들뢰즈의 소수자 문학론으로 본 포스트휴먼 담론: 가즈오 이시구로의 『나를 보내지 마』 서사를 중심으로

Posthuman Discourse from Deleuze’s Minority Literature: Focusing on Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the clones in Never Let Me Go (2005) as a metaphor for minorities using Deleuze’s theory of minority literature as an analysis framework. The environment of the 21st century gave birth to minorities whose character was difficult to explain within these frameworks, thus producing their own literature. It is necessary to seek a new paradigm such as majority and minority, machine and human, beyond the limitations of existing frameworks such as race, class, and gender. In Never Let Me Go, clones are tools used to facilitate the human desire of living long and healthy lives. The clones are minorities in the post-human era and excluded from the political power granted to others. Never Let Me Go reveals that modern humanism instills education and cultural ideology from the point of view of the other to posthumans. Following Kathy’s gaze, who is more human than humans, the author reveals the arrogance and inhumanity of human desire that science can contribute a posthuman society. The clones exist, but they coexist with humans only as social minorities whose existence lacks dignified recognition. Never Let Me Go reveals the abyss hidden in anthropocentrism illusions, and can be evaluated as a literary attempt to actively respond to the posthuman conditions brought about by the advancement of technology and plight of human bias.