover
that Sima Linda voluntarily relinquished his physical body through suicide and
transferred his life into the vast computer network, thus becoming a digital life
form transcending the various limitations of the material world. e depiction of
digital life greatly elevates the novel’s philosophical reection to a new level, which
leads to the long-standing question about the existence of humanity itself.
e emergence of digital life, portrayed as a “super-intelligence” surpassing
humanity, sparks profound contemplation. After losing his physical form as a
human, Sima Linda felt despondent at rst, for he could only exist in the form of
electronic information from then on, being a virtual entity rather than a physical
one. However, Sima Linda soon realized:
What is a physical entity? When a person views tangible objects, they are merely light
waves (part of the electromagnetic spectrum) reected by the objects entering the pupil,
then converted into electronic pulses sent to the brain; when a person touches the naked
body of a loved one, essentially, it is just the atoms of the skin interacting through their
outer electron shells, then converted into electronic pulses sent to the brain. In the
universe, there are four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, strong force, weak force,
and gravity. However, on the scale of human life, all activities (eating, drinking, excreting,
lovemaking, reproducing, killing, and working) ultimately boil down to the action of
electromagnetism; they are all just electronic information. (Wang, TAH –)
rough the narration of Sima Linda, readers are invited to experience the
unconned freedom of thought in digital life. e device of digital life’s narration
generates narrative interest using defamiliarization, which turns the text into a
vehicle for provoking in-depth thinking about the connement of human existence
and triggering the philosophical debates on “digital immortality.” Echoing the
argument of Katherine Hayles that “human identity is essentially an informational
pattern rather than an embodied enaction” (xii), Sima Linda’s observation endorses
the viewpoint that the digital world in which he now exists is a profound renement
of the physical entity. As observed by Sima Linda, complete freedom of thought is
attained in this digital form:
Here, thought processes occur at the speed of light, no longer constrained by the
transmission speed of neural impulses in milliseconds; information ows freely and
transparently, no longer compartmentalized into individual cages; and thinking is
supremely ecient, no longer disturbed by factors such as fatigue, sleep, hunger, sexual
desire, death, or despair. (Wang, TAH )
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In this sense, compared with digital life technology, gene editing, cyborgs, clones,
articial humans, and other technologies have not transcended the physical
essence of humanity, while AI completely transcends the physical constraints and
limits, thus gaining greater freedom.
Moreover, the discussion centered around digital life also gives rise to the ultimate
reection: “Can articial intelligence surpass humanity?” e novel concludes with
Sima Linda, now a super-intelligent being without physical form, playing a decisive
role by successfully modifying the programs of the three humanoid factories in the
world. is action allows a large number of humanoids with natural ngerprints to
enter society, eortlessly breaking down the long-standing “solid” barriers between
humans and humanoids constructed by humans. Sima Linda’s action also reects
Wang’s attitude toward humanity and AI, namely, AI represents a monumental
transformation and a real breakthrough that will generate a new civilization and
a new life form, which is in desperate need of reections from the perspective of
humans (Wang, “Next Generations”).
ese “new humans” play an essential part in driving the narrative forward,
as nonhuman entities can take on “the roles of narrator, character, and focalizer
in a narrative text” (Shang, “Towards a eory” ). Meanwhile, the deployment
of nonhuman narrators serves dierent purposes in narrative texts, which may
function as a satirical strategy, serve a didactic agenda, or highlight ethical dilemmas
(Bernaerts et al. ). If didactic functions are often more evident in children’s
literature, then satirical and ethical functions nd their fullest expression in SF
novels, especially the latter. In SF, the narration from the perspective of robots,
AI, or aliens may expose the problematic interactions between humans and their
surroundings, as well as with other living beings. In this sense, the ethical dimension
is at the center of TAH, and the consciousness of “new human” narrators implies
a distinct set of attitudes and values to observe humanity, reect on the boundary
between humans and nonhumans, and eventually inquire about their ideal mode of
interaction in the future.
THE ETHICAL DILEMMA FACED BY “NEW HUMANS”: CAN THE HUMAN-NONHUMAN
BOUNDARY BE TRANSCENDED?
One crucial dilemma encountered at the intersection of technology and ethics lies
in dening the boundary between humans and articial humans that the former
creates. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (), which ocially establishes SF as
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a genre, the story about articial humans has always been an important theme in
speculative narratives. In this vein, our attention should be expanded to include the
ethical intricacies of modern storytelling environments (Mäkelä ). Arguably, the
creation of another form of “humans” with technological methods, be they clones,
robots, or bio-engineered beings, represents a manifestation of human intellectual
awakening, which inevitably leads to debates about the ethical dilemma faced by
humans when interacting with their “creations,” and the other way around. us,
the attitude adopted by humans when facing new humans becomes the logical
starting point in exploring their interactions.
Arguably, in SF works featuring “articial humans,” the ethical dimension is at
the center of literary narratives. rough the interactions between humans and
“new humans,” the multi-folded ethical dilemmas are portrayed in TAH: When faced
with the creation of these “nonhuman” humanoids by technology, should humans,
as their creators, incorporate these beings into the norms and constraints of
humanity? Should humanoids also adhere to humanity’s ethical principles? Can
humans have the right to control “the life and death” of nonhuman beings just like
the police are entitled to “destroy” those humanoids who have developed genuine
love with humans? Will humanoids jeopardize the pureness of humans as a species
and thus become a constant threat to the existence of humanity? In this sense, the
key to unraveling the various complex dilemmas lies in questioning the essential
meaning of “being human.”
When delving into the ethical dilemma of whether articial humans should
be accepted as “humans” and allowed to coexist with natural humans, the rst
question that arises is about human nature. Fukuyama underscores the profound
signicance of “human nature” in providing stable continuity for the human
species, by referencing George Orwell’s 1984 () and Aldous Huxley’s Brave
New World () (). In Wang’s mind, it is the “desire for survival” that guarantees
the continuity of species, thus becoming the key to “life” and the fundamental
human nature. In an earlier novelette entitled e Song of Life(生命之歌, my trans.),
Wang denes life as a “conguration within space and time, rather than a material
entity,” which has the ability to grow, reproduce and evolve (-). In this sense, an
unavoidable question that needs to be answered is “Do humanoids have lives?”
is question seems paradoxical: on the one hand, Wang seems to hold a
positive attitude, as he refers to humanoids as “articial life” or “manmade life”. In
TAH, Wang envisages a technological breakthrough capable of producing articial
humans with physical structures identical to those of natural humans. Just as He
Buyi, the creator of the B-type human, claims, “ere is no fundamental dierence
between synthetic DNA and natural DNA. If a B- type person possesses natural
ngerprints, no instrument can distinguish them from a natural person” (Wang,
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TAH ). Apparently, Wang also realizes the paradoxical nature of humanoid
breeding centers, or “the humanoid factory,” as he admits that the very existence
of a “life manufacturing factory” is a paradox (Wang, TAH ). Arguably, humans
are not a simple combination of carbon atoms or transistors, nor are they piles of
data and programs. e fundamental dierence between humans and AI or robots
lies in human nature, which is also emphasized by Kazuo Ishiguro in Clara and the
Sun as “human heart” (). In other words, the essence of humanity embraces the
brilliance deriving from myriad life experiences, love and pain, passions, eorts,
and desires, among which the desire for survival is the fundamental human nature.
On the other hand, humanoids manufactured in factories, although physically
identical to natural humans, have manifested an evident lack of the desire for
survival. As a convention naturally developed among humanoid workers at Factory
No., they willingly choose “death” after passing their physical prime. e journalist
Dong Hongshu (董红淑) witnessed a special farewell party held by a group of
humanoid workers when interviewing Factory No., the one who chose to destroy
himself greeted Dong with a smile: “I’m bidding farewell to my friends, about to
enter the recycle” (Wang, TAH ). Here, recycling means being destroyed and
transformed into atoms, becoming raw material of synthetic DNA again to make
new humanoids. is is not a single case but rather a common consensus among
humanoids. Similarly, another humanoid servant who was seriously injured when
saving his master requested to enter the “recycle” (Wang, TAH ). Even, a “faithful”
humanoid servant applied to the court for an early termination after his master’s
death, as he said: “I am just a humble replicant; my mistress is the deity in my heart,
the sun of my life. With her passing, there is no more sunshine in my life. I wish to
follow her, and if this application is not approved, I will have to self-destruct (Wang,
TAH ).”
Apparently, these humanoids show no attachment to life and form no spiritual
or emotional bonds with each other. However, Jianming’s existence proves that
if raised as a human without moral and legal constraints, a born humanoid can
demonstrate a strong desire for survival, love, and spiritual sustenance. To quote
He Buyi’s comments on Jianming’s experience: “I raised a humanoid in a human
family, thoroughly proving that B-type humans are completely identical to A-type
humans, whether in terms of sexual abilities, psychological qualities, or sense of
identity with humanity! (Wang, TAH ).”
In other words, this novel expresses the view that humanoids have been
“dehumanized” by environmental inuences, cultural implications, and the moral
instructions or legal regulations brought about by human beings, rather than de
facto physiological reasons. us, the boundary between A-type humans and
B-type humans (humanoids) is a constructed one, which is imposed by humans to
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justify the anthropocentric stand. Now that the boundary between humans and
humanoids is a psychological and social boundary imposed by humans rather
than a physical one, the second question concerning the ethical dilemma involves
“rights”. If virtually indistinguishable humans and humanoids enjoy the same rights,
then the human-nonhuman boundary will naturally be blurred. However, legally
and ethically speaking, should humanoids have equal rights as humans?
e attitude of humans towards this question seems unanimous, instead of
granting humanoids equal rights, humans create clear distinctions between the
two. In the future world depicted in TAH, the global Joint Parliamentary Assembly
has passed a B-Type Human Act in , which stipulates:
B-type humans are not classied as natural life forms; B-type humans do not possess the
legal status of natural humans; B-type humans are prohibited from mating with natural
humans and reproducing ospring; B-type humans must not conceal their identity, and
their names should be prexed with “RB” (Robot). (Wang, TAH )
In other words, despite having the natural ability to reproduce, humanoids
generally lack the desire to reproduce for two reasons: they are deprived of the right
to reproduce by the law promulgated by humans, and they are even made sexually
indierent due to the inuence of social psychology imposed by humans.
However, if these deliberate constraints of social laws and cultural norms are
lifted, the boundary between humans and humanoids will not last long. e stories
of Yajun and Jianming, two humanoids born in Factory No., prove this point. e
humanoid RB Yajun was bought by a wealthy elderly couple to be their maid at the
age of seven. Fortunately, the couple showered Yajun with genuine parental love
and even had her ngerprints carved based on their deceased daughter’s ngerprint
data. As she grew up, Yajun fell in love with Qihong Degang, an A-type human, who
also poured out pure love for her and managed to hack the police computer system
and fake an A-type human’s prole for Yajun. At this point, Yanjun’s desire for
love and rebellious spirit was awakened, by establishing an unbreakable emotional
bond with Degang, she gained her “human heart,” transforming from a “product”
manufactured in the factory into a perfect “woman,” ready to marry her beloved
ancé. She made her choice and decisively went to the civil aairs bureau with
Degang to register, risking the possibility of her identity being exposed and facing
the risk of being “terminated.”
Yajun rmly expressed her determination the day before marriage registration:
regardless of whether she would be terminated due to her “undesirable tendencies,”
she would never regret her decision (Wang, TAH ). After her B-type identity
was discovered by Jianming, then still a police ocer, Yajun softly advised her
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ancé, “Degang, don’t resist. We’ve long anticipated this outcome. Degang, I have
no regrets. With your love, with that night, I have lived a life without any regrets”
(Wang, TAH ). Before execution, Yajun wiped away her ancé’s tears, kissing
his eyes, lips, and cheeks passionately, and even expressed gratitude to Jianming:
“ank you, ocer, for seeing me o” (Wang, TAH ). en, this gentle, kind, and
beautiful life was executed by “vaporization” in seconds, as the legal punishment
for her “undesirable tendencies.” Yajun’s story illustrates how hard for humanoids
to break the human-nonhuman boundary and seek the identity of a real human.
Her experience also demonstrates how, within traditional ethical norms, humans
stand rm in their perceived “correct” position and moral highland, showing
indierence towards other lives, even if those are the “articial lives” created by
them. e ethical questioning here is evident.
If Yanjun’s experience shows that it is as hard as reaching the heavens for
humanoids to break through the human-nonhuman boundary, then Jianming’s
experience illustrates the downward slide of humans towards becoming humanoids
seems inevitable with a simple misstep. Jianming’s existence raises a powerful
challenge to the boundary between A-type and B-type humans. Born as a humanoid
but raised as a human child, he is an A-type individual in terms of legal status
and identity in the rst half of his life. Ironically, he became an outstanding police
ocer responsible for overseeing B-type aairs, and he was the one who led to
Yanjun’s “termination.” After his real birth identity was revealed, Jianming was
legally still an A-type individual, because, in TAH, the laws regulate that someone
with natural ngerprints outside the humanoid factories is legally an A-type human.
As commented by the police chief:
Between humans and B-type individuals, apart from ngerprints, there is no dierence
in physical structure. In other words, if someone indeed has natural ngerprints, even if
we know he is a B-type humanoid, we cannot legally identify him. For him, only the legal
principle of presumption of innocence can be applied. (Wang, TAH )
However, Jianming’s legal status as an A-type cannot convince humans that he
can be transformed into a real “natural human”, instead, to maintain the purity of
humanity, the police chief had to arrange for an accident to secretly “destroy” him
and cover this “scandal.”
Unlike the anti-human images of humanoids depicted in Hollywood SF movies
like Ex Machina and Terminator, Wang portrays humanoids as partners with
whom humans can coexist. However, compared with the willingness expressed by
“new humans” to seek coexistence with humans and serve humans, most humans in
TAH are conservative, exhibiting an overall attitude of rejection towards these “new
humans.” For instance, humans use terms like “products” or “workpieces” to refer to
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humanoids and spare no eort in exterminating their lives just like destroying some
trivial objects. Even the policewoman Mingming, Jianming’s partner who used to
love him deeply, felt ashamed when Jianming’s humanoid identity was exposed, as
“the thought of having loved a synthetic life, a product straight o the production
line, lled her heart” (Wang, TAH ).
us, various dilemmas arise in the interactions between humans and “new
humans,” manifesting Wang’s concern for the survival of “manmade” life outside
of humanity, as well as rational reection on the issue of equity between lives.
If judged from the essential conditions of “being human” argued by Fukuyama,
namely “human rights,” “human nature,” and “human dignity” (Fukuyama
–), these “new humans” are faced with multiple dilemmas and challenges:
undeniably, they possess life, yet their lives are completely undervalued by
humans; they are instilled with human morals and ethics, yet they cannot
enjoy equal rights as humans, with these ethical teachings serving as mere tools
for their “instrumentalization”; they are granted some “dignity” bestowed upon
them by humans (as exemplied by the “dignied death” given to Yajun before her
termination—being allowed to dress herself and farewell her beloved), yet they
lack actual dignity to changing their status of being “products.” Facing these
dilemmas, compared with conservative humans who maintain a clear boundary
between natural humans and articial humans, the “new humans” are open and
exploratory in constructing an ideal future society in which both humans
and nonhumans can live harmoniously together, which represents the collision of
values between old and new, conventional and innovative. ese collisions drive
the narrative in which the “new humans” play an important role as both “observers”
and “actors.”
THE ETHICAL CHOICE OF “NEW HUMANS”: WILL ARTIFICIAL HUMANS REPLACE
HUMANS?
In narratives featuring nonhuman narrators, be they natural, supernatural, or
articial, they can perform the functions of “telling,” “observing,” and “acting”
(Shang, “Towards a eory” ), which propels the narrative process of the literary
work. In the conventional literary narrative, nonhuman characters have been
silenced and subjected to scrutiny through the lens of human perceptions and
prejudice, whereas letting nonhuman characters talk may provide readers with
brand-new perspectives. Arguably, nonhuman narration should not be simply
perceived through the framework of a singular concept such as “estrangement” or
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“the unnatural,” a more accurate approach involves conceptualizing it as the result
of “a double dialectic of empathy and defamiliarization, human and non-human
experientiality” (Bernaerts et al. ). Just like Yajun’s sad love story and her sincere
confession before her enforced “termination” naturally evoke empathy from readers,
which explicitly questions whether humans can determine the life and death of
other life forms, although articial ones, thereby evoking “what it is like” (see Nagel)
to be an articial human. From this perspective, the nonhuman narrative points
to the fact that human beings tend to put other entities in an “othering” position
and conceive the other as an object, thus maintaining the subjectivity or superiority
of humanity. us, In TAH, with the participation of various “new humans” as
observers and actors, including humanoids, supercomputers, and digital life,
readers are invited to reect upon the in-depth meaning of being humans and
imagine the human’s role in a future world.
To start with, facing the dilemmas between laws, morality, and their willingness
to save their master, Jiye Chen, the humanoid servant RB Ji’en’s choice is to selessly
exchange his healthy brain for the master’s diseased one, and Julius, the central
computer of Jiye’s home, chose to assist Ji’en brain-swapping surgeries. Julius
narrated the whole story of how and why they swapped the brains between Ji’en and
Jiye Chen. Particularly, the law prohibits B-type humans from acting against the
master’s will without permission, which is an “undesirable tendency” that will lead
both Julius and Ji’en to be sentenced to “termination.” However, what Julius replied
to this question is thought-provoking:
ere are still such instructions in my memory: in special circumstances involving the
master’s life, there is no need to wait for the master’s orders, and even disobedience to
the master’s commands is permissible. For example, if the master orders me to assist in
his suicide, should I obey? (Wang, TAH )
e brain-swapping event is the most mysterious plot in the story, and it is Julius
who has unveiled the mystery. Julius narrated how “he” managed to assist Ji’en
in conducting the series of brain-swapping surgeries and why they performed the
surgeries secretly:
years ago, my master, Mr. Jiye Chen, had already been diagnosed with senile dementia.
His brain began to undergo organic changes, showing atrophy and cerebral cavities. is
disease progressed rapidly, and within years he would lose his ability to work. Modern
medicine is not powerless against this, but unfortunately, human laws and morals do
not allow it. Because, just as Mr. Jiye believed, aging and death are the most important
attributes of humanity, and cannot be subjected to alienation, let alone the use of articial
neural tissue to repair a natural human brain. (Wang, TAH –)
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Julius’s words demonstrate, other than “a cool-headed and objective machine”
thought by humans (Wang, TAH ), Julius is virtually a conscious, emotional,
rational, and moral entity just like humans, being both a wise observer capable of
understanding human hearts and a proactive actor with a strong sense of emotions
and principles. When questioned by Jianming why not simply buy a new humanoid
for the brain transplant surgeries, given that the physical parts of B-type humans
are readily available “commodities,” Julius responded that Ji’en insisted on using his
brains for the surgeries, even though it obviously increases the complexity for two
reasons:
Firstly, it’s his stubborn loyalty as a servant; he is determined to personally replace his
master’s aging and stop his impending demise. Secondly, Ji’en is using this act of self-
sacrice to prove his own worth and to demonstrate the value of B-type individuals.
ere’s no need to elaborate further on this point. (Wang, TAH )
e storytelling from the perspective of Julius provides a straightforward invitation
to reect upon the conditions of Ji’en, a loyal and diligent humanoid servant who,
despite his unwavering dedication and seless sacrice, is ercely misunderstood
and criticized by humans. On the one hand, Ji’en gave his healthy brain to his
master Jiye Chen so that the latter’s life expectancy would be prolonged; on the other
hand, his master complained about Ji’en signs of aging and sluggishness resulting
from his gradual brain replacement, expressed strong dissatisfaction, harshly
berated him as an “unqualied product,” demanding his early disposal and seeking
compensation from the Humanoid Trading Center for a new B-type servant
(Wang, TAH ). Even Jiye Chen’s granddaughter, Ruyi, noticed the mistreatment
of Ji’en by his grandpa and tried to comfort him, but mainly because she feared
this kind of oppression would lead to Ji’en’s rebellion. In the face of Ruyi’s comfort,
Ji’en raised his eyebrows joyfully and said, “I am happy, really happy. As long as
the master is healthy, I will walk into the vaporizing chamber with a smile” (Wang,
TAH ). As for his destiny of being “recycled,” Ji’en accepted it with peace, as he
calmly denied Ruyi’s invitation to take care of him, because “B-type humans are not
allowed to have invalid lives” (Wang, TAH ). In this sense, the novel portrays a
loyal humanoid servant, Ji’en, who is devoted wholeheartedly to serving his master,
willing to save the master’s life by sacricing his own.
It is noteworthy that the attitude of humans towards nonhumans (contempt,
suspicion, and harshness) contrasts sharply with the attitude of nonhumans
toward humans (diligence, loyalty, and love) in the novel, which inspires readers to
reect upon the conventional and long-existing anthropocentric worldview. Ji’en,
although only a B-type or say articial human, whose faithfulness, optimism, and
spirit of sacrice deeply impress readers and evoke their empathy. Arguably, the
radiant “humanity” shining from Ji’en is greater and nobler than that of many
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natural humans, therefore ironically, Ji’en is depicted as more “humanized” than
many real humans. However, it shall also be noted that conversely and interestingly,
a nonhuman narrator may also stand to endorse an anthropocentric worldview
from a nonhuman standpoint, as Ji’en “heroically” chose to devote his “life” to
maintain the health of his master, to prove his worth.
Secondly, facing the ethical dilemma and confusion after his real identity
being exposed, as a born humanoid, Jianming’s choice is not to seek to replace
or surpass humans, but to ght for harmonious coexistence with humans. His
action directly points to the central theme of this novel, the construction of a
human-nonhuman community in the future. Noticeably, the novel illustrates the
culmination of humanoid technology, whereby B-type individuals are crafted to be
virtually indistinguishable from natural-born humans regarding physical attributes.
Nevertheless, to establish a distinction from humanity, a deliberate manufacturing
procedure is employed to eliminate their ngerprints, thus depriving them of the
legal status of being real “humans”. In this sense, humans manifest obvious anxiety,
hesitation, and fear when confronting the fact that humanoids can take responsibility
for humans and behave the same way as humans. Just like after Jianming’s identity
was revealed, the police chief admitted Jianming was an outstanding police ocer,
pitied the fact he was a born B-type, and decided to “terminate” him even though
he liked Jianming and appreciated the accomplishments that he had achieved as a
police ocer.
However, after surviving the assassination plotted by humans, Jianming’s choice
is not to seek revenge or his legal status as an A-type human, as he said:
I have no interest in that identity at all, and right now, the last thing I’m interested in is
the identity of a natural person. ese days I’ve been thinking a lot. roughout my life,
due to professional reasons, I’ve harmed many fellow B-type individuals, and I want to
do something to redeem myself . . . I won’t seek revenge against humans, nor will I incite
bloody conict between the two groups. I just want to erase the boundaries between
the two groups, so they can live together in harmony, as one… It is not something one
person can do, nor is it something that can be done in a short time. But we can leverage
modern science, can’t we? Since science has created articial humans in just a few
decades, accomplishing what took nature four billion years, I believe science can also
help us achieve liberation for B-type humans within a few years. (Wang, TAH )
e narration of Jianming, now an articial human, has foregrounded a sharp
contrast: On the one hand, humans fear being replaced by nonhumans, for it is
rmly believed that humans are the originals, while articial humans, as replicants of
humans, are mere imitations. Even Dong Hongshu, the journalist who sympathized
with humanoids, reassured herself of the justice of current regulations, “How could
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we possibly allow a large number of replicas to replace the original creations of
God? (Wang, TAH ).” On the other, articial humans depicted in TAH seek to
transcend human-nonhuman boundaries and construct a future community of
diversied life forms. To accomplish this mission, Jianming took rm action, trying
to modify the program in Factory No. so that humanoids produced there would
have natural ngerprints, hence the legal status as well.
irdly, Sima Linda in a form of digital life and HALL as a personied
supercomputer made their choice to aid Jianming’s eorts of modifying the
production program in the humanoid factories, which, has gradually collapsed
the “dam” constructed between humans and articial humans. In this “humanoid
liberation” movement, the three humanoid factories collectively produced ,
humanoid babies with natural human ngerprints. Human society may not
immediately recognize the equal status of humanoids, but erasing the barrier
between humans and humanoids is only a matter of time after these humanoid
babies ocking into society. Noticeably, Sima Linda, who has discarded his physical
form to exist in electronic information and integrated into the super-intelligent
entity or, the omnipotent “computer God” (TAH ) in Wang’s words, represents
a technological breakthrough that constitutes a dimensional blow to the previous
technological advancements in human history.
Moreover, the important role played by the AI narrators is not just to help complete
the mission of modifying the program, but to push humans to reexamine the
meaning and limitations of their life existence. By giving voice to nonhuman entities,
readers are invited to reexamine aspects of human life, which may highlight and
even challenge our conception of the human (Bernaerts et al. ). Just like digital
Sima Linda, based on the domain of superintelligence, felt great compassion for
humanity for their physical constraints and restricted perspective, yet also greatly
admired them for their courage and persistence, as he said:
Just think about it, with their pitiful, inecient, and discontinuous intelligence in both
space and time, humans have managed to achieve remarkable heights, even to some
extent, understanding themselves. is understanding roughly consists of two stages,
forming a cycle: First, in the primitive consciousness of early humans, there emerged
ashes of wisdom, an awareness of self, recognizing themselves as transcending the
material world, possessing a spirit or soul that the material world lacks; then, with
the development of science, gradually abandoning concepts like vitality and soul, it
is recognized that human intelligence and spirit are entirely based on the complex
combination of material structures. Transcendence then returns, constituting two leaps
in human beings’ understanding, two leaps that return to the starting point, yet surpass
the original. Pitiable yet admirable, humanity. (Wang, TAH )
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Strikingly, as digital life-forms with super-intelligence, these “new humans” stand
from a perspective beyond humanity to re-examine the meaning of human existence,
mercilessly pointing out the limitations of human life and the primitive state of
human intelligence constrained by the physical body. eir observations induce
a sense of defamiliarization, prompting readers to recognize the distinctiveness
of nonhuman narrators, who challenge certain assumptions and expectations
pertaining to human life and consciousness.
