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

Year, pages: 2021, 43 - 54

This article focuses on cloning as a relevant trans- and posthumanist theme presented in the classical science fiction of the 1970s (Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang), 21st-century literary fiction (Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go), and streaming television series made in the 2010s (BBC America’s Orphan Black). With special emphasis on the subject of human cloning, the article will endeavor to discuss questions of identity in a posthuman environment, tracing the development from Wilhelm’s dystopian and post-apocalyptic scenarios in which clones and humans interact to disastrous ends, through Ishiguro’s psychological and emotional exploration of the inner world of cloned individuals whose fates are narrated in a form similar to the Bildungsroman, all the way to the complex study of nature vs. nurture in the cloned characters of Orphan Black.

Lacko, I. 2021. Saviors, naïfs, or orphans? The posthuman condition in literary and cinematic perspectives on human cloning. In World Literature Studies, vol. 13, no.1, pp. 43-54. 1337-9275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/WLS.2021.13.1.4

Lacko, I. (2021). Saviors, naïfs, or orphans? The posthuman condition in literary and cinematic perspectives on human cloning. World Literature Studies, 13(1), 43-54. 1337-9275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/WLS.2021.13.1.4

Publisher: Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV