Bio-capital Decentered Subjectivity in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go: Cyborgian Biotechnological Literary Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Candidate in English Literature, Department of English Literature, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Department of English, Parand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor, Department of English Education, Abhar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iran.

Abstract

The present paper intends to study Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go from the perspective of Cyborgian concepts of hybridized subjectivity, speed, metamorphic becoming, bio-narrative and bio-discourse, which intersect with cyborg biotechnology to create the bio-capital characters. Ishiguro portrays the non-unitary bio-subjectivities along with challenges of clones through tracing the main character’s memories. The Cyborgian theories of Donna Haraway, Paul Virilio and Rosi Braidotti are mainly used to analyze the genetic organs of the selected novel in bio-discourse. Cyborg biotechnology drains its bio-power, merges borderlines between the conventional polarities, de-politicizes it by destroying inequality in a natural history of transhumanism and, ultimately, makes hybridized privileged – unprivileged subjectivity. Cyborg bio-capital body is a kind of genetically modified object with a shifted boundary; a bio-semiotic body, not the human physiological body. In the novel, this study explores that cyborgian bio-capital subjectivity is the imitation of the original one due to three reasons: first, it has lost its human uniqueness; second, its self-automation is changed into a possible being; and, finally, its biological facet has constructed the equal bio-subjects. A cyborgian bio-capital subject is partly organ and partly machine in the cyborg biotechnology. The thematic features of Ishiguro’s novel as the quintessence of cyborg bio-narrative, including nomadic bio-subjectivity, development of fabricated trans-subjects, bio-animals, trans-genetic organisms, decentered subject, bio-molecule and mechanical body, are the focal points of analysis in this study.

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History

  • Receive Date: 29 December 2024
  • Revise Date: 15 March 2025
  • Accept Date: 17 August 2025

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