Shifting narrative perspectives away from humans and focalizing the story through
the eyes of nonhuman characters also raises doubts about the anthropocentric
notions that we commonly use to interpret reality, as readers cannot easily relate
the conventions of narration to familiar contexts. For instance, the supercomputer
Hall, who controls Factory No., is an excellent observer. When Degang asked him
why, despite having developed consciousness and become the actual soul of Factory
No. , he was still willing to be trapped in the narrow intranet, HALL answered
with a smile:
Every form of life is a prisoner of its environment. Malaria parasites can only live in the
bloodstream and the gut of mosquitoes, sh can only live in water, and humans can only
live in the air. You don’t have to pity me alone. (Wang, TAH )
is highly philosophical observation from a nonhuman perspective, apparently,
delves more intricately and deeply into the meaning and limitations of human
existence than humans themselves, which touches the unthought-of of humanity
and exerts a mind-blowing inuence on readers.
Or, the satirical function of Julius’s narration is noticeable, for Julius, as an
insightful and intelligent nonhuman observer, made it clear enough:
Now, this stubborn old man, Mr. Jiye, who ercely upheld the sacred status of the natural
human brain, is having his life prolonged by the brain tissue of a Type-B human. Strictly
speaking, although he retains Jiye’s thoughts and emotions, he has become the Type-B
human he has always despised. (Wang, TAH )
It is profoundly ironic that humans propose the so-called “protection of purity”
to maintain their purity, as they fail to see their limitations and are unaware that
they are just one species among the vast multitude of living beings. erefore,
through the observations and choices made by “new humans” in the novel, literary
narratives can challenge readers’ familiarity with mental processes via their
empathetic engagement with the minds of “new human” narrators, which prompt
readers to step outside human-centric stereotypes, expand their understanding
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beyond the connes of human experience, and open up new avenues for reection
and contemplation about what it means to be human.
CONCLUDING REMARKS: TOWARDS AN ENVISIONED HUMAN-NONHUMAN
COMMUNITY
Science ction is both a speculative genre towards the future and a powerful
reection upon the present. e function of prophecy as exhibited by science
ction may have dierent natures of prophetic insight, both anticipation and
exhortation. Furthermore, the dimension of futuristic imagination is also
strongly connected with reality, which aims “not to give us ‘images’ of the future
. . . but rather to defamiliarize and restructure our experience of our own present”
(Jameson ). In other words, of all the media and disciplinary elds involved in
worldmaking, literature is likely one of the most dynamic areas for this activity
(Shang, “Approaching the World” ), and the worlds created by science ction are
closely linked to and signicantly inuence reality. e “new human” narrative in
TAH demonstrates that the development of articial intelligence, biotechnology,
and digital life is perhaps an unstoppable tendency, therefore the stance, viewpoints,
and approaches adopted by humans towards technological advancements will
determine the future trajectory of humanity as a species, which is crucial for the
fate of humanity. At the core of all these lies the sense of crisis ingrained in people’s
minds today. In this sense, the ethical choice in the face of the “human-tech”
relationship is essential, which involves reecting on how to balance technological
intervention and human desires as well as what kind of stance shall be taken given
the imposed demarcation between humans and “new humans.”
To probe the interrelationship between technology and humanity, the primary
concern posed by technology lies in its potential to modify human nature, thereby
propelling us into a “posthuman” era of history. From a posthuman perspective,
humans can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines, accordingly, “there
are no essential dierences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence
and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot
teleology and human goals” (Hayles ). In this sense, the posthuman perspective
prompts profound reections on the question if humanity will be replaced by “new
humans” or intelligent machines. Just as Fukuyama warns that “the most signicant
threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter
human nature and thereby move us into a ‘posthuman’ stage of history,” therefore,
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the state should regulate the development and application of technology from a
political standpoint ().
However, compared with the post-humanist warning, the nonhuman turn
emphasizes the inseparability of humans from the environment, technology,
and other life forms, focusing on the coevolution, coexistence, interactions, or
collaborations between the human and the nonhuman, claiming that “the human
is characterized precisely by this indistinction from the nonhuman” (Grusin ix-x).
In other words, a vision of coexistence and mutual development of diversied
species has been featured in the nonhuman perspective, which is both a powerful
deconstruction of anthropocentrism and a mighty challenge to posthumanism.
e narrative of TAH adopts this vision, and the “new humans” in the story
are depicted as insightful observers and resolute actors. Facing complex dilemmas
in their interactions with humans, the ethical choice they have made is not to
replace humanity as humans fear, but to break boundaries and seek harmonious
coexistence with humans, which can be reected by Ji’en’s choice to save his master
by sacricing himself, Jianming’s eorts of seeking harmonious coexistence of A
and B type humans, as well as digital superintelligence’s decisive aid to transcend
human-nonhuman boundaries by modifying the production programs in the
humanoid factories. e story of TAH ends with the “non-action” strategy adopted
by the director of Factory No., as a response to the fact that the production
program has been modied to allow the birth of humanoid babies with natural
ngerprints. Hence, although not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that the
complete obliteration of the boundary between humans and articial humans
is not far o, and humans are also aware of this unstoppable tendency and ready
to embrace it. us, through the ethical choices made by “new humans”, Wang
conveys to the audience a future vision that natural humans and articial
humans enjoy equal rights to live harmoniously together, which can be perceived
as a vision of a human-nonhuman community. In Never Let Me Go, clones or,
Hailsham students, are asked to donate their organs to partially “replace” humans,
and in Clara and the Sun, Clara as an articial friend is requested to “replace” Josie.
However, TAH imagines a possible future world where people no longer bother
worrying about whether machines and robots will replace and surpass humans, or
vice versa; instead, they work together to break the opposition between “natural”
and “articial” humans, proposing a vision of community instead of a distinction
between the two.
Noticeably, the ubiquity of nonhuman matters of concern and the portrayal of
articial humans does not overshadow Wang’s ultimate inquiry into the essence
of humanity and his spontaneous overow of humanistic concern. Nonhuman
narrators’ insightful observations and steadfast actions encourage readers to
question the idea of a static human identity, thus challenging the concept of
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humanity per se. By ghting for an envisioned human-nonhuman community,
the choice made by “new humans” in TAH clearly draws inspiration from ancient
Chinese wisdom. us, in our eort to imagine the future and construct a better
world, an ideal way is to break the stereotyped binary opposition of one party
inevitably replacing the other, and, by transcending the either-or logic, to anticipate
a harmonious coexistence of humans and articial humans.
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Notes
. Namely, the HeLa cells that are extensively used in the eld of biomedicine.
. According to the law, all humanoids must have “RB” (abbreviated from “robot”) prexed
to their names to distinguish them from natural humans.(Wang, TAH )
. A humanoid’s emotional and sexual relationship with a human is viewed as an undesirable
tendency.(Wang, TAH )
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
is paper is supported by e National Social Science Fund of China: [Grant
Number BWW].
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Abstract
e depiction of malevolent aliens with superior technology, whether in the context of human
exploration of outer space or alien arrival on Earth, is so prevalent that it has become an
archetype of science ction. Philip Kindred Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan () challenges
this archetype by portraying Titanians as gamblers of a traditional board game called Blu,
through which they exert dominance and control over humanity. e Blu game narrative, or
the in-game storytelling of ctional characters as Blu players, is characterized by its nonhuman
elements, including an alien setting, antirealistic events, and alien perceptual focalization
through Titanian characters, collectively revealing human inferiority and vulnerability in the
cosmic scope. Notably, Blu’s mechanic of luck translates into a story-level luck-centered ludic
culture and a discourse-level contingent connecting principle of events. rough a thematic and
formal analysis of the Blu game narrative, this article explores how Blu, demonstrating the
Titanians’ wielding of the power of luck, facilitates their political, psychological, and ideological
colonization of humans. With the blurred boundary between game and reality, Blu, with its
ideological function akin to that of other media as cultural industries, transforms humans into
passive participants in a game and meta-game of luck, leading to their attribution of the alien
colonization to mere bad luck and their failure to make ethical choices to defend their families
and humanity as a whole.
Keywords
colonization, luck, player agency, nonhuman game narrative, e Game-Players of Titan
LUCK AS POWER
Nonhuman Game Narrative, Agency, and Alien
Colonization in Philip K. Dick’s The Game-Players of Titan
Kanjing He
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
kanj-he@sjtu.edu.cn
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About the Author
Kanjing He is a doctoral candidate at the School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University (Shanghai , China). Her research interests revolve around the interdisciplinary
study of American science ction, with a particular focus on its multi-media storytelling and
nonhuman narratives. Her most recent article of relevant research is “Photography, Film and
Storytelling of Posthuman Crises in Blade Runner.”
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INTRODUCTION
e existence of alien life forms, while lacking concrete evidence, has been a
fertile ground for literary imagination and creation, particularly within the science
ction genre. Aliens are often portrayed as malevolent invaders and conquerors
of Earth, threatening human existence and sovereignty. Greg Grewell notes that
“more often these aliens who visit Earth are hostile beings or bug-eyed monsters
bent on destroying the planet and its inhabitants” (). In sci- novels with aliens
as malevolent invaders and conquerors, such as H. G. Wells’ e War of the
Words (), Arthur Clark’s Childhood’s End (), Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s
Game (), and Liu Cixin’s e ree-Body Problem (), these malevolent
aliens demonstrate superiority over humans, particularly in their technological
advancement. e prevalent image of malevolent aliens with superior technology
presents a challenge for sci- writers, as they grapple with innovating upon a sci-
archetype that has already been extensively established within the genre.
Renowned for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (), adapted into the
lm Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott, the American new-wave science
ction writer Philip Kindred Dick envisions various alien species throughout his
prolic writing career, such as insectoid creatures on Alpha III in Clans of the
Alphane Moon () and Bleekmen on Mars in Martian-Time Slip (). In
Dick’s lesser-known work e Game-Players of Titan (), the silicon-based
Titanians, or Vugs, are malevolent invaders to Earth. Yet, Dick’s innovation lies in
his depiction of these malevolent Titanians as avid gamblers, deeply engaged in a
board game called “Blu,” resembling the classic Monopoly board game. Players
roll the dice and draw a card from the deck to determine the movement of their
pieces on the game board and follow the corresponding instructions. Instead of
relying on advanced technology, Titanians utilize Blu, with luck as its core game
mechanic, as an unconventional approach to colonizing humans.
Among the few research articles on e Game-Players of Titan, Umberto Rossi’s
“e Game of the Rat: A.E. Van Vogt’s -Word Rule and P.K. Dick’s e Game-
Players of Titan” examines the role of game. Rossi posits that the game, “based on
the uncertainty of the rules,” serves as a narrative strategy akin to Van Vogt’s -
word rule, which is to “insert a twist in the plot or a new idea every words” ().
In Dick’s -page novel, this translates to “like to reversals or new ideas”
(Rossi ). While Rossi denes “game” as a textual game to introduce twists and
new ideas, this article focuses on the multifaceted roles of Blu within the novel’s
thematic and narrative frameworks. Inspired by Rossi’s insights on the translation
of game rules and mechanics into narrative strategies, this article suggests that the
luck mechanic in Blu can be translated into a luck-centered culture on the story
level and a contingent narrative device on the discourse level.
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Integrating narrative theory with nonhuman and game studies, this article will
explore how Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan employs the Blu game narrative to
depict Titanians and their colonization of humans, manifesting their wielding of
the power of luck as a means of control and dominance. It will rst draw upon Jona
Carlquist’s theory to dene the Blu game narrative as an in-game storytelling of
ctional characters as players. e story aspect of the Blu game narrative includes
the game’s setting, events, and characters, and the discourse aspect involves the
translation of the luck game mechanic into the narrative device of contingency. e
antirealistic setting and events, along with the alien focalization through Titanian
characters, render the Blu game narrative distinctly nonhuman. Particularly, luck,
as what Bruno Latour terms a nonhuman actor of inuence, not only contributes
to the nonhuman Blu game narrative, but also shapes human beliefs, values, and
ethics, including prioritizing luck over merit and undermining human agency,
thereby bringing up a discussion of an interplay between luck, agency, and ethics. In
the last section, this article will analyze how Blu serves as a tool for the Titanians’
political, psychological, and ideological colonization of humans.
ALIENS, IN-GAME STORYTELLING, AND NONHUMAN NARRATIVE
e early twenty-rst century marked the end of a debate between ludology and
narratology. Ludologists focus on game mechanics and rules, while narratologists
approach games as narratives. e narratological approach can be traced back to
Roland Barthes’ proposition that “there are countless forms of narrative in the
world,” “whether oral, or written, pictures, still or moving, gestures, and an ordered
mixture of all those substances” (). According to this pan-narrative view, the
Blu board game in Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan, with written numbers on
the dice and cards and still images and physical objects on the game board, can
be seen as a form of multi-media narrative. However, one of the main objectives
raised by ludologists against the narratological approach is its tendency to overlook
the unique aspect of a game, often referred to as the “play” aspect. In her speech
“e Last Word on Ludology vs Narratology in Game Studies,” Janet H. Murray
concluded the debate between ludology and narratology. In her words, “games are
not a subset of stories; objects exist that have qualities of both games and stories”
(Murray). erefore, a formal analysis of Blu must take into consideration the
qualities that classify it as both a game and a story.
Blu integrates both the story and play aspects. In “Games Telling Stories? A
Brief Note on Games and Narratives,” Jesper Juul draws upon Seymour Chatman’s
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conceptual framework of story and discourse, which divides the story aspect of
a game into existents (settings and actors) and events (actions and happenings).
Similarly, Marie-Laure Ryan emphasizes that a story must be “one that brings a
world to the mind (setting) and populates it with intelligent agents (characters)”
who “participate in actions and happenings (events, plot) (“Will New Media
Produce New Narratives?” ). e following excerpt is the game narrative of a
round of Blu:
Freya spun [the dice], obtained a four. Damn, she thought as she moved her piece four
spaces ahead on the board. at brought her to a sadly-familiar spare: Excise tax. Pay
. She paid, silently; Janice Remington, the banker, accepted the bills. (Dick )
is passage showcases the story aspect of Blu, portraying the game board as the
setting and featuring players like Freya and Janice as characters; rolling the dice,
moving game pieces on the board, and transacting are the events. Ryan denes
events to be those that “cause global changes in the narrative world” (“Will New
Media Produce New Narratives?” ). In Ryan’s view, events are not mere actions
or occurrences; they have a transformative impact. Paying is a pivotal event
because it puts Freya at a disadvantage by increasing the likelihood of her losing
this round of Blu to Janice. Blu incorporates game mechanics and rules, with luck
playing a signicant role, distinguishing it as a game narrative and emphasizing its
nature as a game. When Freya rolls the dice to begin her turn, she obtains a four.
e subsequent movement of her piece on the game board, dictated by the dice
roll, triggers the event of paying tax, exemplifying the game mechanic of luck
within the gameplay.
Blu’s story and play aspects contribute to its narrativity, which diers from
being a narrative. While being a narrative implies a clear-cut structure with
a cohesive storyline, having narrativity refers to the ability to evoke narrative
elements or scripts without necessarily forming a complete narrative. Ryan denes
“narrativity” as the ability to “evoke a narrative script in the mind of the audience”
(“Introduction” ). Blu’s focus on strategic actions, instead of a xed storyline,
makes it dicult to be classied as a narrative in the traditional sense of novels
and lms. As Ryan notes, “[a] game, after all, is not ‘a narrative’ in the sense
that a novel or a lm can be” (“Introduction” ). Despite not being a traditional
narrative, Blu incorporates events and other narrative components as building
blocks for a narrative, awaiting the intervention of players to weave them together
into a cohesive story through their actions such as rolling dice, drawing cards, and
moving game pieces on the board.
Blu’s story and play aspects, with narrativity, allow it to produce a game
narrative, dened within the framework of this study as an in-game narrative of
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players’ engagement with Blu. Jona Carlquist refers to Richard Roose’s framework
outlined in Game Design: eory and Practice () to categorize game narratives
into three levels. ese levels include “out-of-game storytelling,” which refers to
background stories and cutscenes where players have no direct control; “in-game
storytelling that occurs while the player is actually playing the game;” and “external
materials,” such as game manuals, providing guidance and additional context for
the game (Carlquist ). As a traditional board game, Blu lacks out-of-game
storytelling, aligning with Ryan’s view that board games lack a rich narrative
background. According to Ryan, “[t]he richness of this narrative background is
indeed one of the main dierences between computer games and classic board
games such as Chess or Go” (“Will New Media Produce New Narratives?” ).
In contrast with computer games that use cut scenes for background storytelling,
Blu relies on written words and still images, resulting in a relatively simple
narrative background. Additionally, Blu lacks external materials, as there is no
game manual provided for Blu. us, the in-game storytelling of Blu players is
central to the Blu game narrative.
Blu players’ gaming experience, encompassing both the story and play aspects
of Blu, can be fully narrated. Computer games often benet from visual elements
to enhance storytelling, yet these visual images and scenes are challenging to
articulate in a written narrative. By contrast, the textual nature of Blu facilitates
a narration of all verbal elements of the game. e uniqueness of Blu lies in its
capacity to recount its play aspect, detailing how Blu players follow the game
mechanic of luck and act according to the instructions. Unlike computer games,
where players’ actions and events are automatically recorded in a database, Blu
requires players to manually recount all their moves, gains, and losses to determine
the outcome. Moreover, the luck-based game mechanic implies that the Blu game
narrative lacks a predetermined cohesive plot, as players’ actions and events are
interconnected by chance. erefore, the Blu game narrative consists of the
story aspect (settings, characters, and events) and the play-discourse aspect (the
translation of game mechanics and rules to narrative devices).
e Blu game narrative can be further characterized as a nonhuman game
narrative due to its incorporation of an antirealistic setting and events. In his analysis
of postmodern science ction, Brian Richardson notes the use of “antirealistic or
logically impossible settings and events” by writers such as Italo Calvino, Stanislaw
Lem, and Ursula LeGuin (). e concept of “antirealistic or logically impossible
settings and events” is dened as settings and events that “cannot be rationalized
or explained according to any logical or physical laws” (Mikkonen ). e Blu
game narrative contains both an antirealistic setting on Titan, a moon of Saturn
that in reality has not been found to harbor any life form, and antirealistic events,
including instantaneous space travel between Earth and Titan. Moreover, in the
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Blu game narrative, human players are transported to Titan without any time
lapse during the two rounds of Blu between humans and Titanians. is is
accomplished through Titanian technology, as depicted in the narrative: “[Doctor
Philipson] form[s] one end of a two-way underground system between Terra and
Titan[...] is procedure is an improvement on the standard spacecraft method
because there is no time lapse” (Dick ). e instantaneous travel between Earth
and Titan cannot be explained within the realm of human knowledge.
e antirealistic setting and events in the Blu game narrative appear to
contradict the conventional expectations of science ction. During the rst half of
the twentieth century in the United States, the science ction genre, dominated by
hard science ction, embraced modern science and technology, striving for plausible
extrapolations from known scientic principles. Yet, in the mid-twentieth century,
the new wave movement of science ction encouraged a departure from strict
scientic realism. In , Gregory Benford, a notable new-wave writer, published
“Science and Science Fiction,” proposing that the strength of science ction lies in
“its ability to incorporate the landscape of modern science,” but scientic accuracy
is not required, even for hard science ction (). In Benford’s view, [s]cience in
sf—and perhaps the most important—is as a constraint which denes the possible”
(). Dick, a pioneer of the new-wave movement, uses science as a constraint in
this novel, predating Benford’s articulation of this view. e antirealistic setting
and events redene the boundaries of what is considered possible within the Blu
game universe by suggesting the presence of an alternative scientic principle
unique to the Titanians and beyond the current human understanding. So, by
employing a nonhuman game narrative, Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan is an
innovative experiment within the science ction genre.
Furthermore, the Blu game narrative incorporates Titanian players as
characters. Titanians have unique features and capabilities that distinguish them
from humans. eir mental communication allows them to talk to humans without
the need to speak the human language, as depicted in the narrative: “e vug’s
thoughts came to them” (Dick ). ey are also physically dierent from humans,
with radiant “glowing” and “weightless” bodies, enabling them to survive and live
in the hostile environment of Titan, far away from a sun (Dick ).
Shang Biwu denes nonhuman narrative as “the representation of events
with participants of nonhuman entities, which exist on two levels: nonhuman
characters on the story level, and nonhuman narrators on the discourse level” ().
Titanian players actively participate in the game events, making them nonhuman
characters on the story level. According to Jan-Noël on, in contemporary non-
textual media such as comics, lms, and video games, it has become increasingly
common for nonhuman entities to take up the role of characters. on asserts that
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the denition of characters should be based on their “intentionality” rather than
their inherent “human-ness” (). Both human and Titanian characters possess
the same inner drive to win the Blu game to acquire greater wealth and power.
Considering that Blu players adopt their ctional identities rather than in-game
personas, the terms “players” and “characters” carry the same meaning, diering
only in their function: the former highlights their participatory role at the game
level, while the latter emphasizes their narrative function at the story level.
Just like Dick’s nonhuman Blu game narrative, Liu’s e ree-Body Problem
features a nonhuman game narrative centered around the computer game “ree
Body.” e protagonist, Wang Miao, logs into the game as either the Trisolaran game
character “Hairen” or “Copernicus” seven times. roughout the game narrative,
the Trisolaran civilization undergoes cycles of destruction, with each catastrophic
event being linked to the movements of the planet’s three suns, encompassing
scenarios where none of the suns rise, the sudden appearance of a giant sun, or the
simultaneous rise of two or three suns. Within the ree-Body game narrative, the
setting and events are antirealistic, defying the conventional human understanding
of habitable conditions for life due to the presence of three suns. Additionally, on
the story level, the participation of Trisolaran characters in the game narrative
further contributes to its nonhuman nature. During Wang’s rst login experience,
he encounters a Trisolaran character named King Wen. Wang inquires: “In this
world, can everyone be dehydrated and rehydrated?” (Liu ). King Wen responds:
“Of course[...] Otherwise we could not survive the Chaotic Eras” (Liu ). King Wen
explains that the Trisolarans possess the unique ability to voluntarily dehydrate
their bodies, reducing energy consumption and enabling their survival in the face
of the extreme coldness that threatens the Trisolaran civilization.
In Dick’s Blu game narrative, the Titanian characters simultaneously oer their
perceptual focalization. e psionic abilities of Titanians bring about a perspective
shift for humans. After humans win the end-game against the Titanians, Titanians
take a strategic approach by manipulating the human perception to provide them
with a nonhuman perception of their human selves:
Faintly luminous, like organisms inhabiting a vast depth, the stunted creatures continued
to live, after a fashion. But it was not pleasant. [Mary Anne McClain] recognized them.
at’s us. Terrans, as the vugs see us. Close to the sun, subject to immense gravitational
forces. (Dick )
rough the eyes of the Titanians, a human character called Mary Anne McClain
perceives humans as distorted and malformed “alien creatures,” who are made into
this shape by tremendous gravitational, natural, and celestial forces beyond human
control. According to Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, there are three facets of focalization,
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namely, “perceptual,” “ideological,” and “psychological” (). Perception refers to
sight, hearing, and smell. Mary’s adoption of a Titanian perceptual focalization
reveals human tininess, vulnerability, and inferiority in the cosmic scope.
e Blu game narrative, featuring the in-game experience of human players
with Titanian players on Titan, adds an immersive and nonhuman dimension
to Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan. Human players suddenly nd themselves
transported to Titan and encounter impossible events like instantaneous space
travel between Earth and Titan. e antirealistic setting and events, coupled with
the Titanian perceptual focalization, immerse human players in an unfamiliar
game world, in which they perceive their vulnerability and inferiority in the grand
cosmic scope. Dick’s novel thus exemplies the innovative landscape of nonhuman
in-game storytelling, embracing the narrative potential oered by a game narrative
infused with nonhuman narrative elements within the science ction genre.
LUCK, AGENCY, AND ETHICS
Blu places a substantial emphasis on luck as a core game mechanic, as the number
of moves a player will make on the game board is determined by the roll of dice
and the drawing of a card from the shued deck. A dice, with six sides, presents
an equal probability of occurring at / or approximately ., and each card
from the deck also has an equal probability of occurring. Luck accompanies chance,
elevating it beyond simple probability. Luck is “a tenuous but powerful fantasy that
the world is somehow biased, inuenced in its outcomes regarding myself and
others, in a way that is beyond the purely random” (Gordon ). Luck can tip the
scales in the favor of one player, ultimately making him or her the winner.
In the Actor-Network theory, Bruno Latour denes an “actor” as “any thing that
does modify a state of aairs by making a dierence,” such as “kettles boil[ing]
water, knives cut[ting] meat, baskets hold[ing] provisions,” and so on (). Luck
as an abstract entity can be understood as a nonhuman actor, inuencing players’
actions, beliefs, and choices on the story level, the game’s trajectory on the play
level, and the progression of the Blu game narrative on the discourse level.
In the nonhuman game narrative of Blu, luck is the powerful nonhuman actor
that determines the game’s outcome. In response to a defeat by Jerome Luckman
in a round of Blu, Pete Garden attributes his loss to bad luck, stating, “Blu’s a
fascinating game. Like poker, it combines chance and skill equally; you can win by
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either, or lose by either. I lost by the former, on a single bad run” (Dick ). Pete
suggests that the game’s outcome is more determined by chance than by skills. In
a similar vein, Titanian players are introduced as “gamblers to the core” (Dick ).
By emphasizing their addiction to gambling, the narrative suggests that Titanians
place great value on the unpredictable outcome that luck can bring.
Blu players recognize that luck has a broader impact on the ctional world of
e Game-Players of Titan as a meta-game in addition to its active role in the game
world. Inuenced by the Blu mechanic of luck, Carol, Pete’s new wife, attributes
her pregnancy to luck when she declares, “I’m pregnant. We’ve had luck” (Dick
). In Carol’s view, luck is the determining factor in her becoming pregnant.
e intersection of Ballantyne’s modal and signicance conditions underscores
the active role of luck in shaping human players’ personal lives. e signicance
condition posits that luck is measured by the signicance of the event, as “event
E is lucky for individual X only if E is in some respect signicant (good or bad)
for X.” (Ballantyne ). Carol’s pregnancy is a signicantly lucky occurrence,
particularly in the ctional context of the low human birth rate due to environmental
contamination.
Freya emphasizes the capricious nature of luck in human birth in stating that
“e human birth itself is inherently subject to the capricious nature of luck because
of the unpredictable and uncontrollable factors involved in the process, including
the timing and circumstances of the conception and the surrounding environment”
(Dick ). Examining luck through Ballantyne’s modal condition, Carol’s pregnancy
might not have happened had things have been only slightly dierent just before
it occurred. According to the modal condition, “Event E is lucky for individual X
only if E might not have happened had things have been no more than slightly
dierent just before E occurred” (Ballantyne ). e timing of conception, Carol
and Pete’s relationship, and various biological factors introduce an element of luck.
