TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S NOVEL “KLARA AND THE SUN”: DYSTOPIA OR UTOPIA?

Abstract

The study intends to present technological advancement in Kazuo
Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021) concerning Ray Douglas
Bradbury’s perspectives on technological dystopia as a theoretical framework.
As Bradbury states in Fahrenheit 541 “Technology is a dystopia that figures out
that human is less required whereas technological advancement is needed”
(1980:85). In the past couple of decades, dystopian discourses have sought
excessively to make a similar stance about global warming, technological
control, digital surveillance, totalitarianism, and new authoritarianism.
Arguably, without a focus on the negative, we cannot focus on creating
something positive. Therefore, Ishiguro, a contemporary Sci-fi novelist, crucially
maps a profound account of technological advancement through his narratives.
However, he breaks against the current trends that are ready to be shocked, to
be intrigued, and more intellectual providing an entirely different outlook on
humans and society. The present study employed a non-empirical approach and
textual analysis technique to formulate the objectives of the study. First, it
analyzed how technological dystopia leads to manipulation in Klara and the
Sun. Second, it formulated whether technology controls human life and the
physical activities of characters in Klara and the Sun or whether technological
advancement leads to utopia, a need for better living conditions in social
dwellings. The findings have revealed the prominent shift of human interests and
importance towards AI friends and the control and dominance of technology
leading to manipulation. As Bradbury asserted technology is a bad thing; it
creates the scenario of detachment from the physical world and human
relationships. Lastly, the study declared that a human cannot see the good
without seeing the bad; thus, dystopia, according to Bradbury, is a bad thing
analyzed in Klara and the Sun.
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