In addition to being a game mechanic and a belief, luck translates into a narrative
device of contingency within the Blu game narrative. Scholars such as Roland
Barthes, Seymour Chatman, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gerard Genette distinguish
between “story” and “discourse” (Chatman ). Within the Blu game narrative, the
sequence of events adheres to the principle of luck, encompassing “[l]uck’s sister
terms” like “chance, contingency, randomness, probability and others” (Gordon ).
e concept of luck extends beyond these sister terms “like chance” and “contingency”
to imply an unpredictable favor or disfavor that leads to good or bad luck, respectively.
When luck is applied to the sequence of events, “contingency,” rst proposed by Jean
Pouillon in his Temps et roman (), functions as the connecting principle. While
Candance Vogler considers contingency to be a synonym with chance, Michael Jay
Lewis “conceptualizes contingency as the intersection of its three most common
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denotations,” “an accident,” “chance occurrences,” and “possible or uncertain event
on which other things depend or are conditional” (Lewis ). e nal denition
sets contingency apart from chance, emphasizing the interdependence of events,
with one event depending on the preceding one.
In the Blu game narrative, events, especially those that occur during and after
the end game, are ordered by the connecting principle of contingency. Pete says:
“And if we don’t win, there pretty soon won’t be any births on our planet at all. And
the race will die out” (Dick ). e end-game holds immense signicance for
the survival of humanity. If humans lose, then Titanians will use their advanced
technology to set human birth to zero, leading to the extinction of the human race.
Following the third denition in Lewis’s conceptualization of contingency, the end-
game between humans and Titanians, where the human birth rate is at stake, is
itself an uncertain event beyond players’ control, contingent on the roll of the dice
or the drawing of a card. is contingent connection is an innovation of narrative
structure, departing from the classical narratives, where events “are linked to
each other as cause to eect, eects in turn causing other eects, until the nal
eect” (Chatman ). e absence of a clear cause-and-eect relationship makes it
challenging for readers to predict what will happen next and who will win the game.
e contingent connection between playing the end-game and determining the
human birth rate brings unexpected twists and turns, creating surprise, curiosity,
and suspense. Titanian players initially enjoy a stroke of luck, drawing a nine
and advancing their piece to a square that yields , as evidenced in “e
square read: Planetoid rich in archeological treasures, discovered by your scouts.
Win ,” (Dick ). Titanian players’ initial stroke of luck creates suspense
regarding the continuation of their fortunate streak or if an unexpected twist, a
reversal of luck, awaits them.
Suspense, as dened by Sternberg, is “the discrepancy between what the telling
lets us readers know about the happening (e.g., a conict) at any moment and what
still lies ahead” (). Suspense is generated by withholding information about
the result of the end-game, a critical event where the human birth rate is at stake.
When Titanian players rst land on the square rich in archaeological treasures,
their chance of winning the end-game is signicantly high. However, Titanian
players’ fortune takes a sudden turn as they draw a seven and advance to a square
incurring a substantial cost: “Postman injured on your front walk. Protracted
lawsuit settled out of court for the sum of ,” (Dick ). is twist
showcases the ckleness of luck, as the advantage once held by Titanian players
crumbles with the drawing of a single card from the deck, a seven, evoking surprise
for readers. Sternberg denes surprise as follows: “e narrative rst unobtrusively
gaps or twists its chronology, then unexpectedly discloses to us our misreading and
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enforces a corrective rereading in late re-cognition” (). Surprise, in this context,
is the moment of recognition for Titanian players as they come to terms with the
sudden turn of bad luck.
Luck-based game mechanic deprives human players of their agency, reducing
humans to non-player characters (NPCs) instead of being player characters (PCs)
in both Blu and the broader mega-game of life. Wark McKenzie draws on Dick’s
novel, e Game Players of Titan, to illustrate the concept of a “meta-game,” where
humans are mere “tokens,” “not the players” (). During rounds of Blu played
among humans, such as those between Freya and Janice, or Pete and Jerome,
human players are subjected to the inuence of luck. In the Blu end-game and the
mega-game of life between humans and Titanians, the Titanians maintain absolute
control, as they possess psionic abilities that enable them to identify the numbers
on dice and cards, turning Blu into a game of luck for humans but a game of
skill for Titanians, and they establish Blu as the sole avenue for human players to
acquire wealth, properties, and ascend in social status in the larger ctional world.
Bettina Bodi and Jan-Noël on delve into the concept of agency, especially the
one dened by Janet Murray, and explore “the kind(s) of agency that videogames
aord their players” (). According to Bodi and on, player agency can be
dened as the range of possibilities for “‘meaningful’ choice expressed via player
action that translates into avatar action, aorded and constrained by a videogame’s
design” (). Bodi and on further categorize player agency into four kinds:
“spatial-explorative agency,” “temporal-ergodic agency,” “congurative-constructive
agency,” and “narrative-dramatic agency” (-). e focus of this article lies on
“narrative-dramatic agency,” which refers to “elements of a videogame’s design that
determine the player’s ‘meaningful’ impact on the unfolding story” (). Blu
players’ actions of rolling the dice and drawing cards mean that luck shapes both the
course of the game and the unfolding of events in the ctional world. Shawn Edrei
points out that in comparison to other storytelling media, such as literary texts,
video games “allow for even more radical manipulations of storyworlds, owing in
part to the reader’s active role in navigating said worlds” (). However, the players
of Blu possess a distinct form of agency compared to videogame players. In Blu,
players’ actions are subject to the nonhuman force of luck, despite their active role
in shaping the storyworld.
Blu players’ lack of agency hinders them from making ethical choices. At the
beginning of the narrative, Pete loses his beloved wife, Freya, to Clem Gaines in
a round of Blu. Despite Freya’s dissatisfaction with her marriage to Clem, she is
compelled to marry him because of Pete’s loss in the game. Freya’s contemplation
indicates that her future partner is contingent on the result of a round of Blu:
“It pleased [Clem], obviously, to be married to [Freya]. It won’t be for long, Freya
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thought. Unless, she thought suddenly, we have luck” (Dick ). Wives like Freya
are deprived of their agency in selecting their husbands. An ethical concern arises
when considering the male players’ choice of using wives as stakes in the game.
In his Introduction to Ethical Literary Criticism, Nie Zhenzhao emphasizes the
signicance of “ethical literary criticism” in “provid[ing] a broader philosophical
framework for how to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the ethical choices of
literary works from the perspective of ethics” (). rough the lens of ethical
literary criticism, Pete’s decision to wager Freya and seek to replace her reects
a deeper moral failure—one that treats human relationships as transactional and
undermines individual autonomy, thereby inviting critical reection on the ethical
implications of agency and consent within the narrative world.
One such critical reection is grounded in utilitarian ethics. As dened by
Jeremy Bentham, the father of Utilitarianism, “utility is meant that property in
any object, whereby it tends to produce benet advantage, pleasure, good, or
happiness, or to prevent the happenings of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to
the party whose interest is considered” (). Utilitarian ethics deem Pete’s choice to
place his wife at stake unethical, as it prioritizes personal gain over the well-being
and autonomy of others. By placing Freya at stake, Pete’s choice may contribute to
the overall happiness of men in society, as it oers them a chance to win a desirable
wife, evident in Clem’s satisfaction after winning Freya. However, this perceived
benet comes at the expense of women’s well-being, as it completely disregards
their happiness, autonomy, and consent. From a feminist perspective, Hilde
Lindemann critiques utilitarian ethics by remarking that “it also seems to give you
no time for special attention to friends and family, because it insists that we gure
out the consequences for everyone equally, no matter how they are related to us”
(). e game rule of staking wives fails to treat women on equal footing with men,
leading to the objectication and subordination of women, thereby raising ethical
concerns from a feminist standpoint.
Interestingly, Pete’s internal monologue reveals that the loss of his wife and his
unmarried status are both attributed to his failure to roll a three. Pete thinks: “I’m
not married to Freya anymore. Freya and I lost and so our marriage was dissolved
and we’re starting over again with Freya married to Clem Gaines and I’m not
married to anybody yet because I haven’t managed to roll a three, yet” (Dick ).
From the perspective of Lindemann’s feminist ethics, Pete’s action and thought
are considered unethical for two reasons: rstly, he neglects the happiness of
women, prioritizing the happiness of mem; secondly, he evades his responsibility
as a husband by shifting the blame onto the game for taking his wife away from
him. Marleena Huuhka suggests that “we cannot take responsibility nor glory for
our actions, as they are always produced incooperation with forces sometimes
unknown and unseen to us” (). In Pete’s case, he attributes his unethical choices
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to mere bad luck, relinquishing his agency and responsibility, ultimately being
categorized as the antithesis of a moral player, dened as “a player that is morally
aware and capable of reecting upon the nature of her acts within the game world”
(Sicart ).
Pete’s relinquishment of agency and responsibility extends beyond his role as
a husband, encompassing a broader humanitarian crisis concerning the Titanian
invasion of Earth. According to the rules established by Titanians, humans engaged
in Blu are designated as “bindman” and are granted the power to govern certain
cities and towns based on their victories in the game. Pete’s conversation with
Jessica reects his internal conicts:
“We did ght a war with [Titanians],” he reminded the two children.
“But that was a long time ago,” the girl said.
“True,” Pete said. “Well, I approve of your attitude.” He wished that he shared it. From the
house down the street a slender woman appeared, walking toward them. “Mom!” the girl
Jessica called excitedly. “Look, here’s the Bindman.” (Dick )
When Jessica expresses a nonchalant attitude toward the Titanian invaders, Pete
verbally approves of it as it aligns with what the Titanians consider the “right”
attitude. He knows deep down inside that adopting such a nonchalant attitude
toward the Titanian invaders is unethical. However, Pete’s wish to share Jessica’s
nonchalant attitude implies his choice to comply with the Titanians, as evidenced
by his participation in Blu and his acceptance of the title of the Bindman. is
choice is deemed unethical because it reveals that Pete prioritizes his personal
wealth and power over advocating for independence, which would have served as
a broader benet for humanity. His lack of deliberate eort to reclaim his agency
and make ethical choices for himself, his wife, and humanity as a whole positions
him as an anti-hero.
LUCK AS POWER AND ALIEN COLONIZATION
Nonhuman elements within the Blu game narrative, such as the Titan setting,
instantaneous space travel, the perceptual focalization of Titanian characters, and
the nonhuman force of luck, align with Darko Suvin’s conception of science ction
as “the literature of cognitive estrangement” (). e Blu game narrative allows
readers to reect on historical colonization by placing them in the position of the
colonized. John Rieder notes that science ction often serves as a reection of
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historical colonial encounters. In H. G. Wells’ e War of the Words (), for
instance, Wells asks his English readers to compare the Martian invasion of Earth
with the Europeans’ genocidal invasion of the Tasmanians” (Rieder ). In Dick’s
e Game-Players of Titan, the Titanians can be seen as a mirror of European
colonizers, with humans’ participation in Blu mirroring the experience of native
people adhering to the new rules and world order imposed by the colonizers.
e novel is set in the near future where humans, having been defeated in a war
by Titanian invaders, now live under their oppressive rule. e war itself is not
depicted directly; its existence and consequences are instead ltered through the
elusive memories of the human characters. For instance, Mary Anne expresses a
deep-seated fear of the lingering Titanian presence on Earth, rooted in the memory
of defeat: “We’re all afraid of the vugs. It’s natural. ey’re our enemies; we fought
a war with them and didn’t win and now they’re here” (Dick ). Many human
characters like her remember the war’s outcome and harbor fear toward the
Titanians. Similar to the black man in colonial history, the human characters are
aicted with “phobia,” or “the anxious fear of the object,” leading to their irrational
thinking and the feeling of “insecurity” (Fanon ). e fear harbored by human
characters like Mary Anne McClain toward the Titanians emphasizes the lasting
consequences of the alien invasion and their oppressive rule on the psyche of the
colonized humans. However, it is crucial to note that the specic details of the war
remain concealed.
e human characters’ inability to recall specic details of the war can result
from the Titanians’ deliberate erasure or alteration of human memory as a
psychological colonization strategy. Memory manipulation is a recurring theme
in Dick’s science ction, as seen in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, where
Nexus- androids like Rachael are implanted with real human memories, blurring
the line between the real and the fake. Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan hints at
such memory erasure or alteration by the Titanians. is hint is conveyed through
the widespread use of technology by the Titanians to manipulate human memories
in their daily lives. Pete and ve other human Blu players in the Pretty Blue Fox
group experience a collective memory loss concerning the day of Jerome’s murder:
“In all, six persons in this group show similar lapses of memory[…] None of them
have intact memories” (Dick ). Titanian technology, which “go[es] all the way
back to mid-twentieth-century Soviet brainwashing procedures,” is at play, as
discussed by human characters wondering about its source: “During the war both
sides used techniques of that sort[...]” (Dick ). Both humans and Titanians use
such technology in the war, with the human defeat signifying that the Titanians’
memory technology is more advanced.
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Titanians’ memory technology shapes the human memory of the traumatic war
and prevents memory disease. rough the erasure of human memory regarding
the traumatic war of alien invasion on Earth, the Titanians eectively diminish the
antagonistic attitude of humans toward them. In a conversation between Pete and
Jessica, Pete queries, “You’re not afraid of the vugs, are you?” (Dick ). As anticipated
by Pete, Jessica responds negatively, stating, “But that was a long time ago” (Dick
). Jessica’s answer implies that the younger generation no longer perceives the
war as a signicant and pressing concern. Colonization extends beyond violent
confrontation and coercive control; it also entails the manipulation and control
of the collective memory of the younger generation regarding the history of the
colonized. Jessica Langer explores the concept of “memory disease” in the context
of Lai’s story of the “Island of Mist and Forgetfulness” (Lai ). “Memory disease”
refers to the involuntary recollection of painful historical moments by the colonized,
suggesting that a deliberate erasure or alteration of memory serves as a treatment to
forget the traumas of their past (Langer ). In this scenario, the Titanians employ
memory technology to compel the younger generation of humans, who have not
directly experienced the war, to forget their traumatic past of alien invasion, so that
they would dismiss the signicance of the war, accept the rule of the Titanians, and
progress with their lives.
Set against the backdrop of post-war colonial rule, the Blu game narrative
unfolds as the Titanians use Blu as a tool of colonization. Blu is an unjust game
administered to the advantage of the Titanians. Human players from the Pretty
Blue Box team are pessimistic upon being informed that they must play the end-
game with Titanians: “No one spoke; no one felt optimistic enough to” (Dick ).
“How do you blu,” Pete said, “against telepaths?” (Dick ). Blu players have
the option to deceive others about the number on the card drawn from the deck,
which is hidden from other players. If a player suspects that another is lying, they
can call blu. If the suspicion is wrong, the player who called blu loses what is on
the landed square. It is important to note that Titanians possess telepathic ability,
allowing them to access the human mind and discern the exact true number on
the card. Meanwhile, they prohibit the participation of human telepaths in the
game, placing humans at a disadvantage: “It was illegal, of course, to bring a person
with Psionic talents to e Game” (Dick ). Blu is an unjust game because even
though it appears to be solely based on luck, the Titanian players have a greater
chance of winning.
Titanians use the unjust game of Blu, embodying their wielding of the power of
luck, to acquire human lands and destroy the human race through game victories.
In a round of Blu between Joe Schilling and Titanian players, the city of Detroit
is at stake since “In the center of the table [Joe] saw […] A city, in miniature” (Dick
). Detroit, encapsulated in miniature, serves as a symbol of the Titanians’ quest
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for Earth territories. In the end-game, the human birth rate is now the stake. e
progressive escalation of stakes, from the acquisition of lands to the control of
the human birth rate, implies that the Titanians desire both territorial conquest
and the destruction of the human race. Titanian colonization bears similarities
to settler colonization, outlined by Patrick Wolfe in his “Settler Colonization and
the Elimination of the Native.” Wolfe emphasizes the importance of land when
he says that “Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life. us contests for
land can be indeed, often are—contests for life” (). e Titanians’ acquisition of
land through their victories in Blu can be seen as a practice of elimination. Wolfe
contends that “settler society required the practical elimination of the natives to
establish itself on their territory” (). To be able to settle on Earth, Titanians seek
the elimination of humans.
Elimination is not equal to the radical measure of extermination, as it also
includes the process of assimilation. “Elimination refers to more than the summary
liquidation of Indigenous people,” encompassing the construction of a new
subject identity, such as the “New Jews” (). While one apparent reason for the
prohibition of humans with psionic talents like telepathy is the lack of advantage
for the telepathic Titanians in Blu, a more subtle implication suggests that those
humans with psionic talents represent the “new human,” a hybrid of both human
and Titanian traits. Grewell likewise proposes that aliens are “hostile beings”
“enslaving humans and imposing a foreign regime, or assimilating them into
another being” (). Humans with psionic talents, such as the psycho-kinesis Mary
Anne McClain, are the products of such human assimilation into the Titanians.
e Titanians’ prohibition of these new humans in Blu alienates them from the
struggles of regular humans, rendering them unable to advocate for a population to
which they no longer belong. Using the lm District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, ) as
an example, Langer highlights “a mutual central focus of science ction and (post)
colonialism is that of otherness: how it has been conceptualized, acted upon and
subverted” (). In the Blu game narrative, otherness is conceptualized politically
and psychologically between humans and Titanians and between humans and the
new humans.
Furthermore, as argued in the rst section, humans adopt Titanian perceptual
focalization, perceiving themselves as malformed and distorted bodies, vulnerable
and inferior in the cosmic scope, leading to a gradual shift in human self-
perception. ey come to view themselves as the inferior Other in the eyes of the
Titanians, rather than recognizing Titanians as the alien Other. Humans’ othering
of themselves shapes their self-perception and psychological well-being, associated
with what Frantz Fanon describes to be the “inferiority complex.” Fanon describes
how he, upon being repeatedly identied as “a Negro,” grapples with a heightened
awareness of racial stereotypes and prejudices:
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I subjected myself to an objective examination, I discovered my blackness, my ethnic
characteristics; and I was battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intellectual
deciency, fetichism, racial defects, slave-ships, and above all else, above all: “Sho’ good
eatin’.” (-)
Seeing himself in the eyes of whites, Fanon becomes increasingly aware of
his blackness in the context of colonialism and racism and internalizes racial
stereotypes and prejudices such as “cannibalism,” “intellectual deciency,” and
“fetishism.” Likewise, by adopting the Titanian perceptual focalization, human
characters see their human weakness and limitations and feel inferior to what they
perceive to be the superior Titanians.
Similarly, in Liu’s e ree-Body Problem, the Trisolarans employ the game
ree-Body as a psychological tool, preparing for their impending invasion and
colonization of Earth. Human players, like Wang Miao, assume the role of Trisolaran
characters while participating in the game. Ye Wenjie, the initiator of contact with
the Trisolarans and the spiritual leader of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization, points
out that from the perspective of Trisolarans, humans are perceived as insignicant
and vulnerable beings. She remarks: “In the eyes of Trisolaran civilization, we’re
probably not even primitive savages. We might be mere bugs” (Liu ). As the game
gradually instills a sense of inferiority in humans towards themselves, the Adventist
group emerges, embracing the extermination of humanity by the Trisolarans upon
the arrival of their eet on Earth, as opposed to the Redemptionist group, in which
humans hold on to the belief that humanity can be saved through assimilation into
the Trisolaran civilization.
Besides politically seizing human lands as stakes in the game and psychologically
positioning humans as the inferior Other, the Titanians impose ideological control
on humans, showcasing the role of the game medium in shaping human perceptions
of reality and their value system. e Blu game narrative illustrates the blurred
boundary between games and reality, where the governance of cities and personal
relationships are stakes in the game.
In a quarrel between Walt and Pete, Pete expresses frustration as Walt wins
Berkeley from him: “I lost Berkeley to you. I don’t know why I put it up. It’s been
my bind, my residence, you know” (Dick ). Seeking to regain Berkeley, Pete
proposes: “I’ll trade you three cities in Marin County for it. Ross, San Rafael and
San Anselmo. I want it back; I want to live there” (Dick ). Blu shapes the human
perception of reality, similar to how Adorno and Horkheimer describe the cultural
industry’s inuence on individuals. By using the experience of a moviegoer, who
perceives the street outside as a continuation of the lm he has just left, Adorno
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and Horkheimer claim: “e whole world is passed through the lter of the culture
industry” (). With their perceptions ltered through Blu, human players view
cities like Berkeley as commodities to be won and lost, rather than appreciating
their cultural value and signicance.
Blu, functioning as a cultural industry, disseminates the value of luck and
constructs a counter-culture of passivity that diverges sharply from the American
Dream that celebrates individual achievement through industrious eorts. In the
conversation regarding the ownership of Berkeley between Pete and Walt, their
focus solely revolves around winning cities in Blu and trading them privately,
neglecting the importance of hard work and support from the residents. Mary
Anne McClain captures the essence of the Blu mechanic of luck as a pervasive
value applicable to everyday life when she says, “As they say, it’s luck. Not skill” (Dick
). Adorno and Horkheimer note the transformation of roles from the “telephone”
to “radio,” where “[t]he former liberally permitted the participant to play the role of
subject,” while “[t]he latter democratically makes everyone equally into listeners, to
expose them in authoritarian fashion” (). e game medium goes a step further
by conning human participants to the role of pawns in the hands of the Titanians.
Human individuals abandon the traditional American value of striving for success
through hard work, choosing instead to seek instant gratication and recreation
through gambling in Blu. From a collective standpoint, humans’ surrender to the
nonhuman force of luck undermines their agency to resist Titanian colonization
and accept it as mere bad luck for humanity.
CONCLUSION
Dick’s e Game-Players of Titan provides an image of the malevolent Titanians
as avid gamblers, particularly drawn to the Blu board game. rough the Blu
game narrative, the novel illustrates how the Titanians wield the power of luck
to seize human lands after invading Earth. e alien setting on Titan, with alien
life forms and antirealistic events that defy human comprehension and scientic
understanding, along with the nonhuman perceptual focalization through Titanian
characters and the nonhuman force of luck, collectively contribute to humans’
self-perception of their insignicance and vulnerability in the cosmic scope and
their inferiority in relation to the perceived superior Titanians. By incorporating
these nonhuman elements, the nonhuman Blu game narrative defamiliarizes the
historical colonial dynamic, placing all humans in the position of the colonized or
the inferior Other to prompt critical reections on the political, psychological, and
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ideological consequences of colonization on the colonized and highlighting the
need for the colonized to regain agency to resist and defend themselves against
colonization.
e luck-based Blu game mechanic translates into a contingent connecting
principle of events within the ctional world, depriving human players of their
agency to shape the game and story world. Edrei uses “‘forking path’ narrative
structure” as an example of a strategy that provides a “mechanism of choice and
consequence” that “serves to mirror the player’s decisions” to illustrate “player
agency in virtual narratives” (). By contrast, the contingent connecting principle
does not oer players choices and decisions. Instead, it generates curiosity, surprise,
and suspense regarding the unfolding events, emphasizing the active role of luck in
shaping the human future. Human players nd themselves at a disadvantage in the
unjust game of Blu, as the Titanians force human players to stake their properties,
lands, and populations, akin to settler colonization.
Deprived of the agency to shape the game’s outcome, human players attribute
their losses in Blu to mere bad luck. is attribution of losses to bad luck not only
diminishes the human players’ sense of ethical responsibility but also inltrates
their beliefs and values, as they gradually come to believe that bad luck is the
underlying cause for the losses they experience within and beyond the connes of
the game and allows them to evade the need to confront the consequences of their
choices and actions. us, the translation of the luck-based game mechanic into
a belief system among human players elevates Blu from a mere recreation to a
form of cultural industry. By blurring the boundary between game and reality and
reducing humans to mere pawns in the hands of Titanians in the mega-game of life,
Titanians use Blu as an ideological tool to discourage merit, undermine human
agency in resisting alien colonization, and prevent humans from making ethical
choices to defend loved ones and humanity as a whole.
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Abstract
David Foster Wallace’s famous essay “Consider the Lobster” makes a meticulous analysis of
the ethics of boiling a lobster alive, which also emphasizes the irresolvable dilemma between
satisfying human needs and reducing animal cruelty. To be more general, it represents the
dilemma about whether humans should sacrice more in exchange for the benet of the
nonhuman animal, which is also an innate dilemma that almost all animal narratives are
faced with. Based on three major items of zoocriticism initiated by Anna Barcz, this article
investigates three innate dilemmas between humans and the nonhuman animal within animal
narratives, namely () the anthropocentric nature of narrative versus animal autonomy of the
animal agent, () anthropomorphizing the animal agent versus restoration of its animality,
and () the understanding versus misunderstanding of animals as an eect of reading animal
narratives. e article claims that even though the above dilemmas will exist for current and
future works, we can see through these dilemmas and focus on the special characteristics of
animal narratives. Meanwhile, such dilemmatic traits are also the carriers of the distinctive
aesthetic values of animal narratives.
Keywords
anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, animal narrative, David Foster Wallace
About the Author
Xiaomeng Wan is an assistant professor of English at the Department of English, School of
Foreign Studies of Tongji University (Shanghai , China). Her academic interests include
narratology and contemporary American literature.
PAIN, PLEASURE, PREFERENCE
“Consider the Lobster” and Dilemmas of Animal Narratives
Xiaomeng Wan
Tongji University
@tongji.edu.cn
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INTRODUCTION
Human beings have a long history of writing about animals. Ever since the Aesopica
in ancient Greece, people began to imagine the nonhuman animal’s mind and
create such characters in narratives. Writing about nonhuman animals seems to
be a natural occurrence in the history of storytelling—humans have an inherent
fascination with the natural world and its diverse inhabitants, and we have a
natural tendency to anthropomorphize. erefore, nonhuman animals (“animal(s)”
hereafter) have become convenient objects for authors to project human emotions
and actions onto, and readers love to empathize with these animal characters due
to their natural urge to give the reality of nonhumans a “human face” (Grasso et
al. ). Gradually, animal narratives have become a common technique in literary
writing. Animal narratives refer to:
those texts of culture which represent the animal being, behaviour and—even more
promisingly—the animal experience (nonhuman animal). Dierentiating animal
narratives from other types of ction implies that such text cannot be understood
without considering the animal as an agent necessary to grasp the meaning of a text, or,
to put it simply, the agent of meaning. (Barcz )
e ethical implications of employing animal agents for conveying meanings
warrant examination. It is imperative to ensure the fairness and appropriateness of
manipulating animals in such characters, and there is a concern about the precision
with which textual representations align with intended meanings when utilizing
animal agents. Meanwhile, the ecacy of employing animal agents in narratives
varies, as well. In other words, animal narratives explore possibilities of attitudes
towards animals and human-animal relationships, mirroring or deviating from
real-life scenarios. What’s more, the animal agent in narrative can be seen as “the
model and measure of the depth of our ethical duty” (Steves ). A question raised
by David Foster Wallace’s essay “Consider the Lobster” can be helpful in this respect,
exploring the ethics of animal narratives, as well as the dilemmas hidden inside.
e essay “Consider the Lobster”, rst published in the journal Gourmet, was
assigned to Wallace by the journal in order to promote the th Annual Maine
Lobster Festival (MLF). Interestingly, this essay was made into an ironical
discussion of the ethics of boiling the lobster alive as well as a deep questioning
into human-animal relationship. e main body of CTL (short for “Consider
the Lobster” hereafter) focuses on one question, “Is it all right to boil a sentient
creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?”(). e answers diverge into two
perspectives. Advocators for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who are
said to be “fanatic,” “urging boycotts of the Maine Lobster Festival” (), defend
animal rights because they prioritize respecting animals’ preferences regardless of
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the means. Conversely, the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) adopts a neuroscientic
stance, asserting that lobsters lack a cerebral cortex, and thus cannot experience
pain (); this perspective serves as a defense for the continuation of lobster
consumption in consistency with human dietary needs.
In the nal parts of the essay, Wallace’s meticulous analysis progresses, advancing
the discussion by adopting a neutral stance. Rather than standing with either side,
he exercises his own philosophy to make judgments, “To my lay mind, the lobster’s
behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it may well be
that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suering” ().
To dene the lobster’s behavior in the kettle like clawing or escaping as “preference”
represents an attempted compromise between the aforementioned perspectives.
Nevertheless, the underlying issue persists, and Wallace acknowledges maintaining
an ambivalent attitude towards the ethical conict, “what I really am is more
like confused” (). In other words, he fails to get away from “an obvious selsh
interest” in eating a fresh lobster, but cannot stop the self-condemnation of boiling
a lobster alive by his “personal ethical system” (). While the essay acknowledges
that lobsters exhibit a preference to escape when boiled alive, it does not aim
to propose a awless solution. Instead, it intends to highlight the dilemma and
conict of interest between humans and animals, exemplied by individuals, such
as Wallace, who “avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing” ().
In a general sense, the ethical dilemma is about achieving a balance between
human benets and animal well-being. It extends far beyond this specic instance
of boiling a lobster alive, encompassing almost every form of interaction between
humans and animals. is conict is pervasive, unavoidable, and ultimately
irresolvable because of our barriers in communication with animals. Human
beings can hardly imagine what being boiled alive feels like in a lobster’s mind,
nor do they have much knowledge of it. e absence of communication would
inevitably lead to uncertainty and hesitation in making decisions—we don’t fully
understand what’s best for both humans and animals in their relationship, so we
must accept the ethical dilemma as it is. Animal narratives, as an important way for
human beings to reect on our relationship with the animal, are also faced with the
same dilemma discussed by CTL.
In CTL, the primary motivation behind “boiling a lobster alive” is the human
desire for better food, overlooking the lobster’s pain. Similarly, the creation
of animal narratives is primarily driven by human desires for entertainment,
aesthetics, or morality, yet we must consider potential invisible and negative eects
on animals. CTL falls short in providing the optimal solution for the dilemma.
Instead, it emphasizes the uncertainty and complexity of the issue, prompting
readers to notice this issue, contemplate a problem often neglected or overlooked,
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and gauge its ramications (Caracciolo et al. ). Likewise, invisible and intricate
ethical dilemmas exist in animal narratives, crucial for understanding the human-
animal relationship, but frequently disregarded by both authors and readers. To
comprehend the nature and distinct characteristics of animal narratives, it is
imperative to approach these dilemmas from a real-life perspective and to fully
understand them.
e categorization of animal narratives’ dilemmas in this article is based on Anna
Barcz’s illustration of zoocriticism—a theory of animal narratives that contributes
to human-animal relationships in the real world, which “involves the method of
analysing narratives from the perspective of a construed protagonist or animal
agents and their behavioural and emotional repertoire” (). Barcz’s work concludes
three major items when we study the cultures and multiple disciplines related to
animal narratives: () the text of culture that grants autonomy to the nonhuman
animal; () reection on the methods of how such autonomy is achieved; () the
consequences of this autonomy for extending knowledge. Essentially, all three items
are interconnected with the representation of animal autonomy— the condition of
self-government in animal agents, which is closely associated with the dilemmas
of animal narratives discussed in this article. First, it must be acknowledged that
the narrative itself is a human creation, and it depends entirely on human beings
whether the animal agent should be given autonomy or not, and what kind of
autonomy should be granted to the animal agent. Moreover, it is almost impossible
to completely eliminate human manipulation of the text, so authors need to
elaborate on the methods of achieving animal autonomy. Sometimes, the animal
agent has to be anthropomorphized to serve specic purposes. Even when authors
are condent that animal agent is represented as expected, the eects on readers
can deviate greatly from expectations. erefore, this article claims that authors of
animal narratives face three dilemmas: () the anthropocentric nature of narrative
versus the animal autonomy of the animal agent, which is a fundamental question
regarding the balance between the human author and the animal as the narrative
object, focusing on the author’s primary stance on improving the human-animal
relationship in real life; () anthropomorphizing the animal agent versus restoring
its animality, a typical method of human manipulation that represents the process
of creating animal narratives; and () understanding versus misunderstanding
animals as an eect of reading animal narratives, corresponding to the result of
readers engaging with these narratives. e following text will discuss the above
dilemmas on animal narratives’ intention, method, and eect in detail.
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1. RESPECTING OR SUBSTITUTING ANIMAL AUTONOMY OF THE ANIMAL AGENT
CTL’s ambiguous attitude diminishes the urgency of addressing the ethical dilemma
of cooking animals alive, while also highlighting communication barriers between
humans and animals, which provides authors with more opportunities to creatively
manipulate the autonomy of animal agents. is leads to the rst dilemma about
animal autonomy in animal narratives.
e animal, as one of the “other” agents, is a special narrative agent, because
it has its own autonomy—”the ability to choose how to live one’s life” (Singer,
Practical Ethics ). Or, in other words, “To act without autonomy, is to be
manipulated, coerced, or forced to act against our own will, which can result in
various harms, including frustration and suering” (omas ). However, due
to the communication barriers, humans cannot know exactly the truth of animal
autonomy, such as how they make judgements, whether they have rules of action
as humans or not. However, owing to communication barriers, humans cannot
precisely ascertain the truth about animal autonomy, including their decision-
making processes, their rules of action, etc. Currently, academic views vary on
animal autonomy; there are dierent kinds or extents of autonomy attached to
animals. Such diverse viewpoints on animal autonomy can also be seen in literary
works, and it is the author’s choice how to represent this animal autonomy. For
example, authors sharing Wallace’s attitude may prefer not to arbitrarily determine
animal minds—some may choose to enhance animal autonomy to mirror human
characteristics, while a third group may opt to envision and fulll the autonomy
of animals in their imaginative portrayal. Setting out from the perspective of
human interference, there are mainly two types of representing animal autonomy:
to respect it or to substitute it. e ways that authors manipulate narratives to
represent animal autonomy can also reveal the ethical stance of the narrator on
how human beings should treat the animal.
A typical example of respecting animal autonomy can be found in works
containing realist elements. In his conjecture about the lobster, Wallace chooses to
observe it as an object, maintaining a distance and analyzing only available signals
to avoid misjudging the lobster’s “mind.” is approach treats the animal as an
independent yet mysterious individual. e narrator carefully analyzes and draws
conclusions, possibly inuenced by the tendency to keep our species distinct from
others. A similar case is found in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, where the whale
Moby is portrayed as a powerful Leviathan, showing full respect for its mysterious
autonomy. ese respectful attitudes towards animals in narratives reect the
author’s eorts to establish a more equal context for animals, in contrast with the
general prejudice against animals:
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While humans gure as authors of their own lives through culture, society, and politics,
animals are viewed as predetermined by their species nature. is prejudice tends to be
reinforced if we primarily see or study animals in contexts where their agency is radically
suppressed or constrained by human aims, structures, practices, and preconceptions (as
in farms, zoos, labs, etc.). (Blattner et al. )
e above statement contends that contemporary narratives habitually subdue
or restrict animal agency, primarily serving human objectives and thereby
perpetuating bias against other species. Maintaining respect for animals may foster
a less suppressive relationship between humans and animals, as it involves minimal
human interference. Altering the original living conditions of animals, introducing
imagined details, or modifying aspects imparts a perception that humans can
utilize animals according to their preferences, which may give rise to prejudicial
attitudes. As Nussbaum has written, “e fact that humans act in ways that deny
other animals a dignied existence appears to be an issue of justice, and an urgent
one” (B). Minimizing interference with animal autonomy represents a crucial
step toward achieving genuine justice for animals. “About the only features held
constant from one author to another are that autonomy is a feature of persons
and that it is a desirable quality to have” (qtd. in omas ). In a moral context,
the inclination to respect the autonomy of fellow humans during communication
is driven by the reciprocal desire for similar respect. is parallel applies to the
human-animal relationship, where the respect for animal autonomy embodies an
anticipation of fostering an enduring and healthy connection.
However, the approach of respecting animal autonomy, as observed in the
works of Wallace and Melville, is not the only method of conceptualizing animals.
Some authors opt for a dierent path by attempting to elevate animal autonomy to
a human level. ese writers often engage in substantial manipulation of animal
autonomy, endowing animals with human-like elements such as voices, thoughts,
and values, thereby shaping the animal agent to resemble a person more closely. A
representative text is George Orwell’s Animal Farm where anthropomorphic farm
animals think and act human. Animal characters in this work can rebel and discuss
human topics, from rations to retirement age. Similar cases are autobiographical
animal narratives like Black Beauty, I Am a Cat, and e Art of Racing in the Rain,
which include animal narrators that speak in a humanlike manner in order to tell
their stories. Narrators in these texts endeavor to compensate for animal autonomy
by imbuing them with human autonomy, representing a form of “substitution” for
the inherent autonomy of animals. is substitution diminishes the realism of
the narrative, yet it grants readers more extensive access to the inner workings of
animal minds and their worlds.
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Both respecting and substituting animal autonomy reect the author’s endeavor
to express concerns for the nonhuman world; these approaches are intricately
linked to our real-world approach to the human-animal relationship. ey compel
us to contemplate and reassess our interactions with animals in the tangible world.
However, the perspective of respecting animal autonomy mirrors a laissez-faire
policy. Despite limited knowledge of animal cognition, these authors predominantly
focus on narrating what is already known. In alignment with Jeremy Bentham’s
renowned quote, “Each to count for one and none for more than one,” (qtd. in Guidi
) both animals and humans are treated equally. is policy is considered reasonable
for the protection of natural status of animals. As Peter Singer states, “Judging by
our past record, any attempt to change ecological systems on a large scale is going
to do far more harm than good. For that reason, if for no other, it is true to say that,
except in a few very limited cases, we cannot and should not try to police all of
nature” (Singer, Animal Libration ). is approach is in concordance with the
narrative ethics of respecting animal autonomy. e greater the human interference
and the more human spokespersons assigned to the animals, the farther we may
stray from the authentic portrayal of the animal world. Consequently, the practice
of respecting animal autonomy in animal narratives reects ethical considerations
for animals as fully capable agents intending to preserve their natural behaviors.
On the other side, substituting animal autonomy corresponds to another type
of view on animal rights, as represented by Kantian perspectives, asserting that
animals possess value solely as entities contributing to our moral development as
humans. It also aligns with views that emphasize an interrelated connection between
humans and animals. Sue Donaldson has investigated humans’ relationships with
animal groups and concluded that “Rather than cutting o relations between
humans and animals, our longterm vision seeks to explore and embrace the full
possibilities of such relations” (Donaldson and Kymlicka ). She believes that
rather than maintaining a distance from animals, it would be more benecial
to carefully manage relationships using human inuence. e same principle
applies when the author seeks to enhance animal autonomy using human power.
oughtful intervention in animal autonomy can provide readers with insights into
the potential cognitive world of an animal, prompting exploration of the unknown
and imaginative “possibilities of relations.” Highlighting the inuence of humans
could also stimulate a heightened sense of responsibility for animal welfare among
readers.
Animal narrative authors must choose whether to respect or to substitute animal
autonomy, not simply in terms of the interactions between characters, but also in
terms of the approaches to animal agents. “e stories we tell about animals—in
ctional and nonctional accounts, in personal and collective narratives, in verbal,
graphic, and cinematic artifacts—both are shaped by and help shape broader
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cultural understandings of creatural life; these understandings encompass how
we view our relationships with and responsibilities to other- than- human agents
and communities” (Herman ). Regardless of the author’s chosen approach, the
depiction of animal autonomy in animal narratives represents the intended story
world based on the author’s conceptual frame of nature and conveys the author’s
value as well as their stance on maintaining a practical human-animal relationship,
whether the animal is seen as a capable or incapable agent.
2. SPEAKING FOR ANIMALS: ANTHROPOMORPHIZING THE ANIMAL AGENT VS.
RESTORATION OF ANIMALITY
In animal narratives, irrespective of how the author addresses animal autonomy,
another dilemma exists concerning the characterization of animal agents: whether
to render them human-like or animal-like. Essentially, this reects dierent narrative
purposes, specically creating a humanly familiar world or constructing a realistic
animal world. is choice of the author pertains to the preferred communication
method with the reader and it is a second decision to make after the rst dilemma
about the treatment of animal autonomy which is discussed in the previous section.
In other words, if an author has decided to substitute/respect the autonomy of
an animal agent, they may continue to hesitate whether to incorporate human
language in animals—making their conversations human-like and the story more
understandable—or to introduce some imagined animal elements to compensate
for the unknown aspects of the animal’s habits.
Fundamentally, writing about animals entails exploring a group unfamiliar to
human beings. Despite animals being omnipresent in our lives, there remains much
to discover about these nonhuman creatures. Our curiosity about animals persists,
and we are drawn to animal narratives that, to some extent, satisfy this curiosity
and enable us to delve into the fantastical possibilities of animal minds. Given
this premise, whether the author aims to humanize or animalize the animal agent,
their narratives must encompass the portrayal of the “other” and the “aesthetics of
alterity,” where “alterity” is revealed by providing access to the animal as the other.
However, dierent eects of “alterity” emerge through the processes of humanizing
and animalizing animal agents.
Before analyzing the dierent aesthetics, it is necessary to have a comparison
between human-like and animal-like agents to show their major dierences. For all
kinds of nonhuman entities, “they perform three narrative functions, respectively:
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telling, acting, and observing” (Shang ). All three functions can be found in
animal agents. Correspondingly, human-like agents and animal-like agents bear
dierences mainly in communication, behavior, and perspective. For example,
when animal tellers are made human-like, their narratives often unfold in a logical
and organized manner. ey can adeptly describe, argue, and analyze, presenting
a mode of communication akin to humans. In the novel Black Beauty, the
protagonist, a horse, demonstrates this by recognizing the need to explain certain
terms to the narratee: “Every one may not know that breaking in is, therefore I will
describe it. It means to teach a horse to wear a saddle and bridle, and to carry on
his back a man, woman, or child” (Sewell ). e animal narrator exhibits logical
thinking and provides an accurate denition of the term “breaking in,” resembling
human communication. In contrast, when tellers are animalized, they become
less articulate storytellers. Authors employing this approach sometimes employ
a more simplistic and immature language to emulate the limited intelligence of
animals. An example can be found in e Art of Racing in the Rain, where the
dog’s monologue sounds like a child’s speech, utilizing simple words and logic: “He
lifts my butt into the air and centers my weight over my legs and then I’m okay.
To show him, I rub my muzzle against his thigh” (). Even when Denny, the dog’s
master, annoys his girlfriend with his enthusiasm for car racing, the dog remains
devoted to him: “I will never tire of watching tapes with Denny. He knows so much,
and I have learned so much from him. He said nothing more to me; he continued
watching his tapes” (-). is technique aims to capture the essence of animal
communication and cognition, distancing itself from the more complex language
associated with human narration.
Concerning behaviors, humanized animals are often depicted engaging in
activities typically associated with humans, including wearing clothes, using
technological devices, or participating in social activities resembling human
societies. ese animals may also exhibit complex human emotions such as
ambition or sarcasm. An illustration of this can be found in George Orwell’s Animal
Farm, where Major, a boar, delivers a speech to the animals, sharing his vision of a
farm liberated from human tyranny. Additionally, the “comrades” in the farm sing
songs together, an event that “threw the animal into a wildest excitement” (Orwell
). On the other hand, animalized agents display fewer human behaviors and
instead, exhibit behaviors more closely aligned with real animals. ese behaviors
are specic to the respective animals, such as horses whinnying, frogs croaking,
cats purring, and so on. As an example, in e Call of the Wild, “ere was no
warning, only a leap in like a ash, a metallic clip of teeth, a leap out equally swift,
and Curly’s face was ripped open from eye to jaw” (London ). Similarly, in e
Art of Racing in the Rain, the dog says, “I nosed in and buried my face between her
legs” (). Furthermore, some authors prefer adopting animalized perspectives to
facilitate readers’ immersion into the world of animal agents, as seen in the seagull
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Jonathan’s adventure, narrated from a third-person perspective: “He began his
pullout at a thousand feet, wingtips thudding and blurring in that gigantic wind,
the boat and the crowd of gulls tilting and growing meteor-fast, directly in his
path” (Bach ). Conversely, other authors adopt a human perspective to depict the
animal world in a more familiar manner.
In simple terms, humanization involves “transforming” an animal agent into
a human being, although the agent may still dier due to its unfamiliarity with
human behaviors and values. On the other hand, animalization resembles a
crude imitation and imaginative portrayal of another creature that still retains
characteristics indicative of human craftsmanship. In fact, it is common for a
single animal narrative to incorporate both human-like and animal-like elements.
e purpose of distinguishing between anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing is
not to rigidly dene or categorize animal narratives, but to understand the distinct
aesthetic eects of these two approaches.
In e Novel and the New Ethics, Hale asks a question concerning the universal
puzzle in writing about the other: “Is a failure to achieve alterity an ethical weakness?
A deciency of imagination? A political limit? An artistic incapacity?” (). When
writing about unfamiliar agents, even just about those characters of dierent
gender, age, or cultural identity, authors may harbor inaccurate imaginations of
them, which is sometimes criticized as a failure or an ethical weakness. In a similar
vein, writing about animals also falls into this category of a risky task. It is plausible
that the narrative may not precisely convey the animal mind or perspective.
Nevertheless, this is an almost unavoidable challenge for authors delving into the
portrayal of the “other.” erefore, it becomes crucial to examine how authors
navigate and address alterity in their narratives. In animal narratives, when authors
incorporate more humanized elements, alterity is intentionally neglected. Such
narratives purposefully result in a “failure” where the animal agent possesses an
animal appearance and, perhaps, some animal behaviors, but is equipped with
human thoughts and certain human behaviors. is may generate cognitive
dissonance in readers, prompting questions about why a non-human creature is
engaging in human-like actions. Simultaneously, these narratives tend to enhance
an anthropocentric view, reecting traditional notions of human superiority
over other creatures. However, authors may nd it necessary to sacrice “ethical
correctness” of representing the other, in order to delve into more profound values
such as symbolism, irony, or morality, as in the successes of Animal Farm and
Black Beauty.
e restoration of animality also entails risks, albeit in a dierent aspect. e risk
lies not only in accurately mimicking real animals but also in the author’s subjective
characterization of the animal agent, which may deviate from the reader’s cognitive
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expectations. Furthermore, there is a risk of introducing incomplete animality,
necessitating the inclusion of humanized elements for clarity. For instance, in e
Art of Racing in the Rain, the dog Enzo’s monologue claims that it cannot speak
and can only use “gestures,” and there are many things it wants to communicate
that “gestures can’t explain” (), suggesting the limitation of the dog’s language
capability, which aligns with reality. When the dog recounts its childhood story, it
acquires a remarkably clear memory and demonstrates knowledge that extends
beyond typical canine capacities. For instance, the dog asserts, “I never knew my
father. e people on the farm told Denny that he was a shepherd-poodle mix, but
I don’t believe it” (). is sudden display of knowledge surpassing typical canine
awareness creates a narrative dissonance, as it implies a temporary shift in the
dog’s perspective towards human-like cognition. ese statements are necessary
for the background of Enzo, but they contribute to an unreal impression of the dog,
blurring the distinction between its canine nature and human-like comprehension.
“Humans cannot access dogs’ minds, sure, but short of naïve realists making
good on their claims, neither can humans access fully what dogs’ eyes reect or
project” (Frank ). No matter how the author manipulates the animal agent, a
disparity between human and animal perception continues to remain.
While the anthropomorphism nature of narrative makes it impossible to
perfectly restore the animality, mentioning the risks is not to imply that these
dissonances constitute defects. On the contrary, given their inevitability, certain
dissonances can be perceived as distinctive aesthetics within animal narratives.
rough these narrative nuances, readers can appreciate the author’s endeavors
to compensate for the inherent incomplete animality, akin to exploring various
continuations of an open-ended story. Ultimately, the task of animal narratives
does not lie in a precise representation of real animals. In the realm of animal
narratives, particularly within literary texts, the paramount objective is to
provide readers with an “ethical encounter with alterity” (Hale ). is echoes
J.M. Coetzee’s perspective, as expressed in Elizabeth Costello’s concept of poetry
which “does not try to nd an idea in the animal, that is not about the animal,
but is instead the record of an engagement with him” (). As a result, author and
reader must take up the imaginative challenge of seeing the other species from an
unfamiliar point of view; on the other hand, “the experience of otherness demands
an encounter with the limits of intelligibility, experienced as the resistance of the
stranger to becoming a familiar” (Hale ). Indeed, authors possess the freedom to
select either humanized or animalized approaches in their narratives. It is equally
true that inherent dissonances and associated risks persist, oering readers diverse
experiences of otherness and emphasizing the beauty of the dierences between
humans and animals.
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3. THE UNDERSTANDING VS. MISUNDERSTANDING OF ANIMALS AS THE EFFECT
OF READING ANIMAL NARRATIVES
“Animals, framed either individually or as a collective identity, are the others against
which humanity measures itself” (Baker ). While animal narratives typically deviate
from reality, oering experiences of alterity, they maintain a close relationship with
the real-world human-animal relationship, inuencing our “measurement” of the
distance between humans and animals. is underscores the necessity to consider
the social function of animal narratives and the intentional or unintentional impact
they have on readers. Animal narratives can change readers’ attitudes toward real-
world animals. Just as in CTL, the pamphlets from the MLF organizer or PETA
can persuade the reader to decide whether they should eat lobsters that have been
cooked alive. “e truth is that if you, the festival attendee, permit yourself to think
that lobsters can suer and would rather not, the MLF begins to take on the aspect
of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest” (). Likewise, animal
narratives play an essential role in guiding readers to determine their perspectives
on and treatment of animals. Even though the author cannot exert complete
control over readers’ interpretations, it is benecial for animal narrative authors
to be cognizant of the fact that there can be potential directions and misdirections
inherent in their narratives. is awareness is particularly valuable when their
intention is to serve appropriate social functions.
An evident eect of animal narratives is the cultivation of sympathy and
attachment. ese narratives engage the reader into an unfamiliar identity,
fostering a connection between actual readers and the depicted animal agents. As
Darwin has stated,
Sympathy beyond the connes of man […] is virtue, one of the noblest which man is
endowed, seems to arise incidentally from our sympathies becoming more tender and
more widely diused, until they are extended to all sentient beings. As soon as this virtue
is honoured and practiced by some few men, it spreads through instruction and example
to the young, and eventually becomes incorporated in public opinion. ()
Animal narratives, as one representative of “public opinion,” have such diusible
sympathy manifested in various ways. For the general population who view the
animal as the “other” species beyond human, animal narratives, especially those
which contain anthropomorphized animal agents may help them to foster “solidarity
and sympathy” with animals when animals are treated like mindful, intentional or
“subjective” beings (qtd. in Herman ), which allows for a more empathetic and
interconnected understanding of the world. e possible reason is that human-
directed empathy can be amplied by perceived similarity in terms of appearance,
personality and racial group, and familiarity in terms of social closeness and previous
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positive experiences (Prato-Previde et al. ). is might explain why characters like
Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web and the cat in Puss in Boots become popular among all
ages—because they exhibit human behaviors and emotions, fostering a sense of
familiarity. It is undeniable that the primary directive function of animal narratives
is to bring human beings closer to other species in the world, serving as a reminder
for us to nurture and attend to our relationship with them.
Nevertheless, animal narratives are like a double-edged sword that can easily
cause misunderstanding and misdirection as well. In the contemporary era, not
everyone has opportunities to directly encounter and learn about various animals
worldwide. Consequently, individuals often acquire knowledge about animals
primarily through second-hand information, including narratives presented in
mass media. is elevates the signicance of animal narratives in shaping our
understanding of animals, making it more susceptible to potential misimpressions.
Undeniably, animal narratives, as has been mentioned, particularly those featuring
anthropomorphized agents, play a crucial role in fostering mutual understanding
between humans and animals. e success in eliciting sympathy and establishing
connections can be attributed, in part, to humans’ inherent tendency to perceive
the world through an anthropocentric lens, such as humanized animal characters
or the familiar narrative forms we are accustomed to. However, “indulging” this
tendency may lead to misconceptions of animal species as well (qtd. in Grasso et
al. ), which mainly include the misunderstandings on animal or human-animal
relationships, together with anthropocentrism that might limit our view of the
biosphere.
In the present era, it seems that the anthropocentric portrayal of animals in
narratives has become a widespread phenomenon. We embrace animal characters
that exhibit human-like traits in literature, cartoons, or video games. We are
accustomed to humans’ favorite perspectives of observing animals, scrutinizing
wild animals through screens, or reading intricate details about rare creatures
such as whales, dinosaurs, and mammoths. Sometimes these enjoyments can be
“perilous” experiences. e rst concern is that with a large amount of manipulated
animal agents in narratives, readers can easily form inaccurate impressions of
animals. A typical case is the “Disney gaze”, which means the customization of
animals made by children’s lm (represented by Disney lm) to meet the needs of
its target audience—young children. Such lms are the man-made representations
of the natural world, which manipulate emotions of the viewer (Nichols ). In e
Lion King (), there are talking lions such as Simba and Mufasa. In Winnie the
Pooh (), a honey-loving bear named Winnie, who wears a red T-shirt, plays
with his friends, including a pig, a tiger, a donkey, and others. In Zootopia (), a
bunny police ocer named Judy wears a uniform and befriends a fox named Nick.
In these children’s lms, the animals exhibit anthropomorphic characteristics,
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behaving and interacting like humans. ey wear clothes, walk with two feet, sing
songs, and tell jokes. e main characters usually appear friendly, smart, and non-
aggressive. Children indeed adore these anthropomorphized animal characters,
yet they might not discern that the real-life prototypes are not necessarily as
endearing. For such modern forms of bildungsroman, some of the most important
Bildungsroman traits—self-development, adjustment, and reconciliation with the
world (Tzouva )—are missing, because the audiences are not presented with an
accurate understanding of wildlife. Certain wild animals, such as tigers and bears,
are portrayed as agreeable in these lms; however, in reality, these animals can
pose signicant dangers to humans. Taking Goldilocks and the ree Bears ()
as an example, this is a tale in which a young girl named Goldilocks enters the
house of three bears, tries their porridge, chairs, and beds, and ultimately learns a
lesson about respecting others’ property when the bears return home. e bears in
the story live in a cottage, cook porridge and sleep in beds. Even though this story
highlights the potential danger of bears, it may also perpetuate misconceptions
about their diet and habits. In reality, bears typically seek shelter in caves or hollow
trees and have an omnivorous diet consisting of berries, nuts, sh, and occasionally
small mammals, contrasting with the portrayal in the lm. Moreover, the way in
which people manipulate animal narratives contains misdirection as well. For
example, in nature lms and documentaries, the use of close-up shots provides
a misleading sense of intimacy between the audience and wildlife. e audience
may have a misconception that humans can safely observe any wild animal at close
proximity. Meanwhile, some voiceovers that intend to illustrate or entertain may
give the impression that animals can have human-like thoughts (qtd. in Grasso et
al. ).
When it comes to literary works, especially those resembling the realistic
description of animals, the animal agent’s humanized mental activities can provide
similar misconceptions. As a result, readers might inadvertently equate the mental
world of animals with that of humans. An example is e Art of Racing in the
Rain, which is an autobiographical narrative of a dog. is work presents Enzo’s
monologues, including human mental activities like trust, respect, and belief. In
fact, research shows that the high-level cognitive skills of dog may probably be
based on the common impression of dog, which can depart from reality because
of the emotional closeness between dog and human beings (Howell et al. ).
Characters like Enzo may emphasize such emotional closeness and similarity,
consequently reinforcing such “common impression.” In a word, false intimacy
and false resemblance to human beings in animal narratives may bring false
impressions about animals, and nally lead to misunderstandings of human-
animal relationships. An even more subtle eect of such misunderstandings is the
misconception of the power relationship between humans and nature. In animal
documentaries, it seems that observers can come close to animals without being
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hurt. In animal autobiographies, human writers know everything that happens
within the animal’s mind. If the audience or reader lacks awareness of the technology
and meticulous approach employed in photographing wild animals or overlooks
the imaginative capacity of authors, they may develop the misconception that
humans are omnipotent and the sole rulers of the world, when actually, humans are
still vulnerable in the face of dangerous beasts, and we don’t know much about the
animal’s mind. However, in animal narratives, there can be such misdirection. As
Patricia Ganea and her co-authors state: “Books that anthropomorphize animals
may lead children to take a scientically inaccurate view of the natural world by
attributing human-like characteristics to non-human animals. is eect may be
a result of seeing depictions of animals like humans (wearing clothes and engaging
in human-like activities) and/or hearing descriptions of animals that include
references to intentional human-like states and activities” ().
Even though there can be misdirection in animal narratives, it does not mean
that animal narratives are “dangerous.” In some cases, humans have the inherent
ability to tell the boundary between human and animals, and we are more or less
aware of the ctionality of anthropomorphism. An example is the fairy tale writing,
“To ensure that the moral of a story will be translated into children’s action, the
story should contain human characters, not anthropomorphized animal characters.
[…] For stories with anthropomorphized animal characters, many children may
nd them not to be relatable and thus not act according to the moral of the story”
(Larsen et al. ). Nowadays, readers do not easily fall into misunderstandings about
animals. However, there are still possibilities for readers to feel comfortable with
the anthropocentrism and therefore grow false conceptions from animal narratives.
e coexistence of direction and misdirection poses another dilemma for animal
narrative authors, as they have to contend with diverse interpretations from readers
and be aware of potential misunderstandings.
CONCLUSION
As David Herman stated, “one way of describing the brief of a narratology beyond
the human is to say that it aims to map out, both genealogically and in the context
of any given account, the interplay between anthropocentric and biocentric
storytelling traditions, and to explore how specic narrative practices emerge
from—and feed back into—this dialectical interplay” (). e above discussion of
animal narratives also intends to discover the complex nature of animal narratives
caused by the interplay between anthropocentric and biocentric storytelling
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traditions, releasing three dilemmas that are inevitable for an animal narrative
author. rough these three major dilemmas, we are able to have a clearer look
at the choices to be made in the writing of animals as nonhuman others. First,
respecting or substituting the autonomy of the animal agent indicates the author’s
primary stance on the human-animal relationship, which sets the tone for the
entire narrative. Second, regarding the method of writing, the author must choose
between anthropomorphizing the animal agent and restoring its animality. Even
though neither approach can be perfectly executed, both oer an aesthetics of
alterity, presenting various manifestations of the boundary between humans and
animals. ird, there is a dilemma concerning the eect of the animal narrative
on the reader’s understanding or misunderstanding of animals, a factor only
partially controllable by the author. is highlights the potential risk inherent in
the acceptance and interpretation of animal narratives.
In conclusion, it is the author who dictates the portrayal of the animal agent
in animal narratives and assumes the dilemmatic position of grappling with the
risks inherent in representing animals as “the other.” Authors of animal narratives
arguably take greater responsibilities than their peers, given that their work is
intimately connected to how we perceive and interact with the natural world.
Consequently, those who invest more time in contemplating the uncertainties and
dilemmas of animal representation are, in essence, making signicant contributions
to the long-term sustainability and ethical evolution of human society.
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Notes
. Zoocriticism, a distinct branch within the realm of postcolonial ecocriticism, was
initiated by Huggan and Tin, with the primary objective of interlinking the literary
representation of animals with the practical advocacy of animal rights. It encompasses
a critical examination of several intersecting domains: () the literary depiction of
nonhuman animals, which signicantly inuences societal attitudes and ethical stances,
() the narrative eects on the discourse of animal ethics, welfare, and conservation,
illustrating the profound impact of storytelling on these critical issues, and () the
scientic exploration of animal cognition and mental processes, emphasizing the
necessity for empirical research to inform our understanding of animal subjectivity. is
approach signicantly contributes to the broader academic dialogue on environmental
ethics and the study of animal minds. For further details, see Huggan, Graham and Helen
Tin. Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. London: Routledge,
.
. e term “aesthetics of alterity” comes from the discussion about the novelist’s duty
to represent otherness in Dorothy J. Hale’s work e Novel and the New Ethics ().
Hale argues that there exist irreconcilable paradoxes in the novelist’s representation of
the other in perspectives, voices, and ideologies, while such paradoxical narratives can
provide feelings of estrangement and “depict otherness as the dening feature of the
novel as a social world” ().
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
is article is supported by “e Writing of ‘Urban Disease’ in David Foster Wallace’s
Fictions” (ZWY) of Shanghai Planning Oce of Philosophy and Social
Science and “A Study of the ‘New Sincerity’ Movement and Critiques of Consumer
Culture in Contemporary American Fiction” (YJC) of Department of
Social Sciences, Ministry of Education, P.R.C.
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Li / From Clones To Robots 281
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Abstract
Kazuo Ishiguro’s two uncanny novels Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun delineate the
status quo and destiny of cloned beings and robots in the new era of articial intelligence,
and this article attempts to examine the non-human narration in Ishiguro’s above mentioned
ctions in order to explore questions such as what exactly constitutes a human being and what
it means to be human. From the perspective of non-human narrative theory, the article claims
that the cloned beings and robots are merely non-humans or “the hollow men without hearts,”
which leads consequentially to their destructive destiny. en, through dissecting the miserable
destiny of non-human entities, the article contends that Ishiguro’s sui generis narrative practice
problematizes ethical issues such as human nature, the relationship between humans and
non-humans, and the future development of articial intelligence. In eect, the non-human
narrative per se is a potent censure on societal and scientic inhumanity and anthropocentrism
as the source.
Keywords
articial intelligence, ethical implication, Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun, Never Let Me Go,
non-human narrative,
FROM CLONES TO ROBOTS
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Non-Human Narrative and Its Ethical
Implications
Minrui Li
Huazhong Agricultural University
barcocolmr@mail.hzau.edu.cn
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About the Author
Minrui Li, PhD, is an associate professor of English at Huazhong Agricultural University, China.
His research interests include narrative theory, ethical literary criticism, and Anglophone
ction. His recent publications include “‘Not Magical Realism, but Nightmarish Realism’: e
Unnatural Narrative and Its Ethical Interpretation of Short Stories by Hassan Blasim” in the
Journal of Zhejiang International Studies University (), “Defamiliarization, Impossibility
and Anti-Mimetic: On the Past, Present and Future of the Unnatural Narrative eory” in
Central China Humanities (), “Transborder, Intercommunication, and Innovation: A
Review on Unnatural Narrative across Borders: Transnational and Comparative Perspectives”
in Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature (), and “A New Perspective of Narrative Studies: A
Review of On Spatial Narrative in Fiction” in Forum for World Literature Studies ().
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INTRODUCTION
e last two decades have witnessed the rapid advance of articial intelligence,
such as robotics, androids, clones, and man-made humans, and writers around
the world have been busy tracking the phenomena with their poetic pen touch.
e Anglo-Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro (- ) is one of the best writers who
have all along focused on the impact of articial intelligence on humanity. During
the recent two decades, Ishiguro has published two works centered on articial
intelligence, namely, Never Let Me Go () and Klara and the Sun (), which
arouse great attention and heated debate around the world. Attention and debate
are frequently drawn toward and often linger upon the political and generic issues.
Some critics consider that the former novel serves as “‘’ for the Bioengineering
Age” (Browning ), while some critics regard it as a “speculative novel that debates
over generic manipulation’s possible consequences” (Arias ). However, other
critics deem that the novels employ the narrative of “a mild and melancholy dystopia”
(Toker and Cheto ) to depict the destruction of clones and robots, and some
critics think that Ishiguro’s newest novel puts forward a question ethically, “can
machines replace humans?”, and the question, to some extent, “is not an issue for
robots to deal with, but instead a problem for humans to confront and resolve”
(Shang, “Can Machines Replace Humans” ).
Grounded on these discussions, this article attempts to examine the “non-human
narration” in Ishiguro’s above mentioned ctions in order to explore ethical issues
such as what exactly constitutes a human being and what it means to be human.
Biwu Shang denes “non-human narration” as narration that “organizes events
involving ‘non-human entities’ into a text” (“Non-Human Narratives: Concepts,
Types and Functions” ). Clearly, grasping the denition of “non-human entities”
is crucial for understanding and interpreting non-human narration. Generally
speaking, “non-human entities mainly exist at two levels: the story level, where
they appear as characters; and the discourse level, where they appear as narrators”
(Shang, “Non-Human Narratives: Concepts, Types and Functions” ). Of course,
there are some specic cases in which non-human entities exist simultaneously at
both levels.
e article contends, therefore, that through the technique of non-human
narration in the novels, Ishiguro showcases the dilemmas faced by humanity in
the post-human era and the fundamental problems of being human. Put simply,
it is through the non-human narrative technique that Ishiguro connects these
two novels together, making himself “so special, and so unlike most other writers”
(Murakami vii). By telling the stories via the “non-human voices” (Paz ), Ishiguro
problematizes ethical issues, such as the nature of humans, the complex relationship
between a clone or a robot and a human, and the future development of articial
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intelligence in particular. In eect, Ishiguro’s non-human narrative practice per se
is a potent censure on societal and scientic inhumanity and anthropocentrism as
the source in general.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF NON-HUMANS: THE HOLLOW MAN
If Never Let Me Go can be considered as the outset of Ishiguro’s contemplation on
the status quo and destiny of articial intelligence, then Klara and the Sun, globally
released in April , is an extension of his reection on the fate of humanity. In the
former novel, no matter how hard the clones learn reading, writing, and painting,
and are even encouraged to be creative, they are still ultimately raised for organ
harvests. e fundamental reason why they are treated like animals is their “non-
human identity.” To be exact, clones lack a certain attribute that belongs exclusively
to humans. Shang claims that it is a “human heart” that makes humans special and
individual. en, the question becomes: What is a “human heart”? Shang indicates
that a “human heart is not just an organ in the biological sense, but a gurative use
in the poetic or literary sense to refer to what makes a person special and individual
. . . . In other words, the human heart becomes an important watershed between a
human and a machine” (“Can Machines Replace Humans” ). In Never Let Me Go,
although Ishiguro does not explicitly propose that a “human heart” is the essential
attribute distinguishing humans from non-humans, he time and again utilizes
another term in the novel, that is, the “soul.” In the time of Homer, the Greek
word corresponding to “soul” is “psyché” (ψυχή). According to the interpretation
of A Greek-English Lexicon, the primary meaning of “psyché” is “to breathe” (,),
indicating the act of breathing or being alive, and simultaneously referring to the
essence of human life. And its extended meaning is “soul,” which corresponds to
the human body, presenting itself in a person while alive and leaving after death. By
contrast, in the era of Plato (insert year here), “human soul” and “human heart” are
almost synonymous. Plato believes that “our soul is immortal and never perishes”
(), and he advocates that “we should believe the soul to be immortal, capable of
enduring all evil and all good” (). Although Plato’s lifelong focus is on politics
and civic education, Werner Jaeger asserts, “the ultimate interest of Plato’s Republic
is the human soul. Everything else he says about the state and its structure (the
organic conception of the state, as it is called, which many believe to be the real
core of Republic) is introduced merely to give an ‘enlarged image’ of the soul and its
structure” (). Plato further divides the “enlarged image” of the “human soul” or
“human heart” into three parts, namely, “reason,” “passion,” and “desire,” which are
extensively discussed in academia at home and abroad. To make a long story short,
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the analysis of the “human heart” by ancient Greek sages is profoundly insightful
and thought-provoking.
Since the “human heart” is the foundation of human life, the source of human
vitality, and provides a unique attribute of humanity, does a clone possess a
“human heart”? ere have been assumptions that in the eyes of humans, non-
human entities, such as ora and fauna, among others, are incapable of thinking or
imagining. For example, Aristotle believes, “of all animals man alone is capable of
deliberation . . . . No other creature except man can recall the past at will” (). at
is to say, the ability to “deliberate and recall the past at will” is unique to humans.
Following Aristotle’s thread of thought, then, the denition proposed by Ryan Calo
et al. regarding the “non-human identity” of clones seems untenable. Calo et al.
claims in his book Robot Law that “we must avoid the Android Fallacy. Robots,
even sophisticated ones, are just machines. ey will be no more than machines
for the foreseeable future, and we should design our legislation accordingly. Falling
into the trap of anthropomorphism will lead to contradictory situations” (). In
other words, no matter how sophisticated intelligent robots or cloned individuals
are, they are still pathetically considered as man-“made” rather than naturally
“begotten” products (Macintosh ). For instance, at the outset of Never Let Me Go,
the protagonist Kathy, a cloned being, tells the readers that she always wants to
forget the past but fails each time. She says, “there have been times over the years
when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look
back so much” (Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go ). Later, when Kathy works as a “carer”
for ailing organ donors, she always looks forward to the end of the year because it
allows her to “stop and think and remember” (). Moreover, she “has been getting
this urge to order all these old memories” within herself (). At the end of the novel,
Kathy also states, “e memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost
Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them” (). Doesn’t this
“deliberation and recalling” precisely demonstrate that clones can “recall” memories
like humans? However, since clones can “deliberate and recall” like humans, why
are they still treated merely as organ “donors”? is paradoxical situation of the
clones in the narrative expresses Ishiguro’s sympathy and condemnation for the
tragic destiny of clones, or non-human entities in general. By presenting clones
used solely for the purpose of organ donation, albeit a practice that is illegal or
contrary to established research regulations, the novel makes readers aware of
what could happen in the absence of adequate legislation and ethical guidelines.
In his novels, Ishiguro constantly comes up with new formal and thematic
surprises. e newest novel Klara and the Sun starts from the perspective of the
solar-powered robot, and further explores the essential attribute of being a human
and the inner contradictions that dene what humanity means. e title of the
novel juxtaposes the robot Klara with the sun, carrying a profound signicance.
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According to Plato, the sun is the source of light and corresponds to the form of
goodness. e sun symbolizes truth and goodness, and without it, everything is
dim, eyesight is blurry, and the visible world is obscured (Wang ). is scene in
the phenomenal realm indicates the dual nature of the visible world—both true
and illusory. Plato, in Republic, states:
Light is extremely important, serving as the link between the faculty of sight and the
ability to be seen. So the power which it has—the ability to see—it receives from the sun.
... e sun, corresponding to the form of the good, not only makes the perception clearly
visible but also causes them to come into being, grow, and be nourished. (Plato, Republic
Part VI -)
As a robot, Klara comprehends well the importance of the sun to her own existence.
She often reminds her companion Rosa, too: “I tried to remind her about the Sun’s
nourishment, how important that was, and I wondered aloud if her room would
be easy for the Sun to look into” (Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun ). e sun is the
source of vitality for robots like Klara and Rosa, and with the sun they can observe
the real world through their eyes. Klara discovers that the more carefully she
observes, the more interesting the world becomes. She says, “e more I watched,
the more I wanted to learn . . . . I became puzzled, then increasingly fascinated
by the more mysterious emotions passers-by would display in front of us” (). It
is from the sun that she gains the energy to observe and understand the world,
enabling her to better assist other children, striving to be “as kind and helpful an AF
(articial friend) as possible” (). Klara’s kindness, selessness, and consideration
indeed make her beloved by her young owner Josie and her family as well. Even
Josie’s mother attempts to replace her ailing daughter, intending to “continue Josie”
(). However, what Klara receives from the sun is not merely “nourishment” but
goodness. When Josie’s mother decides to give up saving her own daughter, Klara
refuses to abandon all hope and miraculously saves Josie. But ironically, like Kathy,
Klara does not receive the owner’s appreciation and special care. Instead, she is
casually “discarded” into the scrap heap, essentially marking her death as an AF in
the end.
Specically, in Never Let Me Go, the method of “completion” for clones is
through organ “donation,” which is tangible and visible; slightly dierent in Klara
and the Sun, the “termination” method for robots is “sacrice,” oering seless and
altruistic love, which is intangible and invisible. However, where does their seless
and altruistic love originate? Ishiguro does not provide readers with a clear answer,
but he subtly but paradoxically points to its source: the “human heart.” eir “hearts”
can be seen through their artworks and lives, their relationships with humans, and
accompanying emotions, which explicitly illuminate their humanness. ere is a
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scene in Klara and the Sun involving a conversation between Josie’s father Paul and
Klara, which might oer readers some hints and insights:
Paul: en let me ask you something else. Let me ask you this. Do you believe in
the human heart? I don’t mean simply the organ, obviously. I’m speaking in the poetic
sense. e human heart. Do you think there is such a thing? Something that makes
each of us special and individual? And if we just suppose that there is. en don’t you
think, in order to truly learn Josie, you’d have to learn not just her mannerism but what’s
deeply inside her? Wouldn’t you have to learn her heart?... And that could be dicult,
no? Something beyond even your wonderful capabilities. Because an impersonation
wouldn’t do, however skillful. You’d have to learn her heart, and learn it fully, or you’ll
never become Josie in any sense that matters.
Klara: e heart you speak of, it might indeed be the hardest part of Josie to learn. It
might be like a house with many rooms. Even so, a devoted AF, given time, could walk
through each of those rooms, studying them carefully in turn, until they became like her
own home. (Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun –)
Paul and Klara both recognize the complexity and uniqueness of the “human
heart.” However, Klara’s blind condence precisely indicates that she has not fully
understood or grasped the mysteries of the “human heart.” e complexity is not
merely reected in the external emotions of the people she observes through the
shop window but lies deep within. Disputes among passers-by, the reunion of the
coee lady and the raincoat man, ghts between taxi drivers, the entanglement
between Paul, his wife, and his daughter, the love-hate relationship between
Vance, his wife, and his children, and the ambiguous relationship between Josie
and Rick are all aspects that Klara and Rosa cannot comprehend as robots. Paul
directly points out Klara’s problems and states that the “human heart” is like a
house, “rooms within rooms within rooms . . . . No matter how long you wandered
through those rooms, wouldn’t there always be others you’d not yet entered?” ().
As the novel unfolds, Klara indeed struggles to comprehend the complex emotions
of humans, still being “not sure if he (a small old man Klara sees in the window
who is meeting with the “Coee Cup Lady”) was very happy or very upset while
his eyes tightly shut” (). Sometimes she even “tried to feel the anger the drivers
had experienced . . . . tried to imagine me and Rosa getting angry with each other
to ght like that, actually trying to damage each other’s bodies” (). Although
she feels these thoughts laughable and even ridiculous, “it was useless . . . always
end up with laughing at her own thoughts” (). As for this, Klara confesses her
confusion at the end of the novel, saying, “however hard I tried, I believe now there
would have remained something beyond my reach. e Mother, Rick, Melania
Housekeeper, the Father. I’d never have reached what they felt for Josie in their
hearts. I am now sure of this” (-). Indeed, virtues like kindness, selessness,
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and dedication are only some of the facets of a “human heart,” and the authentic
“human heart” is far more complex.
It is because of the diculties in grasping the intricacies of a “human heart” that
robots and clones are often considered to lack a “human heart.” erefore, they
are consistently excluded from humanity, treated as non-humans, and sometimes
even faced with hostility or rejection. Humans resist these non-human entities
occupying seats in theaters, competing for jobs in the labor market, and taking over
family or societal positions. For example, in Klara and the Sun, someone angrily
condemns robots, “rst they take the jobs. en they take the seats at the theater”
(). Humans’ rejection and hostility toward non-humans lead consequentially to
the miserable destiny of clones and robots as they ultimately face being “completed”
or “discarded.”
FROM THE OPERATING TABLE TO THE SCRAP HEAP: INESCAPABLE DESTINY OF
DESTRUCTION
In , upon its publication, Never Let Me Go immediately received widespread
acclaim and garnered great favor around the world. e novel tells the tragic destiny
of a group of clones in a boarding school named Hailsham. e narrator, Kathy, is
the non-human entity at both the story level and the discourse level. She narrates
the story of herself, Tommy, and Ruth in the rst person—three clones who, after
undergoing few rounds of organ “donations,” ultimately face “completion.”
e central characters in the story are clones raised in Hailsham, which lies
in “a smooth hollow with elds rising on all sides” (Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
). Actually, they are conned, and the only thing they must and can do there
is to maintain good health to ensure the smooth progress of organ harvests. It is
evident that in the eyes of humans, clones are a group of non-human animals. eir
existence is solely for “supplying medical science” (), helping humanity overcome
challenging conditions, such as cancer, heart disease, or motor neuron disease.
eir doomed destiny is to be slaughtered like animals, serving as substitutes for
human life extension.
Certainly, the subordinate status of animals has always been the case.
“According to Aristotle’s view, the value of animals is to serve humans; humans
dominate animals, and humans have no moral obligation to animals” (Nie “From
Anthropocentrism to Human Subjectivity” ). us, humans “preferred to believe
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these organs appeared from nowhere, or at most that they grew in a kind of vacuum”
(Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go ). is self-deception undoubtedly exposes humans’
inhumanity, hypocrisy, and cruelty, and what they are overwhelmingly concerned
about is “their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends” ()
rather than these clones who are no dierent from animals. Hereby, the crucial
question is whether clones belong to the conscious, independently thinking, and
emotionally driven human category or not. Otherwise, they still fall into the non-
human category.
If clones are considered to be humans, then the act of organ “donation” is
evidently illegal and unethical. Conversely, if clones are deemed to be non-humans
like animals, then the act becomes unobjectionable. erefore, what does it mean
to be a clone? Undoubtedly, the inherent identity of a clone lies in the term “being
cloned.” In simple terms, clones are ospring reproduced without the union of
gametes, that is to say, they are products of asexual reproduction. Clones, distinct
from robots, share the same physical form as humans, as they are made of esh
and blood. However, since clones are born asexually and have no parents from
the moment they come into the world, they are inherently dierent from humans.
In other words, despite possessing the same biological attributes, they completely
lack the social attributes of humans. eir existence from the onset embodies
the characteristics of “purposefulness and instrumentality” (Guo ). Clones and
non-human entities serve their purpose through the continuation of human life,
albeit through organ transplantation or through emotional support. In Never Let
Me Go, characters like Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth have known since childhood that
they are dierent from the “guardians, and also from the normal people outside”
(). Similarly, in Klara and the Sun, Klara, Rosa, and other solar-powered robots
are created for the purpose of eliminating the human “sense of loneliness,” such
as accompanying their owners in doing homework and making conversations.
Purposefulness and instrumentality, therefore, are the direct reasons for their
creation by humans.
Of course, with the widespread application of articial intelligence, there has
been much attention and considerable criticism toward it. Although debates about
clones involve various elds, such as religion, ethics, medicine, law, family, and
identity, issues like “humans’ creation by God” and “identity fallacy” (Macintosh
-) are particularly heated points of debate. e crux of the arguments lies in
anthropomorphism or fairness, namely, how humans treat the non-human.
Regarding the issue of anthropomorphism, Calo et al. also warns that humans
should guard against falling into the anthropomorphism trap of intelligent robots
and suggests legislation to penalize such tendencies. As a matter of fact, the reality
also proves that articial intelligence falls short in many aspects compared with
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humans as it lags far behind in things that humans and other animals can do without
thinking. erefore, despite robots and clones showing a trend of “overwhelming”
advantages over humans in many aspects, they are still treated like animals. Take
the clones in Never Let Me Go for example, though they have already learned
mathematics, music, sports, drawing, and have even displayed some astonishing
talents, they still die because of organ “donations.” And in Klara and the Sun, kind
and good solar-powered robots, despite demonstrating exceptional learning and
imitation capabilities, end up being discarded into the scrap heap out of upgrades.
FROM ETHICAL CHOICES TO SCIENTIFIC CHOICES: THE MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS
Since the publication of Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro has never ceased his
contemplation on the future development of articial intelligence. In , he
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “who, in novels of great emotional
force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the
world” (e Nobel Prize). His new novel Klara and the Sun continues to explore
the mysteries of the “human heart” and predict the advancement of robotic science.
Simultaneously, Ishiguro in his novels delves into ethical issues brought about by
modern science, such as clones and robots. ese issues, seemingly unimaginable,
elusive, and absurd, exhibit typical characteristics of “postmodernism.” Since
today’s society has become unrecognizable and uninterpretable, surreal and
fantastical as such, there is an even greater need for a new form of literature to
mimic the inexplicability of the actual world. Despite contemporary writers often
being labeled as “postmodernists,” their so-called postmodernist works are in
eect a new form of “realist representation.” Clearly, Ishiguro is a novelist who,
under the guise of “postmodernism,” practices the new form of “realistic” writing.
Both Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun imagine a future society with an
extremely developed civilization, highly advanced technology and mass production
of clones or robots. erefore, some critics claim that the uncanny novels focus on
societal issues such as “the Holocaust” (Whitehead ) and “an allegory of psychic
development” (Britzman ). In reality, the two novels also reveal a neglected but
crucial ethical issue, namely, what exactly constitutes a human being, and what it
means to be human. To be specic, it addresses the question of balance between
ethical choice and scientic choice.
Zhenzhao Nie points out that ethical choice has two aspects, “on the one hand,
the ethical choice refers to a person’s moral choices, that is, achieving moral
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perfection through choices; on the other, ethical choice refers to the selection of
two or more moral options, and dierent choices lead to dierent outcomes, thus
dierent choices have dierent ethical values” (Introduction to Ethical Literary
Criticism ). Ethical choice addresses the fundamental issue of being a human,
that is, what exactly constitutes a human being? Answering the question prompts
humans to distinguish themselves fundamentally from animals. However, scientic
choice deals with the current “issue of the combination of science and humanity”
(). “Scientic choice emphasizes three aspects: rst, how humans develop and
utilize science; second, how to handle the impact of science on humans and the
consequences of science aecting humans; and third, how to understand and
manage the relationship between humans and science” (). Obviously, Ishiguro’s
novels are the literary interpretation of the two theoretical concepts.
In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro reveals the non-human identity and tragic destiny
of clones via an implicit and elegant literary approach. However, in Klara and
the Sun, he uses a childlike science ction approach to explore the coexistence of
humans and robots. Despite the dierence in writing styles, the two novels touch
upon the same core issue: the essence of humanity or what it means to be human,
or to be exact, the ethical choice faced by humans. en, what is the ethical choice
of humans?
In Never Let Me Go, at Hailsham boarding school, there is a young guardian
named Lucy Wainright. She is a beautiful, kindhearted, and responsible teacher.
Unable to bear deceiving those innocent and lovely cloned “students,” she acts on
her unwillingness to be a complacent bystander and chooses to make a candid
discussion with them:
e problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none
of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.
But I’m not. If you are going to have decent lives, then you’ve got to know and know
properly. None of you will go to America, none of you will be lm stars. And none of
you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your
lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you’re even
middle-aged, you’ll start to donate your vital organs. at’s what each of you was created
to do. You’re not like the actors you watch on your videos, you’re not even like me. You
were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been
decided . . . . You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know
who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you. ()
In the discussion, the terms “told” and “not told” actually correspond to “lies” and
“truth.” Wainright, who reveals the truth, is quickly expelled from the boarding
school, and the reasons are self-evident. At the end of the novel, when Kathy
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and Tommy visit Headmistress Emily and Director Marie-Claude, they disclose
the “truth” of expelling Wainright: they feel she is too idealistic, and her “good
intentions” will ultimately shatter the students’ happiness. erefore, they would
rather deceive the “students” under the guise of “shelter.” Of course, not everyone
chooses to see clones as humans as Wainright does. Many still regard clones as non-
humans and harbor fear and disgust toward them. During the visit, Kathy recalls,
“Madame never liked us. She’s always been afraid of us. In the way people are afraid
of spiders and things” (). Emily also candidly expresses her feelings, “we’re all
afraid of you. I myself had to ght back my dread of you all almost every day I was at
Hailsham. ere were times I’d look down at you all from my study window and I’d
feel such revulsion” (). Ishiguro, by depicting dierent attitudes toward clones
in the ction, highlights the diverse ethical choices made by humans and exposes
the inhumanity of human beings, revealing humanity’s selshness, hypocrisy, and
cruelty. e revelation reaches its climax during Ruth’s second organ “donation”:
It was like she was willing her eyes to see right inside herself, so she could patrol and
marshal all the better the separate areas of pain in her body—the way, maybe, an anxious
carer might rush between three or four ailing donors in dierent parts of the country.... All
the same, I pulled up a chair and sat with her hand in both of mine, squeezing whenever
another ood of pain made her twist away from me.... As she was twisting herself in a
way that seemed scarily unnatural, and I was on the verge of calling the nurses for more
painkillers . . . . It was one of those little islands of lucidity donors sometimes get to in the
midst of their ghastly battles. ()
is is the only scene in the novel that depicts vividly the “completion” of clones.
With just a few strokes, Ishiguro portrays the trauma and pain the organ donors
have endured. However, even in the face of being “complete,” clones, who still repay
hostility with kindness and goodness, make their scientic choices and exhibit
uncommon virtues. Ruth, facing her nal donation, still feels that all of this is a
matter of course. She says to Kathy, “I was pretty much ready when I became a
donor. It felt right. After all, it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it?” ().
In Klara and the Sun, despite having the opportunity to replace her owner Josie
and thereby attain human status for better care, Klara’s inherent goodness and
selessness lead her to forgo the choice of becoming a human. She makes all her
eorts to save Josie’s life but faces the destiny of being abandoned. Ishiguro seems
to dissect a phenomenon: when humans are confronted with multiple choices,
they often opt for maximizing their own interests, sometimes disregarding ethical
considerations. By contrast, the non-human robots in the ction, when faced
with similar choices, always consider the maximum benet for humans. Arguably,
therefore, Ishiguro attempts to use literature as a means to warn humans to
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recognize the inhumanity in us, and meanwhile, to call on contemporary writers
to uphold the traditional virtues and shoulder our due moral responsibilities.
CONCLUSION
Today’s world is undergoing unprecedented changes and confronting critical moral
choices. “As [Jacques] Derrida never tired of repeating, it is not regular states but
exceptional states caused by the collapse of our familiar world that confront us
with the necessity of ethical decisions” (qtd. in Biti ). From the outset of this
century, many countries around the world have enacted legislation to prohibit
the use of reproductive cloning out of considerations for bioethics. Responsible
writers like Ishiguro have attached great importance to this issue in this historical
situation. As Nie points out, “Literature is a product of ethic, or a unique expression
of morality in a given historical period. In other words, literature is fundamentally
an expression of ethic” (“Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism” ). Evidently, the
“given historical period” at present is the history of rapid development of articial
intelligence. James Phelan also highlights the importance of history to an author’s
writing, indicating that “we need to understand history: this particular author at
this particular historical moment in this particular historical situation” (Shang and
Phelan ). Ishiguro’s devotion to articial intelligence over the past two decades not
merely aims at exposing the social problems in today’s historical period. Instead,
his goal is in the service of revealing the essence of being human and explore more
universal human issues in the future. From Never Let Me Go to Klara and the Sun,
Ishiguro utilizes non-human narration to explore the fundamental issue of being
human by abandoning the anthropocentric standpoint. By disclosing the moral
and ethical implications through the non-human entities in the novels, Ishiguro
prompts readers to contemplate on “how humans can become better humans and
how the world can become a better world” (Shang ).
In summary, the current robots, androids, and in vitro creation of human beings
are the heated points of concern for contemporary writers. By shedding light on
these non-human entities, creative writers like Ishiguro have not only enriched
narrative methods and contents by providing contemporary literature with “a
cutting edge of experimental strategies and practices” (Richardson ), but also
inspired humans to abandon the outdated idea of “anthropocentrism.” Furthermore,
the novels lead readers to pay more attention to harmonious coexistence with non-
human entities. Of course, this is not merely a matter of ethical choice but a matter
of scientic choice. Undoubtedly, achieving this ultimate target requires from
humans extraordinary courage and wisdom, as well as broad-mindedness and
generosity. John Frank Weaver has aptly pointed out at the end of his book Robots
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Are People Too: “If we treat robots like humans, they’ll let us be more human” ().
Surely, such courage, wisdom, broad-mindedness, and generosity are essential for
humanity to approach a beauteous future.
Note
. e word “soul” is used ve times in the novel; see Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go , , , , ..
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
is work is sponsored by the project of the National Social Science Fund of
China, “e Compilation, Translation and Research of Literatures on Contemporary
Western Ethical Criticism” (Grant Number: ZDA) and also by the project of
the Humanity and Social Sciences of Huazhong Agricultural University (Grant
Number: WGPY).
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Abstract
Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory foregrounds an intriguing relation between
humans and food. e agency of food is demonstrated in threefold facets. Prominently, it
controls people by occupying their desires. Meanwhile, food cravings, as rooted in cultural
metanarrative, are evoked and consistently reinforced by modern commercial civilization.
Equally, food is sophisticatedly embedded in the hierarchical societal system and spontaneously
composes a social language that actively intervenes in the identity formation and self-perception
of humans as social beings. Notably, the agency of enchanted food aligns with the familiar moral
dichotomy of “good” versus “bad” children. Food operates as a disciplinary agent that rewards
virtue and punishes vice, guiding children’s behavior through its own metaphoric authority.
e narrative appeals to an anti-traditional aesthetics which takes pleasure in a departure from
anthropocentric values. erefore, it invites readers to rethink their relationships with food and
further implies a new ecology of mutual existence between humans and the nonhuman world.
Keywords
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, children’s literature, food, nonhuman narrative, Roald Dahl
About the Author
Xinyue Yuan is doctoral candidate at School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, China. Her research interests include English literature, narratology, and children’s
literature.
RETHINKING HUMAN/NONHUMAN
HIERARCHY
Food in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Xinyue Yuan
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Xinyue@sjtu.edu.cn
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INTRODUCTION
In Carnal Appetites, Elspeth Probyn poses fundamental questions about the
relationship between food and identity: “Do we eat what we are, or are we what
we eat? Do we eat or are we eaten? In less cryptic terms, in eating, do we conrm
our identities, or are our identities reforged, and refracted by what and how we
eat?” (). Probyn’s series of questions challenges the long-standing view held ever
since the Enlightenment, which regards humans as the dominators of the world
and intrinsically superior to nonhumans. Such a counterintuitive and somewhat
uncomfortable idea is witnessed in British children’s writer Roald Dahl’s most well-
known novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (). Dahl’s novel features a poor
boy named Charlie Bucket who lives in a world where people are all fascinated with
chocolate bars produced by the mysterious Wonka factory. When ve golden tickets
are hidden within Wonka bars, the novel unfolds as a surreal and metaphorical
adventure, following Charlie and four other children on their factory tour.
Despite their widespread popularity, Dahl’s works face considerable scholarly
critique, largely owing to persistent claims that they promote problematic ideologies
and transgress established norms for children’s literature. Indeed, the narrative in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is uncanny, spectacularized, and estranged from
common assumptions. However, despite its bewildering textual manifestation of
an incredible chocolate-fetish, the motif of food and eating is foregrounded by and
structures the storytelling. is, as I shall argue, should warrant critical attention
within a framework of nonhuman philosophies.
Previous scholarship examines the characters’ obsessive consumption and Willy
Wonka’s exercise of power within the narrative. Analyses explore the link between
the children’s uncontrolled desires and Lacanian theories of the superego, enjoyment,
and desire, as well as the inuence of consumerism (Rudd, “Willy Wonka” –).
Wonka’s factory has further been read as an overtly idealized representation of
imperialist enslavement activities (Bradford ; Keyser ). Robert M. Kachur
points out that food and Judeo-Christian tradition are intertwined “[b]ecause the
world Dahl creates is a postlapsarian one, however, the characters’ relationships
to food are disordered from the start” (). Recognizing food’s role in conveying
cultural memory and metaphor, this paper seeks to further interpret Dahl’s
“sadistic aesthetic” (Keyser ) in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. e novel
envisages a somewhat uncomfortable scenario where food is empowered while
humans are irrational and vulnerable. Rather than positioning food as a passive
object of human control, Dahl’s story features a playful reversal of the human/food
hierarchy. By this token, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory draws our attention
to human existence in the more-than-human world. It delves into the captivating
realm where the agency of nonhuman entities, notably food, takes center stage.
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is reading prompts a question that resonates with Probyn’s inquiries: who is the
true consumer? Specically, is food merely a substance for human use, or do the
very denitions of “humanity” emerge dynamically through our entanglement with
the material world around us?
NONHUMAN, FOOD, AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
For all its pervasive presence, the discourse on nonhuman elements was curiously
underexplored within mainstream academic scholarship. e topic of nonhuman
draws critical awareness only in recent years, under the impact of ANT theory,
animal studies, new materialism, and the other intellectual trends generating the
nonhuman turn in social science and humanities. Indeed, as Biwu Shang’s insightful
observation states: “it is not only possible for narrative works to represent the
non-human experience but also urgent for critics to examine their non-human
agents” (“Approaching the World” ). Adopting the perspective of Latour’s ANT
theory, humankind is not necessarily the only actant but instead coexists within a
constantly shifting network of relationships. Latour aptly indicates that previous
social studies have ignored objects, which are “nowhere to be said and everywhere
to be felt. ey exist, naturally, but they are never given a thought, a social thought”
(). Despite the belief that objects may embody specic metaphorical meanings,
they remain marginalized in mainstream discourse “like humble servants… As if a
damning curse had been cast unto things, they remain asleep like the servants of
some enchanted castle” ().
As Bruce Clarke notes, “[t]he conceptual destination of Latour’s project has
always been posthumanist, in that it aims to displace the reigning humanist biases
of both natural science and sociology in favor of symmetrical relations between
human and nonhuman—in this instance, microbial—actors” (–). is
observation holds true not only in social studies but also in literary criticism, where
anthropocentric bias has long prevailed. On this issue, Biwu Shang advocates for
a theory of nonhuman narrative in his essay and expounds on its denition,
types, and functions. Shang argues that nonhuman narratives step beyond the
anthropocentric realm as framed by narratologists like Roland Barthes and Monika
Fludernik, oering experientiality, embracing multiple species, and reevaluating
human-nonhuman relationships. Due to its ctionality, literature can experiment
with “a world populated not by active subjects and passive objects but by lively and
essentially interactive materials, by bodies human and nonhuman” (Bennett ).
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Despite often being overlooked by the literary community, children’s stories are
fascinated with other-than-human characters with supernatural features, diverging
from everyday reality. In this regard, they might be surprisingly radical. e anity
of children’s novels with nonhuman beings is recognized, as seen in Brian Boyd’s
concept of “the pleasures of the as if” () and Zoe Jaques’s idea of “a ‘natural’
pairing” (). In her essay, Maria Nikolajeva provides cognitive accounts for
the prevalence of nonhumans in children’s literature, which are “rare in literature
targeting mature audiences. Among other things, as cognitive criticism maintains,
anthropomorphizing is the learning brain’s strategy to make sense of the world”
(). Among all the nonhuman entities, regrettably, food has been receiving
relatively less attention. As observed by Allison James, Anne Trine Kjørholt, and
Vebjørg Tingstad, food holds signicance beyond bodily nourishment, as it is
deeply embedded in broader social, political, and economic structures (). Food,
as a vital resource, not only oers visceral pleasures and visual metaphors, but also
provides inquiry into the very meaning of being human.
With all this in mind, a few points need further addressing. Firstly, within the
intellectual trends of the nonhuman turn, it is necessary to consider children’s
literature as important research material, which would hopefully bring about new
perspectives to both areas. Notably, although children’s literature cannot liberate
itself from adult ideologies, it inherently features reexivity and escapism, serving
as an opposition to and examination of public discourse. Children’s literature
delights in disarming mainstream ideological assumptions, which is, if I may
say, a mere sheltering prerogative enjoyed by it. Moreover, many similarities
have been noted to be shared by children and nonhumans. Both are assumed to
be less human, given the reverence for impeccable humanity, mature cognitive
ability, and strong rationality. In light of this, nonhuman elements in children’s
literature eectively access the child image that is framed socially, culturally, and
ideologically. In the novel, chocolate, as an icon evoking cultural memories of
childhood, notably addresses irrationality, gluttony, child obesity, parenting, and
the dichotomy of innocent kids/fallen kids under adult moral didacticism. e
narrative proposes a striking reversal: rather than freely choosing and consuming
food, humans themselves become edible, subject to the agency of food, driven,
controlled, identied, and ultimately transformed by it. Intriguingly, humans are
entangled in a network composed of nonhuman entities, intertwining with their
very being. And therein lies the reective essence of this novel.
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CHOCOLATE AND HUMAN DESIRES
Do humans consume food, or does food, in turn, control people through their desire
to possess it? Dahl’s novel repeatedly raises this paradox, leaning toward the latter.
One explanation for such desire is material insuciency. e Buckets suer from
severe poverty and hunger, with the family preoccupied only with staying warm
and nding enough to eat. Despite this, they save up to buy Charlie a birthday
chocolate bar, his most longed-for treat. He treasures it deeply, savoring it in small
bites to prolong the pleasure (Dahl –). David Rudd aptly suggests that the choice
of Charlie’s surname, “Bucket,” is strategic—not of psychological emptiness, but
of a deep material yearning lled only by familial love (“Willy Wonka” ). To
take “Bucket” literally, it refers to a desperate want on a material level. e family’s
socioeconomic struggle highlights this futility, especially as Charlie’s father’s hard
work fails to improve their condition. is makes Charlie’s rare encounters with
chocolate all the more meaningful. Against his bland, meager diet, the rich, sugary
treat becomes an irresistible indulgence—both a symbol of visceral satisfaction
and a eeting escape from deprivation.
However, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, insuciency is denitely not
the sole reason for chocolate cravings. e other four kids invited to Wonka’s
factory who come from upper-middle-class families exhibit an even more irrational
obsession with chocolate than poor Charlie. While Charlie’s craving stems from
material deprivation, the others are driven by a compulsive, almost pathological
desire for sweetness. In Dahl’s novel, food, which is specically incarnated as
Wonka’s candy bars, evokes a strangely universal fascination. People seem to be
in an incredibly sick ecstasy with consuming chocolate bars. e fetish of the
chocolate produced by the Wonka factory has become a collective unconscious
behavior present in all social classes in the novel, as witnessed in the core event
of golden tickets. For the characters, Wonka’s factory is almost heavenly, a place
where food is unlimited. erefore, once the news of golden tickets is announced,
it quickly makes headlines and captures the attention of people all over the world.
e theme of food and consuming is central to this narrative—people are captivated,
enticed, punished, and rewarded by food. is unfamiliar storytelling thus hints at
a new ethics between human beings and what they eat. Consciously or not, food
emerges as characters’ foremost desire.
Truly, early in the biblical story that has become an archetypal narrative, food,
the forbidden apple, has appeared as an irresistible seduction to human beings.
Although it is strictly prohibited, Adam and Eve succumb to the irresistible allure
of the fruit from the tree, leading to their subsequent exile from the Garden of
Eden. Undoubtedly, the story alludes to and exaggerates the meta-narrative that
the forbidden apple allures Eve. John Stephens and Robyn McCallum indicate the
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overarching eects of metanarratives: “Such traditional materials… come with
predetermined horizons of expectation and with their values and ideas about the
world already legitimized” (). In this light, Kachur further interprets Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory through the lens of a biblical metanarrative, proposing that
candy functions as a symbolic vehicle through which children’s desires are aligned
with the grand arc of creation, paradise, fall, and eventual redemption (). In the
biblical story of the Garden of Eden, the symbolic presence of the forbidden apple
serves as a potent metaphor. Food is conceptually woven into a cultural symbol,
representing humanity’s innate vulnerabilities and weaknesses when confronting
internal impulses. It embodies carnal sensations and visceral satisfaction, constantly
alluding to one’s fragile sanity. So, even though eating has been taken for granted as
a daily activity of human beings, its overarching power is evident as it centralizes in
and structures people’s desiring psyche.
e Great Exhibition of marks the onset of modern industrialization
and commodity spectacle. Published a century later, Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory obviously is written in the context of the burgeoning consumer society
of its time. Contemporary society sees food cravings intensied and validated
by a pervasive and sophisticated commercial culture. According to the narrative,
the entire society revels in the joy of consuming and owning candies. People nd
themselves enslaved by sweetness, irresistibly drawn to the enticing displays in
shop windows, pervasive advertisements, and engaging television programs.
Charlie, for example, often gazes longingly at chocolate “piled up high in the shop
windows,” and watches other children munching them greedily, which to him is
“pure torture” (Dahl ). e yearning for eating, and for eating more, becomes a
collective hysteria and a global carnival participated by the whole society. Jane
Suzanne Carroll elaborates that the term “fetish” originally denotes a distorted
attachment to objects. Marx re-terms it within the context of consumer culture
by coining the term “commodity fetishism,” which encompasses both the material
properties of human labor and the societal properties of objects (qtd. in Carroll ).
Commodities are worshipped, with people bowing down to their mysterious aura.
Slavoj Žižek concisely summarizes that commodity fetishism refers to the belief in
objects possessing intrinsic metaphysical power (qtd. in Carroll ). Post-humanist
perspectives oer new interpretations of it. e morbid obsession with objects is,
explicitly enough, the dominating force of objects over humans. Objects are not
inertia; instead, they are proactive actors. “Action is not done under the full control
of consciousness; action should rather be felt as a node, a knot, and a conglomerate
of many surprising sets of agencies that have to be slowly disentangled” (Latour ).
Simply, food not only is centralized in people’s desiring psyche, but also instructs
people on what they want, and how they want it through the penetrating consumer
culture. Overwhelmed by the abundance, modern people live in the siege of
economy, politics, and cultures of eating.
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Indeed, the impact of food cannot be disregarded with the twin foci in cultural
psyche and modern consumption practices. In Dahl’s novel, the seemingly deliberate
and compelling setting—everyone is fascinated with chocolate—creates a narrative
that seems unbelievable. is narrative setting, as argued by some critics, evokes
a sense of discomfort and strangeness. Dahl’s writing features multiple aspects of
human weakness, vulnerability, and irrationality. Characters in the novel, both
children and adults, fail to resist the spell that Wonka’s candy bars have cast on
them. e unease imposed by the storytelling lies in people’s false assumptions
about human-nonhuman relations. Specically, the very truth is that, despite how
uncanny it might sound, individuals cannot take the full responsibility for their
behaviors, especially regarding issues of pleasure, fear and desires, as they are
“conglomerate[s] of many surprising sets of agencies” (Latour ). Food’s agency
is evident in how it drives people to act, preoccupies them, and fullls their desire
structure. e narrative suggests an interdependent network where humans and
nonhuman entities are tightly entangled with each other, arguing for a distributed
agency wherein actions cannot be fully accounted for human impetus alone.
FOOD AS A SOCIAL LANGUAGE
Another issue addressed in the novel fundamentally concerns the very existence
of humans as social beings. Yet it begins with a rather simple question: how are
characters identied in the ction? As a story intended for children, Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory portrays a ctional social order that seems simplistic and
primitive—characters’ status is dened by their access to food, among which
chocolate undoubtedly comes at the top of the list. While the Buckets are still
struggling to purchase one bar of chocolate, the Indian Prince, in Grandpa Joe’s
story, is said to own “a colossal palace entirely out of chocolate” (Dahl ). In essence,
social hierarchy in this fantasy is determined by one’s chocolate consumption,
making the legendary chocolatier, Willy Wonka, the most inuential gure. e
ostensibly straightforward storytelling brings about a new perspective to rethink
the default assumption of human identity. A truth implied in the story is that human
identity, the actual fact of being, is not inherent, xed, or self-reexive. Instead, we
need vibrant substances to mediate our existence.
Although they cannot articulate themselves, substances are omnipresent.
Wonka’s chocolate bars, on the one hand, have been imprinted with properties of
societal mechanisms ever since it was collected, produced, and circulated in society.
On the other hand, humans, in turn, use these internal mechanisms to perceive,
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orient, and construct themselves, whether consciously or not. Indeed, when we talk
about a chocolate bar, we cannot ignore its underlying storylines of who produces,
who sells, who consumes, and who prots. In this sense, the event that the ve
kids enter Wonka’s chocolate factory and witness what happens inside the giant
candy-producing machine helps to unveil the hidden story. Wonka’s chocolate is
well-known all over the world, but nobody knows who actually produces it—until
the children meet the workers. e Oompa-Loompas, described as “no larger
than medium-sized dolls,” originally found by Wonka in “the very deepest and
darkest part of the African jungle” where they were “practically starving to death.”
According to Wonka, their dream food was the cacao bean, which they could not
obtain in the jungle. In exchange for a steady supply of their dream food, he brought
the entire tribe to work in his factory (Dahl -).
e labor line in Wonka’s chocolate factory metaphorically reminds readers of
colonialism, which has also notoriously drawn criticism. If we temporarily set aside
the heated debate around hidden ideologies, we will discover another important fact
that the novel foregrounds. Indeed, it is natural to associate this with the rise and
development of chocolate, tea, coee, and sugar. Sidney W. Mintz suggests in his
Sweetness and Power that “[i]n complex hierarchical societies, ‘the culture’ is never
a wholly unied, homogeneous system, however. It is marked by behavioral and
attitudinal dierences at dierent levels, Cultural “materials”—including material
objects, the words for them, ways of behaving and of thinking, too—can move
upward or downward, from lord to commoner, or vice versa” (). e history
of chocolate starts at the same time of tea, sugar, and coee, which are initially
expensive imports serving the wealthy to claim dierence from ordinary people.
In this process, the history of objects evolves with, corresponds to, and completes
the history of human beings. Food is a miniature of the social division of labor,
which powerfully implies a social control: the power over food equals the power
over other people. In other words, who controls food, controls other people’s lives,
which accounts for the omnipotence and omniscience of Willy Wonka in the novel.
is also applies outside Wonka’s factory. When chocolate exchanges hands
from seller to buyer, its journey begins. Food travels between individuals and
groups, forming a network of meaning through its trajectory where people
are captured, consequently nding themselves situated in dierent positions.
Households with varying economic backgrounds exhibit signicantly dierent
relationships with food. In sharp contrast to Charlie’s poverty, the other four kids
feature an extravagant consumption of things. For instance, Veruca Salt, whose
family owns a large fortune, buys hundreds and thousands of candy bars: “en I
had them loaded onto trucks and sent directly to my own factory. I’m in the peanut
business, you see, and I’ve got about a hundred women working for me over at my
joint, shelling peanuts for roasting and salting” (Dahl ). Dierent from Charlie
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who only “take[s] a tiny nibble…take another nibble,” (Dahl ) rich and spoiled
kids indulge in food consumption in a hedonistic, luxurious, and careless manner.
Notably, characters in the story appear to be trapped in a self-reinforcing feedback
loop: the more people acquire, the more they crave, and the more elevated their
status appears. is also accounts for what happens to Charlie at the end of the
story. As the most obedient and morally upright child among all the ve, Charlie
is appreciated and ultimately chosen by Wonka to inherit the chocolate factory. In
other words, Charlie is deemed the most “deserving” and thus entitled to greater
possession.
As the anthropologist Carole M. Counihan notes, “in every culture, foodways
constitute an organized system, a language that—through its structure and
components—conveys meaning and contributes to the organization of the
natural and social world” (). Dahl’s narrative highlights exactly “an organized
system, a language,” as Counihan phrases it, constituted by food. As this unfolds,
individuals acquire corresponding identities within certain power structures.
People’s consuming practices signicantly participate in the process of identity
perception and formation. We struggle to conrm and validate who we are in the
constant interactions with surrounding environments. Eating is a means of nding
and establishing individual identity. As Nicholson puts it, “[a] person isn’t just
‘there’—a static object in space, like a table in the kitchen. To exist is an activity
of daily transformation; one continually forms and transforms oneself, and the
material means by which one performs this act of self-creation is food. No one can
assimilate food for another” ().
Simply put, eating is not only a means of survival; it also claims signicance in
the ongoing production and reproduction of individual identity. In other words,
our perception of ourselves in relation to others and how we “become ourselves”
are always in ux. In this sense, people’s identity is always being produced, as we
are located in the network that is knotted both by countless human and nonhuman
nodes. Mintz notes that “[t]he chemical and mechanical transformations by which
substances are bent to human use and become unrecognizable to those who know
them in nature have marked our relationship to nature for almost as long as we have
been human” (xxiii). erefore, despite the common usage of the phrase “human
society,” it is actually dicult to claim that the society is an assembled organization
under mere human’s agency. Instead, the presence of objects consistently emerges
in unpredictable ways, making them dicult to disregard. Consequently, an
individual’s identity is not an outcome but an ongoing process; it is not purely
anthropic, but rather hybrid in nature.
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FOOD AND METAMORPHOSED BODIES OF “BAD KIDS”
How is the agency of food embodied visually and tangibly on characters? is
highlights the obvious didactic nature of Dahl’s narrative. Notably, the dogma
about dos and don’ts in children’s ctions naturally combines with the binary
characterization of “sinful kids” and “innocent kids.” As Jaqcueline M. Labbe
contends, one prominent feature of children’s literature concerns “children who eat,
rightly and wrongly: whether in the didactic tales popular in the early nineteenth
century, or in the fantasies that developed in reaction to the perceived restrictions
of didacticism” (). Analyzing children’s texts where innocent children serve
as the eaten, Labbe aptly suggests a correlation between eating practices and
the traditional good/bad dichotomy prevalent in children’s literature. In some
prevalent views, didacticism in children’s novels began almost simultaneously with
the beginning of Western children’s literature. Considering fairy tales and folklore
as possible precursors to children’s literature, this tradition might date back to the
sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, where children’s texts serve as educating
instruments for codifying the civilizing process (Daniel ).
Presumably, ctional food in children’s novels function as a channel of
transporting societal regulation of manners and morals to young readers. In this
regard, voracity is often associated with misbehavior. In children’s classics food
always serves as a tempting lure leading children into dangerous situations. As in
C. S. Lewis’s e Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the White Witch manipulates
the child protagonist Edmund with his favorite treat, Turkish Delight, thereby
eectively rendering him obedient. He grows increasingly obsessed: “the more
he ate, the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen
should be so inquisitive” (). Lewis’s story suggests that once a child succumbs
to the temptation of food, they are marked as a “sinful kid” who ultimately face
the consequences of their gluttony. Such a didactic tendency in Dahl’s Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory has been noticed. As David Rudd notes: “[Roald Dahl] can
also be seen as remarkably didactic in, for instance, his disapproval of television
(Mike Teavee and the Wormwood parents) and of badly behaved children in
general (e.g. all those in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory except Charlie himself)”
(“e Development of Children’s Literature” ). is good/bad pattern is clearly
evident in the novel. Undergoing the numerous challenges set by Willy Wonka, the
most well-behaved child, Charlie, emerges victorious in this peculiar game and
ultimately gains ownership of the Wonka factory.
What I’m interested in is how this classic storytelling responds to the nonhuman
perspective. In Dahl’s narrative, specically, the lesson is delivered through food.
Food’s power over people is demonstrably manifested through a system of reward
and punishment enacted on children’s bodies. Depicting a world where people
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are obsessed with eating, however, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory maintains a
conservative and didactic stance toward the unchecked consumption, emphasizing
how such cravings can lead to striking physical transformation. e narrative
explores bodily change most prominently through characters of Augustus Gloop
and Violet Beauregarde. As the rst kid to nd the golden ticket, Gloop wins by
sheer volume of chocolate he consumes daily. His physical description exaggerates
the consequences of his obsession, casting his body as a visual metaphor for excess,
“as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump… and his face was like a
monstrous ball of dough with two small greedy curranty eyes peering out upon
the world” (Dahl ). Similarly, Violet Beauregarde’s constant gum-chewing results
in a dramatic bodily metamorphosis. e two characters’ trajectories function
symbolically within the narrative structure: Augustus is swept away by the chocolate
river—literally consumed by his favorite treat—while Violet is transformed into a
giant blueberry, her entire form overwhelmed by the very thing she refuses to give
up.
While neither character succeeds in the factory’s moral trial, the narrative suggests
that they leave the experience changed, both physically and metaphorically. In
Dahl’s dark fantasy, the narrative conveys the idea that people’s bodies are stretched,
transformed, and altered by what they digest in a surprisingly straightforward
and uncanny manner. ese exaggerated transformations reect a surreal logic in
which digestion is externalized: the children are not merely consumers of food, but
are themselves acted upon by it. In essence, the punitive game performed in the
factory simulates the journey of food through human body in a sarcastic manner,
oering reections on consumption and the permeability of human boundaries in
the face of nonhuman forces.
In Ethics and the Endangerment of Children’s Bodies, Graf and Schweiger propose
that childhood obesity should be understood “one piece of the puzzle, although
one that deserves all the attention it can get” (). ey consider the common
phenomenon of overweight within the contexts of societal justice regarding food
availability, the ethics of identifying “normal” and “abnormal,” and body politics.
In Dahl’s novel, obesity linked to overconsumption is depicted as an exaggerated
physical transformation, symbolizing a complex and problematic relationship with
food. Graf and Schweiger note that, unless caused by unavoidable physiological
factors, dominant discourses problematically attribute childhood obesity to
individual responsibility, often interpreting it as a failure of personal agency
(-). However, in the novel, Dahl’s narrative complicates this by suggesting
that food itself exerts agency over the body. In this sense, children’s struggles to
manage their physical changes paradoxically highlight the powerful inuence of
nonhuman substances. e excess weight that enlarges Gloop and the swollen jaw
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of Beauregarde both vividly illustrate food’s active role in reshaping the human
body.
As Mervyn Nicholson aptly puts it “eating is the means of self-reproduction:
consuming food is what the individual does in order to reproduce himself” ().
Further, consumption not only sustains the self, rather, it also complicates the
boundaries of selfhood. Carolyn Daniel suggests that “the realities of the eating body
mean that food passes from the outside to the inside and subsequently to the outside
again, distorting notions of what is properly inside/self and outside/other. When we
eat food (an object) it literally becomes part of us (a subject)” (). Daniel’s proposal
highlights a posthumanist view of human bodies as open to the manipulation of
myriad substances that coexist with us. e exaggerated representation of food’s
agency on characters’ bodies calls into question the ideological myth that the body
is an enclosed, xed, and self-sucient system. On the contrary, humans’ physical
bodies “can be dispersed and interfaced in nearly innite, polymorphous ways,”
(Haraway ) lying open to actions that are generated by “a conglomerate of many
surprising sets of agencies that have to be slowly disentangled” (Latour ). In other
words, the human body cannot be said to be entirely under the control of its host.
Rather, it operates as a dynamic site of interaction, a playground for nonhuman
substances that inuence and reshape it. In the novel, the unnatural plot cognitively
reveals how people are controlled and further overwhelmed by what they eat. is
anti-traditional aesthetics reects a deviation from old humanist values and shows
a narratological inclination that “put[s] pressure on this anthropocentric set-up
involves reconceptualizing the notion of character and opening it up to nonhuman
realities” (Caracciolo s-s). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory embodies an
intentional mockery of anthropocentrism by the employment of a trick of bodily
transformation. Although the narrative may initially appear didactic, it prominently
brings to the forefront how physical bodies are surrounded, penetrated, and altered
by nonhuman substances. Humans, in turn, are rendered powerless in the face of
this, a point particularly highlighted in Dahl’s storytelling.
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CONCLUSION
For Mikhail Bakhtin, eating symbolizes the triumphant pleasure of “man tast[ing]
the world, introduc[ing] it into his body, mak[ing] it part of himself” (). e
eater-eaten relation literally demonstrates a power hierarchy. To be “edible” is, by
denition, to occupy the subordinate position, available to be tasted, consumed,
and assimilated. However, Dahl’s narrative takes a rather counter-intuitive turn
from traditional anthropocentric assumptions. e unsettling sides of the story
in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, including the almost insane chocolate fever,
the enigmatic Wonka’s factory and the grotesque bodies, prompt an interpretation
under the nonhuman turn. It narrates a story where people are overwhelmed by
the power of food and thereby forced to experience their inner vulnerability. e
seemingly almighty chocolatier Willy Wonka, who unnaturally controls the world
by selling candies, appears as a representative of food and visualizes the complex
interventions it oers in the societal system.
is essay returns to Probyn’s intriguing initial question: who is the edible,
humans or food? In contemplation of Levinasian philosophy in the Anthropocene
and in response to the pandemic, Seán Hand suggests that the virus’s unhostile
yet overwhelming breach of human barriers serves as a “wordless accusation of
arrogance that may necessitate from us a salutary acknowledgement of fragility”
(). is critique nds an unexpected echo in Dahl’s novel, which interrogates
human hubris and vulnerability on three levels. Food, most prominently, represents
a deep-seated human longing. Or more radically, it embodies desire itself. In
the text, the cravings for chocolate arise not only from material deprivation.
Rather, it is a collective behavior that transcends social strata. Indeed, the urge
for consumption has become a recurring motif in cultural memory, continually
evoked and reinforced by pervasive commercial civilization. Furthermore, in
contemporary society, food forms a social language through which individuals
understand their existence and articulate their identities. e framework it
composes entangles people, oering instructions and signicance to their social
existence. Moreover, the novel amplies the agency of food in overtly unnatural
ways, particularly through the bodily transformation experienced by the “bad kids”
in Wonka’s factory. By exposing characters to the metaphorical process of digestion,
the novel mocks human subjectivity.
As a popular novel that also stirs heated debates, Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory foregrounds the image of “chocolate” while engaging with ideologies
surrounding childhood, which signicantly include irrationality, gluttony, child
obesity, parenting, and the dichotomy of good kids versus bad kids. ese aspects
are given a nonhuman perspective through a reevaluation of human-food relation.
Children’s ctions take pleasure in examining mainstream discourse, and the
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subversive nature of this novel lies in its ability to do so. It invites readers, especially
young ones, to reconsider a sustainable relationship with food and draws attention
to the signicant role of food as an active actor in the ontological becoming
progress of human beings. In this way, the novel prompts the idea of an entangled
network, where humans and the broader nonhuman world, while not as eerily and
sensationally as depicted in the text, inseparably coexist with each other.
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NOTES
. See, for example, Eleanor Cameron’s “McLuhan, Youth, and Literature: Part I” and
“McLuhan, Youth, and Literature: Part II,” published in e Horn Book, Oct. , .
Other elaborations on criticism of Roald Dahl’s novels, see “De-constructing Dahl
through Criticism” in Laura Viñas Valle’s De-constructing Roald Dahl, Cambridge
Scholars Publishing, , pp. –.
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Abstract
Anthony Browne’s picture books feature three types of non-human entities: animals, human-
animal transformations, and toys. e chimpanzee Willy, one of the recurring protagonists
in Browne’s books, anthropomorphically presents the inner world of a child growing from
weakness to strength with rich emotions and diverse identities that resonate with readers.
Willy’s experiences and growth allow child readers to see themselves, gain the strength to
change, and learn to get along with their peers. Besides animal presence in Browne’s writing,
there are extensive human metamorphoses manifesting the Sphinx factor in Browne’s family-
themed works. In these works, the author uses visual language to depict the struggle between
human and animal factors, illustrating that the animal-ness of animals and the humanness
of humans are equal, each with its strengths and weaknesses, and that love, companionship,
retaining strengths, and discarding weaknesses, are important to family relationships. Finally,
the zoomorphism of another of Browne’s recurring protagonists, the toy bear makes it an actor,
observer, and bridge character in the narrative, presenting the predicament of animals under
human inuence and conveying an ecological critique of anthropocentrism. Bear’s magic pencil,
symbolizing human will, points to ways humans can improve their relationships with animals.
Anthony Browne’s non-human narratives therefore exhibit postmodern characteristics and
hold signicant ethical value.
Keywords
Anthony Browne, nonhuman narratives, anthropomorphism, metamorphism, zoomorphism
About the Author
Lyu Hongbo is an associate professor in School of Foreign Studies at Jiangnan University. Her
main research interests are in the elds of picture books and ethical literary criticism.
“HOW SHOULD WE GET ALONG?”
Non-human Narratives in Anthony Browne’s Picture Books
Hongbo Lyu
Jiangnan University
celvhongbo@.com
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INTRODUCTION
Winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustrations, Waterstones
Children’s Laureate (-), Anthony Browne is highly recognized as a world-
famous picture book author-illustrator. He has published picture books, won
the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal twice, and received numerous other awards
for picture book illustration. His works have attracted the attention of numerous
readers and critics with their surrealistic style and postmodern techniques. Although
people know that he enjoys painting animals, especially anthropoid apes, and are
amazed by those intricate and vivid animal images, there is still limited research
conducted from a non-human narrative perspective. Following Shang Biwu’s
denition and classication of non-human narratives (“Towards” ), the non-
human entities depicted by Anthony Browne mainly include three types: natural
things (gorilla, chimpanzee), supernatural things (transformation between human
and other animals) and articial objects (toy bear). ese non-human entities serve
as narrators, actors, and observers in the narrative process of works like the “Willy”
series, the family-theme series, and the “Bear” series, making them a focal point
of non-human narrative research in the eld of picture books. Anthony Browne’s
ability to successfully shape these nuanced and vivid non-human characters is not
only due to his work experience as a medical illustrator but also because he places
great importance on the dierences and relationships between humans and other
animals (Browne & Browne ). e non-human narratives in Anthony Browne’s
works are more likely to produce defamiliarization and evoke empathy (Bernaerts
et al. ) in readers because these non-human entities do not possess the racial,
gender, cultural dierences found among humans, allowing them to lead readers
to reect on their human essence and even realize that they are just a part of the
global ecological community. is departure from anthropocentrism in Anthony
Browne’s works reects the non-human turn in postmodern children’s literature,
which can eectively help child readers nd the right way out when facing individual
spiritual crises, tense family relationships, and global environmental issues.
WILLY AS THE METAPHORICAL ANIMAL ACTOR: CHILDREN’S EMOTIONAL
EXPLORATION IN ANTHROPOMORPHISM
Anthony Browne focuses on the growth and inner journey of children, and to
make the characters more universal, he employs anthropomorphism to create the
character of the chimpanzee Willy. In a series of works, he narrates Willy’s life in
the gorilla community, metaphorically representing the vulnerability, sensitivity,
loneliness, and fear of children in the adult world.
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Willy rst appeared in Willy the Wimp in and the series has since expanded
to a total of eight books with the latest installment being Willy and the Cloud in
. Willy’s appearance and attire have remained unchanged throughout the
series, sporting a meticulously styled center-parted hair, a white shirt paired
with a geometric-patterned striped vest, green pinstripe trousers, and a pair of
light brown lace-up leather shoes with colorful socks. is consistent presence
across the eight books has made Willy a familiar character to readers, enabling
them to trace his stories and experiences throughout the series. Willy is a fully
anthropomorphized chimpanzee: he does not only dress like a human but also
share a similar daily life and inner world. He enjoys reading, drawing, taking walks,
making friends, and playing soccer. He also experiences bullying, loneliness, and
fear. Willy is portrayed as a relatable character, which makes Browne’s utilization of
the chimpanzee a strategic choice as they are the species closest to humans and can
more directly reect human emotions and life compared to other animals.
In the narrative of the Willy series, anthropomorphism is visually presented in
the most direct way through images, but there is no anthropomorphism in the text
alone. e character named Willy appears as a chimpanzee only in the illustrations.
Apart from being a chimpanzee in species, everything else about Willy, such as
clothing, behavior, and living environment, reects those of real humans. Willy
lives in the city, reads books on a pink sofa, works out at the gym, plays soccer at
the eld, goes to the movies, takes walks in the park, reads at the library, paints
in his room, and even makes emergency phone calls. ese familiar human daily
activities and life scenes can evoke empathy in readers towards Willy, allowing
them to step into his inner world.
Anthony Browne uses illustrations to depict the emotions and feelings of
anthropomorphic animals, making Willy’s joys and sorrows visualized through
facial expressions, gestures, and body size. Chimpanzees are the primates most
closely related to humans, so transferring human ways of expressing emotions
onto a chimpanzee does not feel out of place.
e most noticeable changes in Willy’s facial expressions are in the shape of
his mouth, mainly divided into two types: closed and open. A closed mouth is
represented by a single line, with both ends upturned indicating satisfaction and
pride, while downturned ends signify sadness and distress. An open mouth can
generally be categorized into three types: a small “O” shape represents fear and
nervousness, a crescent shape showing teeth indicates happiness and condence,
and a rectangular shape showing teeth represents pain and endurance.
In addition, Willy’s slightly hunched walking posture is more likely to evoke in
readers a sense of closeness as it leads them to think of the historical process of
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human evolution from apes. His mental state is also reected in his body posture.
When feeling scared, depressed, or lonely, he tends to hunch his back, showing
a side prole to readers. In moments of condence, he would stand tall, chin up,
make direct eye contact with the reader, and even admire his muscular physique in
the mirror with a smile. When happy and content, he might dance with joy, perhaps
even mimicking the dancers in Singin’ in the Rain by dancing in the pouring rain.
In Willy the Wimp, Anthony Browne utilizes near-extreme and unnatural
manipulation of Willy’s relative size as a participant to represent the changes in
his inner state. In the story, Willy’s body size transitions from small to signicantly
larger, with visible muscle increase. However, more than just a visual change, this
transformation reects Willy’s growing self-condence. In Willy and the Cloud,
Willy, who is out for a stroll in the park, decides to head back home due to being
unable to shake o a bothersome cloud. On his way back home, he becomes so
small that he is almost unrecognizable when compared to the colorful brick wall,
representing his inner gloominess and frustration.
ese elements of visual storytelling, such as Willy’s facial expressions, postures,
and size, demonstrate anthropomorphized emotions and feelings attributed to
non-human entities, aiding children in understanding emotions and developing
empathy skills.
e anthropomorphism of animals is also reected in the attribution of human
identities. Willy not only has multiple identities but also chooses between them,
striving for his aspirations. From being a wimp to a champ, then to a wizard, and to
a dreamer, Willy constructs the identities he desires as he grows.
Willy, because of his kindness, always apologizes even when it is not his fault,
which leads to the bullies calling him “Willy the Wimp.” However, Willy does not
like this assigned identity. To break free from it, he spends money on books and
follows their instructions diligently. He engages in exercise, tness, nutritious meals,
as well as learning boxing and weightlifting, transforming his body into a strong
and powerful one. When Willy sees his muscular and strong arms, powerful thighs,
and well-developed chest muscles in the mirror, he happily indulges in narcissism.
Anthony Browne surrounds Willy with narcissus owers, covering the wallpaper in
the background. Furthermore, he places a small photo of Willy when he was called
a wimp to the side, creating a stark contrast. is illustrates that Willy successfully
made an autonomous choice regarding his identity.
At the same time, his new identity has been recognized by others. e group
of gorilla bullies who attack Millie are scared o when they see the strong and
condent Willy. Millie, impressed by Willy, confesses her feelings to him and
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praises him as a hero. Despite becoming a hero, Willy remains kind, living an
ordinary life with things he enjoys and things he struggles with. When faced with
the bullying antics of the troublemaking brute, Buster Nose, who is a gorilla, others
choose to ee, but Willy bravely confronts him. He cleverly uses his small stature
to his advantage, evading and outsmarting his seemingly more powerful opponent.
As a result, in the end of Willy the Wimp, Willy becomes Millie’s personal hero,
and by the conclusion of Willy the Champ (), Willy transforms into a hero for
a group of people. In both stories, Willy primarily makes friends with some weak
individuals because of his bravery.
While in Willy and Hugh (), as a small chimpanzee living in the world of
gorillas, Willy is lonely, often being called a “little wimp” and nding almost no
one willing to play with him. By chance, Willy meets Hugh, a tall and strong gorilla.
Due to their shared kindness, they become partners. rough their interactions,
Willy learns that bravery is not related to size; even the small can be brave, and
even the tall can have fears. Hugh helps Willy scare away Buster Nose, while Willy
helps Hugh remove a terrifying spider. rough mutual assistance, Willy and Hugh
become close friends who appreciate each other deeply.
Willy’s ethical identity is further enriched through the continuous process of
making friends, and it evolves with the enhancement of his self-condence. In Willy
the Wizard (), the magic that enables Willy to win the soccer match does not
come from the old boots, but from his own passion and hard training. Initially, Willy
enjoyed playing soccer but was excluded from the team due to the lack of proper
boots. However, he did not give up; instead, he persisted in training. Although
he could not get the ball, he developed the ability to run swiftly and nimbly on
the eld. Anthony Browne imbues the plot twist of this story with a supernatural
force: one night, a stranger who closely resembles Willy’s father demonstrates
exceptional soccer skills to Willy and gifts him his old boots before disappearing
forever without a word. Willy treasures these boots, believing they possess magic
that enables anyone wearing them to play well. Indeed, the boots bring Willy good
fortune; he is selected for the team and displays remarkable skills during practice.
At this point, Willy pins his hopes of winning the match on the boots. However, due
to his lack of condence, he becomes highly anxious the night before the match,
resulting in insomnia and nightmares, and he wakes up late on the morning of the
match. e illustrations of the leaning iron tower, the black-and-yellow caution
lines on the frame, and Willy’s terried, pale face all foreshadow potential danger.
e worst happens when Willy realizes, just before the match begins, that he has
forgotten his boots. e intense game leaves Willy no time to think; he can only
focus on the ball. Miraculously, it seems as if the ball is drawn to his feet by an
invisible string. He swiftly dribbles past opponents who appear hypnotized, and
he makes two beautiful goals against the tall and strong goalkeeper. us, he earns
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the title of “Willy the Wizard” from the fans. e illustrator leaves a white curved
line in the places where Willy dribbles, with each turn marked by opponents
either poised to intercept or already fallen, while Willy runs out of the frame with
the ball. His eyes remain xed on the ball, creating a stark contrast between his
focused stillness and the exaggerated dynamics of his opponents, highlighting his
magical soccer skills. At the goal, the illustrator uses page-turning to show the goal
from both sides, allowing readers to feel the imposing pressure of the enormous
goalkeeper on Willy and to celebrate Willy’s fearless and skillful scoring. e fans’
chants of “Willy the Wizard” and the teammates joyfully lifting him up boost Willy’s
condence and self-recognition. On his way home, Willy smiles as he remembers
the old boots and the stranger. e shadow wearing a pointed wizard’s hat reects
Willy’s inner acceptance of his identity as he embraces the role of the wizard with
newfound self-condence.
Beyond the identities Willy acquires in the real world, he experiences numerous
ctional identities within the imagined artistic realm. rough the technique of
interdiscursivity, Anthony Browne underscores the signicance of reading literary
classics and appreciating classical paintings in children’s development. Willy the
Dreamer (), Willy’s Pictures (), and Willy’s Stories () are replete
with pre-texts from others, illustrating Willy’s rich experiences as a protagonist
entering these classics. e fragmentary stories and the altered illustrations merge
the functions of literature and art in nurturing children’s imaginations. Browne’s
homage to art classics simultaneously challenges their authority, allowing young
readers to experience the postmodern deconstruction, parody, and collage’s
uncertainty and creativity.
On the title page of Willy the Dreamer, there is an easel with images and text
of four objects. Only the banana aligns with both its image and text, while the
other words—boat, shoe, and ag—correspond to images of a gorilla’s head, a
book, and a sofa, respectively. is obvious deconstructive mismatch nullies the
meaning of the text, disrupts the original order between words and images, and
simultaneously reconstructs their relationship. Browne employs deconstructionist
and Dadaist ideas and techniques in this work, breaking traditional impressions
and preconceived notions, thus playfully challenging the so-called authority. is
not only adds interest to the work but also encourages young readers to dream
bravely like Willy, breaking free from the constraints of reality and experiencing a
rich life to the fullest.
In addition to the imaginary experiences, Willy becomes Browne’s alter ego in
Willy’s Pictures, with the author’s self-referentiality reproducing his world, blending
reality and ction, rendering the work a piece of metaction. On the cover, Willy
holds a paintbrush, having just completed a portrait of Anthony Browne, with
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Browne in Willy’s clothes. is prompts readers to ponder the question of who Willy
is. If readers compare the rst and last images in the book, they will notice that the
removed mask and vest strip Willy of his identity. Yet, who is the person preparing
to leave the room with his face hidden by the door? Browne deliberately obscures
the identity of the painter, providing readers with more possibilities through this
uncertainty. As seen in the twenty four famous paintings on the appendix pages,
which can be transformed into sixteen paintings, the images narrate the stories of
Willy, Millie, and Buster Nose, while the captions reveal the painter’s thoughts. e
book invites readers to compare Willy’s paintings with the original masterpieces
in the appendix, sparking each reader’s speculation. At this point, questions like
who Willy is or who the painter is become irrelevant. If readers look back at the
painting on the cover, they can appreciate Browne’s clever narrative technique.
e intersecting frames and the paintbrush extending beyond the frame visually
express the essence of metaction’s “breaking frame,” using deliberate confusion
and ambiguity to encourage children to break free from traditional constraints and
cognitive boundaries after reading and viewing the paintings.
Anthony Browne lists ten recommended books in Willy’s Stories (),
metaphorically presenting each book as a door, with each reading akin to entering
a door. e ten classics are Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, e Adventures of
Robin Hood, e Tinderbox, Peter Pan, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, e
Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Rapunzel, e Wind in the Willows, and e Adventures of
Pinocchio. Willy transforms into the story’s protagonist, narrating ten classic stories
from world literature with a rst-person perspective. However, Willy’s narratives
are incomplete, stopping abruptly at the climax, engaging readers through dialogic
questions. In addition to honoring ten great writers, Browne pays homage to
illustrators with his own illustrations. He combines the climax of each story with
his questions and illustrations, presenting the pivotal moments leading up to the
climax. rough his drawings, he captures the “pregnant moment” (Lessing ),
stimulating readers’ imagination of the entire action sequence and creating a tense
atmosphere, allowing readers to experience the excitement and fear alongside Willy.
Willy’s experiences and readers’ empathy align with the notion of “adventures” as
expressed in the book’s Chinese title, which has more thrilling elements than its
English title, inspiring children’s interest in reading classics and guiding them to
use their imagination to continue writing their own splendid stories.
e Willy series presents the inner world of a child growing from weakness
to strength, with rich emotions and diverse identities that resonate with every
reader. Anthony Browne’s decision to anthropomorphize a small chimpanzee
strategically connects the animals to humans as chimpanzees are most similar
to humans in terms of their capacity for emotions, self-awareness, empathy, and
displays of language through training. e anthropomorphized image of Willy,
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created through a combination of text and illustrations, dissolves racial and
national dierences between people, enabling the possibility of multiple identities.
In the eight works, Willy’s outward appearance remains largely consistent, but
his experiences and identities span everyday life and the artistic world. As his
character represents children, Willy continuously strives to explore himself in both
reality and fantasy, gradually recognizing the boundaries of his abilities through
external feedback from others and accepting and arming his true self through
introspective reection. Willy’s experiences and growth allow child readers to see
themselves, gain the strength to change, and learn to get along well with their peers.
HUMAN-ANIMAL METAMORPHOSES AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SPHINX
FACTOR: FAMILY RELATIONSHIP REPAIR IN METAMORPHISM
Family is the earliest social unit that children encounter, and how to interact with
family members is the rst interpersonal relationship that children must navigate.
Family relationships play a crucial role in a child’s development, with the original
family and childhood experiences potentially inuencing a person’s entire life
and even the mental world and social interactions of two or three generations.
Hence, family is a common theme in Anthony Browne’s picture books. He even
focuses on each family member from a child’s perspective and explores parent-
child relationships in dierent types of families. In narrating family members,
one of Browne’s frequently used techniques is human-animal transformation. He
concretizes the switch between humans and animals through the combination
of text and illustrations, using non-human narratives to present the essence of
mankind as “the embodiment of the Sphinx factor” (Nie, Introduction ). According
to ethical literary criticism, the Sphinx factor includes the human factor and the
animal factor, representing rationality and primal desires in humans, respectively.
As humans evolved from animals, they cannot escape their inherent animal nature.
erefore, ethical choices in humans often involve a struggle between the human
factor and the animal factor. However, the animal factor is not always a symbol of
evil or error; it can also showcase the similarities and equality between humans and
animals. Browne objectively depicts the result of the struggle between the human
and animal factors in dierent scenarios. e animals, transformed from humans,
often represent natural instincts, highlighting the strengths and advantages of
various animals. Sometimes, these animals become role models that humans
should emulate, oering insights into managing family relationships.
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In Gorilla (), animal stands in for human in a child’s dream, with a gorilla
substituting for the father to accompany the daughter in doing what she loves.
Parental companionship is a fundamental responsibility and a necessary condition
for a child’s healthy development. However, various objective and subjective
factors, such as divorce or busy work schedules, often lead to a lack of parental
companionship for children. In the story, the girl Hannah lives with her father,
while her mother is absent. Her father is busy and indierent, resulting in Hannah
missing out on the parental companionship she deserves. Anthony Browne uses
the non-human entity of the gorilla to represent the parental duties and the basic
needs of children, prompting modern parents who neglect their children’s needs
to make changes.
Browne uses cool blue and white tones and checkered patterns to depict the
scene of the father and daughter dining in the kitchen, illustrating their life as
peaceful, simple, and orderly, while also implying clear boundaries and rules. For a
child, this means monotony and suppression. e newspaper in the father’s hand
obstructs communication between father and daughter. e father is preoccupied
with work, leaving early in the morning and continuing to work at his desk after
coming home in the evening. In the illustrations, whether the girl stands at the
study door or behind her father’s chair, he ignores her and continues working.
e father always uses busyness as an excuse to refuse his daughter’s requests and
inquiries, never spending time with her. Lonely, Hannah sits in a corner of her
room watching TV. e dim light, the empty room, and the various frightening
black patterns on the wallpaper envelop her, reecting her inner gloom, loneliness,
and fear. However, a beam of light from the TV shines on Hannah, symbolizing her
inner longing and setting the stage for her father’s transformation.
Hannah loves gorillas but has never seen a real one, so she asks her father for a
gorilla as a birthday present. Although the toy gorilla her father gives her does not
satisfy her, its coming to life brings Hannah a joyful experience. e gorilla wearing
her father’s coat and hat symbolizes a Sphinx-like fusion, integrating the human
and animal factors, representing a surrogate father. It accompanies Hannah to the
zoo to see real gorillas, watches movies, goes shopping, eats, and dances with her. It
holds, carries, hugs, and kisses Hannah, making her feel father’s love. After waking
from the dream, when Hannah is about to share her happiness with her father,
she witnesses a signicant change in him. He extends the same invitation to her,
wearing the same coat and hat as the gorilla, and takes Hannah’s hand to walk to
the zoo. In the nal illustration, Hannah holds the toy gorilla’s hand while walking
together with her father. e three of them appear on the last page, with the father
and the gorilla facing the reader, one in front and one behind. A child’s desire
for parental companionship is an innate need, and parents’ companionship is an
ethical responsibility. e repetition and alternation of the father and the gorilla
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in the illustrations signify that, under the call of the natural instincts represented
by the animal factor, the human factor in the father is restored. He imitates the
gorilla’s exemplary behavior and becomes an active provider of fatherly love.
Conversely, in Piggybook (), specic animal characteristics are used to
harshly critique human behaviors that resemble them, illustrating the animal
instincts and natural will represented by the animal factor of the Sphinx factor.
e story revolves around the daily life of a family of four, revealing the laziness
and incompetence of Mr. Piggott and his two sons through their transformation
into pigs. It criticizes male chauvinism and gender discrimination, while praising
women’s diligence, dedication, and independence. e cover illustration vividly
summarizes the oppressed status of Mrs. Piggott in the household, depicting
her struggling to carry her husband and two sons on her back. e rst page of
the story shows a picture of an ideal life, which is a testament to the mother’s
excellent housekeeping abilities; however, she is neither depicted in the illustration
nor mentioned by name in the text. In this household, the mother handles all
the housework but receives no respect. e father and sons do nothing but eat
and watch TV, never lifting a nger to help, and only shouting at the mother for
food. eir neat and tidy appearance, as well as the orderly house, are maintained
solely through the mother’s hard work, and these appearances quickly disintegrate
following her departure. Anthony Browne criticizes the father and sons’ essence of
laziness and gluttony through the mother’s farewell note, “You are pigs,” and the
illustrations begin to feature increasingly prominent pig imagery.
Initially, the illustrator uses subtle details to hint at the father and sons’ piggish
nature. e food packaging with pig heads in front of the sons symbolizes their
consumption of pig food, the pig head badges on their clothes indicate their pig
identities, and the shadow of a pig head forms from the father’s head on the wall.
After the mother leaves, the three males undergo a transformation, becoming
Sphinx-like hybrids with pig heads and hands but human bodies. To emphasize
their animalistic nature, the background of the illustrations is lled with pig
imagery, appearing on wallpaper, photos, famous paintings, sofas, household items,
tree shadows, and the moon. ey are unable to take care of themselves or do
housework, becoming lthy and irritable, much like pigs, and their home turns
into a pigsty. e black wolf outside the window at night foreshadows the crisis
they face, with visual language alluding to the classic fairy tale “e ree Little
Pigs.”
e mother’s return saves the three males, who lower their pride and kneel
before her, begging her to stay. Only at this moment does the mother’s face appear
clearly in the illustration for the rst time. Being seen, she gains the recognition and
respect of her husband and sons, elevating her status within the family. e reader’s
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perspective coincides with that of the father and sons, looking up at the mother,
who stands higher than the picture frame, symbolizing her transcendence of family
boundaries and traditional constraints. e story concludes with a redistribution of
housework, breaking the traditional family ethics and establishing a new, equitable,
and reasonable family ethical order. e father and sons revert from their Sphinx-
like human-pig forms to their respectable and clean human forms. ey happily
engage in various household chores, shedding their gluttonous and lazy animal
nature, and maintaining a happy family through shared responsibilities, respect,
and understanding.
e metamorphosis of human gures also appears as visual metaphors in
Anthony Browne’s My Family Member series, combined with explicit similes in
the text to express human virtues and the author’s admiration and aection for his
family. From to , Anthony Browne created four picture books named
after family members: My Dad (), My Mom (), My Brother (), and
Our Girl (). is series uses titles with similar structures and narrative styles,
introducing each family member from an autobiographical perspective. From
the child’s perspective of Dad, Mom, and Brother to the adult perspective of
Granddaughter, Browne employs Sphinx-like human-animal hybrids, using animal
characteristics familiar to child readers to praise the abilities of his family members.
is series is particularly suitable for younger children because each page presents
a single character trait with matching text and illustration, resembling a concept
book. Whenever a transformation appears in the illustrations, the corresponding
text uses a simile to help a child understand the character trait and that animal’s
feature.
Comparing humans to animals aligns with children’s animistic cognitive
tendencies, and this comparison helps children better understand the world,
fostering emotional and cognitive development. My Dad is Anthony Browne’s
tribute to his father, where he lavishly praises an “all-right” dad, diering from the
unreliable fathers depicted in his previous works. is dad is tall, strong, and a hero
in his child’s eyes. Browne’s animal comparisons emphasize his father’s virtues: he
eats like a horse, swims like a sh, is as strong as a gorilla, as happy as a hippo, and
as wise as an owl. Correspondingly, the illustrations feature a dad with a horse’s
head, a sh wearing dad’s pajamas, a gorilla-headed dad, a hippo-headed dad, and
an owl-headed dad. No matter how the dad transforms into various animals, the
same plaid pajamas mark him, maintaining character consistency and making the
similes easier for children to understand. is clever use of clothing to link dierent
images continues in the following three works, vividly highlighting the characters’
traits through Sphinx-like imagery.
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In My Mom, the oral pattern on Mom’s nightgown appears on the lion-headed
body, the buttery-bodied wings, the cat’s neck, and the rhino’s horn, respectively
showcasing her roar, beauty, softness, and toughness. Even when the brother’s body
transforms with a cat’s head and tail in My Brother, he still wears the same outt,
being likened to a “real cool cat.” e author visualizes the slang expression “cool
cat,” using a pun to depict the brother as a jazz-loving, stylish young man. However,
the word “real” simplies the multiple connotations of “cool cat,” making it more
straightforward for children to understand the literal meaning.
Similarly, in Our Girl, the unchanged outt helps child readers recognize her
as she transforms into a panda, frog, monkey, bee, and oppy dog, climbing trees,
jumping, being naughty, working hard, and feeling sleepy like these animals.
Using consistent clothing to continue the characters’ transformations and
connect scene transitions, juxtaposing the metaphor and its referent in the
illustrations, is a prominent feature of Anthony Browne’s My Family Member
series. Moreover, the endings of these books maintain a unied linguistic style and
content, expressing the eternal love between family members straightforwardly.
e works convey deep familial aection, guiding and inspiring child readers to
feel and express love, infusing love into family relationships.
e metamorphosis of human body into animals or blending (Caracciolo &
Lambert ) is one of the primary means by which Anthony Browne employs
visual language to conduct non-human narratives. is approach diers from
anthropomorphism and imitation as it emphasizes the similarities between
humans and animals, thereby stripping away human subjectivity. e relationship
between humans and animals is both continuous and equal, and viewing humans as
Sphinxes elucidates the intrinsic nature of humans while also prompting reection
on human-animal relationships and interactions. In his works, Browne portrays
humans transforming into various types of animals to showcase the diversity and
uniqueness of the animal kingdom, expressing profound admiration and respect.
Additionally, he applies these transformations in family-themed picture books
for young children, aligning with their animistic cognitive tendencies and helping
them develop a more empathetic perspective on animals. e aforementioned
picture books serve to illustrate the connections between animalistic and human
tendencies within the context of the human family. As the smallest unit of human
society, the family is the initial school where children learn to become adults. ey
need the nourishment of familial love and will bear the responsibility of passing
that love forward.
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TOY BEAR AS ANIMATE ARTIFACT: ECOLOGICAL THINKING IN ZOOMORPHISM
In Anthony Browne’s works, non-human entities include not only natural things
(animals) and supernatural things (metamorphosis of the human body), but also
artifacts or man-made objects such as toys. e Bear series incorporates events
involving a white bear toy into a narrative, making the Bear a non-human character
within the story, and recounting its adventures using a magic pencil to cleverly
resolve various crises. e portrayal of non-human entities in picture books is a
more explicit visual expression, achieved through the combination of images and
text. Illustrations depict forms, text denes identities, and together they narrate
actions. Although Bear is formally an articial toy, its name, experiences, and
actions belong to a living animal. e storylines or types of events in the Bear series
are almost entirely centered around danger and adventure. Whether in the forest or
the city, Bear faces threats of being hunted by hunters, guards, large wild animals,
and evil characters from fairy tales. is zoomorphic technique of animating toys
as animals not only presents the predicament of animals under human inuence
but also conveys an ecological critique of anthropocentrism.
e Bear series belongs to Anthony Browne’s early works and comprises four
books: Bear Hunt (), Bear Goes to Town (), e Little Bear Book (), and
A Bear-y Tale (). Given Browne’s expertise in depicting realistic animals, the
decision to use a toy instead of a real bear to tell an animal story is interesting: is
white toy bear, with a red polka-dot bow around its neck, holding a red-and-yellow
magic pencil, is only the size of a cat but possesses stable emotions, clever wisdom,
magical drawing skills, and kind behavior. Clearly, this is an artifact imbued
with human ideals, full of anthropocentric characteristics. However, Anthony
Browne does not anthropomorphize this articial gure but rather zoomorphizes
it, achieving an eect like the magic of Bear’s pencil. e things Bear draws can
become real, and the human-made toy can be animated, endowed not only with
life but also with extraordinary abilities. is reects human will and implicitly
conveys an ecological value of equality between animals and humans.
Anthropocentrism is not only evident in the characterization of Bear but also
permeates the story’s background. e forest is lled with human traces, such
as human body parts (ngers, hands, lips, eyes, teeth, grinning mouths), human
clothing and accessories (shirts, ties, glasses, shoes, hats, socks, sweaters),
human-made food (fried eggs, cakes), human entertainment and household items
(footballs, umbrellas, teacups, matchsticks, clocks, ags, light bulbs, clotheslines
and pegs), and elements from human fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood, the houses
of the ree Little Pigs, the giant entwined by a beanstalk, the Frog Prince, the glass
slipper of Cinderella, Puss in Boots, witches, the poisoned apple of Snow White, and
the ree Bears). ese human traces are not isolated; they are cleverly integrated
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with the owers, plants, and trees of the forest. Similar juxtapositions and shape
exchanges include marine elements in the forest, such as swimming sh, swaying
seaweed, bubble-blowing sh, and tree bark resembling sh scales. is creates
an unnatural eect that prompts readers to reect on the extent to which human
interference has crossed the boundaries of the natural environment and animal
ecosystems.
Anthony Browne uses the perspective of Bear as an observer, allowing readers
to follow Bear into the city to witness the brutal slaughter of animals by humans. In
the crowded, trac-jammed streets, Bear is submerged in the footsteps of hurried
pedestrians. Not only do people fail to see it, but they also knock it down. Within
Bear’s line of sight, the legs and feet of these various people are lled with signs
of the killing of wild animals. e background features crocodile-skin boots, the
hems of mink coats, and leopard-print clothing. Both men and women wear shoes
made from animal skins. is background severely criticizes the barbaric acts of
animal exploitation that persist within human civilization.
In addition to clothing, people’s food also relies on the slaughter of animals.
e butcher shop scene is rich in detail, with the connections and contradictions
among various elements reecting the violence, brutality, and hypocrisy of humans
in obtaining food. e butcher shop’s door is tightly closed, with three pictures
posted on the upper half. e top picture contains a string of letters, presumably
the name of the butcher shop or the owner, representing a human symbol. e
middle picture features a prominent and particularly aectionate red heart symbol.
e bottom picture depicts a plump pig standing on a grassy eld under a bright
blue sky, likely advertising the high quality and freshness of the pork for sale. When
viewed together, these three pictures might initially convey to the reader the idea
that “people love pigs.” However, the large dark red bloodstain seeping from the
gap under the door immediately exposes human cruelty and hypocrisy. e shop
owner stands behind the window, holding a knife, ready to cut the meat on the
counter at any moment. Every part of the pig’s body is meticulously butchered,
hung on a rod, stamped, labeled, and ready for sale. e butcher’s head is aligned
on the same horizontal plane as the hanging pieces of pork, with their colors and
shapes blending, symbolizing the near loss of humanity’s rationality in the brutal
slaughter of other animals.
For animals, the city is truly a “DEAD END STREET,” as indicated by the street
sign on the wall. e heinous acts of poaching, abuse, and slaughter by humans are
graphically depicted in the story, warning readers and calling for the eradication
of such evils in urban civilization. e stray cat not only suers from hunger but
is also captured by a mysterious and sinister gure in black. Along with it, various
animals like a pig, cow, sheep, dog, and chicken—all domesticated by humans—are
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conned in a warehouse. ese animals live under human control and are typically
used for producing food, fur, labor, and other purposes. eir fate depends on
human needs; they might be sold, transferred, or killed.
At the heavily guarded warehouse entrance, remnants of food such as sh
bones and abandoned dog leashes can be seen. In the street-side buildings’ oor-
to-ceiling windows, sh in tanks, birds in cages, trapped dogs and wolves, and a
fashionable woman wearing a leopard-print coat are visible. Anthony Browne uses
visual language in these background details to further illustrate human captivity
and domination over other animals and even over themselves. It becomes evident
that in the city, the exploitation and killing of animals by humans have reached an
alarming level.
To alleviate the pervasive anthropocentrism, Anthony Browne uses gameplay
to express his stance and vision for improving the situation, thereby dissolving
the seriousness of human-induced ecological tensions and providing an engaging
reading experience for children. Each time Bear goes for a walk, it feels like an
adventurous game where he continually encounters danger. As a player, Bear carries
his magical pencil as his only piece of game equipment, using his intelligence to
tackle challenges and ultimately escape successfully.
In Bear Hunt, the antagonists are humans, and Bear uses tactics of confrontation
and retaliation to punish them. Two hunters take turns trying to capture Bear with
nets, ropes, guns, cages, and traps. However, Bear calmly uses his magical pencil to
draw tripping ropes, a rhinoceros, a bent pipe, a saw, and a large dove, successfully
evading the hunters. Each time he turns to face the reader, Bear smiles, showing no
fear or tension, but rather the mindset of a contented player.
In e Little Bear Book, the antagonists are four large wild animals and a
human-made barrier. Bear uses methods of appeasement and balance to deal with
them. e angry gorilla, crocodile, lion, elephant, and a wall blocking his path all
exhibit unfriendly attitudes towards Bear. However, Bear patiently draws a toy bear,
a trumpet, a crown, a mouse, and a door hole for them, creating a harmonious
situation.
In A Bear-y Tale, the danger comes from human imagination, and Bear uses
subversion and rewriting to reconstruct the story. e evil characters from human
fairy tales are completely transformed in Bear’s story. e big bad wolf turns pale
with fright at a pig drawn by Bear, making it impossible for him to eat Little Red
Riding Hood and the ree Little Pigs. e giant, who proudly loves his mother, is
completely entangled by the magical beanstalk drawn by Bear, likely preventing him
from harming Jack. e witch has her wig carried away by a dove drawn by Bear,
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leaving her covering her bald head in dismay, unable to harm Snow White. Bear
draws a sumptuous picnic for the ree Bears, including three bowls of porridge,
various fruits, and cakes, so they don’t need to return home for a meal after their
walk. ey would also forgive Goldilocks.
In these stories, no matter how unfriendly the opponents are, Bear always greets
them politely and then cleverly addresses the core issue with humor and ease.
ese recurring scenarios resemble game levels, giving the narrative a rhythmic
ow, enhancing plot continuity, and increasing the story’s tension and appeal. is
eectively establishes Bear’s identity as a super player in the game.
Not only does Bear use his magical pencil to save himself, but he also becomes
a bridge character (James ) to rescue other animals. In Bear Goes to Town, as
an artifact, Bear expresses sympathy for domesticated animals in captivity and
uses human tools to break their connement and evade capture. Anthony Browne
establishes a relationship between Bear and other animals through visual eye
contact, contrasting sharply with the human disregard for them. Human eyes
are either blocked by hanging pork, covered by hats, or tightly closed due to
falling, symbolizing human blindness to the real needs of animals and their own
mistakes. e eye contact between Bear and the cat initiates his rescue journey; he
sees the cat’s hunger, the pigs being slaughtered, and the livestock imprisoned in
the warehouse. Consequently, Bear draws abundant food for the cat and worries
that the toy bears in the display window might be eaten. He draws roller skates
to chase after the captured cat, a ladder to climb into the warehouse, a saw to cut
through the fence, a door to let the livestock out, a banana peel to trip the pursuing
guard, and tacks to puncture the chasing car. e food and tools that Bear draws
have distinct human attributes, reecting the idea of a Chinese idiom that “let
he who tied the bell on the tiger take it o”(解铃还须系铃人)—the resolution of
human-animal coexistence issues requires human intervention. In the ecological
community of shared destiny, animals escaping human captivity and persecution
should nd their own place and way of life. e livestock and Bear discuss their
future in a blank scene, which represents both freedom and new choices. e
blank space corresponds to Bear’s mention of “nowhere,” symbolizing a utopia.
Compared to their previous dog’s life—an idiom and pun meaning a miserable
existence where they faced being either eaten or beaten—the livestock prefer this
newfound freedom. Responding to their wishes, Bear draws them vast and open
green meadow and hillsides, earning their gratitude.
e Bear series places the relationship between humans and animals within the
context of the ecological environment, not only criticizing the excessive impact of
humans on nature but also condemning the slaughter of animals. Anthony Browne
utilizes the toy bear, an artifact, as an observer, actor, and bridge character in his
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non-human narratives, easing the tension between serious topics and young readers.
Within a premise that children can accept and understand, the series inspires them
to think about the relationship between humans and other animals and helps them
develop an ecological ethical awareness. e playfulness and interaction in the
works attract young readers to engage in dialogue with Bear, jointly experiencing
the excitement of adventures, witnessing human hypocrisy and evil, and nding
ways to break through these issues. e magical pencil symbolizes Bear’s wisdom
and reects human imagination, like the magical brush in the Chinese story of
Ma Liang. It represents good wishes and intentions. Bear, while mimicking a real
animal, is also a human creation. It combines the will of humans and other animals,
becoming the heroic embodiment of resolving dilemmas and pointing the way for
the harmonious development of the ecological community of shared destiny.
CONCLUSION
Non-human narratives have always been a crucial part of children’s literature and
should be a focus of children’s literature studies. From a historical perspective,
Anthony Browne’s non-human narratives exhibit typical postmodern features,
lled with elements such as metaction, collage, intertextuality, allusion, parody,
ambiguity, crossover, fusion, and playfulness. When viewed from the perspective
of literary form, picture books provide a richer multimodal expression. e
combination of text and illustrations can more intuitively present the images,
emotions, and actions of non-human entities, set up visual metaphors that are
easy for children to understand, and depict more complex backgrounds and
environments. is enhances the narrative structure, creates interaction with
readers, and increases the enjoyment of reading for children.
In discussing the techniques and forms of non-human narratives, it is also
important to consider the ethical values they embody. Literature can aid children
in achieving ethical enlightenment. As Nie Zhenzhao states, “the teaching function
of children’s literature is valuable because it cultivates children’s personality and
moral integrity” (“Ethical” ). Shang Biwu also notes that
non-human narratives in children’s literature not only help guide young readers
to consider the boundaries between human and non-human, emphasizing the
interdependent relationship between humans and non-humans, but also help them to
contemplate such questions as how they can become better humans, foster empathy for
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non-human species, experience the reciprocity between humans and non-humans, and
ultimately strive to create a better world. (“Telling” )
rough the eects of defamiliarization and empathy, Anthony Browne’s non-
human narratives teach young readers how to interact with their peers, their
families, and animals, learning to manage relationships at the individual, family,
and global levels.
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Note
. is work was supported by a grant from the National Social Science Fund of China
(Grant Number: CWW).
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Works Cited
Bernaerts, Lars, et al. “e Storied Lives of Non-human Narrators”. Narrative, vol. , no. ,
, pp. –. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/.
Browne, Anthony. A Bear-y Tale. Hamish Hamilton, .
———. Bear Hunt. Hamish Hamilton, .
———. Bear Goes to Town. Hamish Hamilton, .
———. Gorilla. Julia MacRae Books, .
———. My Brother. Doubleday, .
———. My Dad. Doubleday, .
———. My Mom. Doubleday, .
———. Our Girl. Doubleday, .
———. Piggybook. Julia MacRae Books, .
———. e Little Bear Book. London: Hamish Hamilton, .
———. Willy and the Cloud. Walker Books Ltd, .
———. Willy and Hugh. Julia MacRae Books, .
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