《别让我走》中的共同体形塑

The Community Building in Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, written against the backdrop of growing ethical debates surrounding cloning technologies, depicts a closed society in which clones exist solely as organ donors. Through the institutionalized education and management of these manufactured lives, the novel reveals how clones gradually become aware of their predetermined fate yet remain unable to escape their instrumentalized existence. Drawing on Roberto Esposito's community theory, this paper examines the posthuman community formed by humans and clones, focusing on its structural logic, immunitary mechanisms, and fundamentally illusory nature. The study argues that the community in the novel is not built upon a “common good” or shared emotional consensus, but is instead organized around the responsibility and debt embodied in munus: from birth, clones bear an original debt of organ donation that incorporates them into the community's framework. At the same time, systems such as the carer program and the “humanizing” assessments of emotional and artistic capacity function as immunitary mechanisms that stabilize the community by enforcing separation, exemption, and symbolic compensation. Nevertheless, this community remains fictional and unsustainable. Unequal power dynamics create a rupture in understanding and empathy; and although technological developments blur the boundaries between humans and clones, mutual recognition is never achieved. Ultimately, this paper argues that Ishiguro exposes the internal contradictions of this posthuman community to prompt deeper reflections on anthropocentrism, the value of life, and technological ethics, offering a new theoretical perspective on coexistence in the posthuman era.

石黑一雄的《别让我走》在克隆技术引发伦理争议的时代语境中，通过描绘一个以克隆人为器官捐献者的封闭社会，展现了被制造的生命如何在制度化的教育与管理中逐渐意识到自身命运，却无法摆脱被工具化的存在方式。本文从罗伯托·埃斯波西托的共同体理论出发，分析小说中人类与克隆人共同构成的后人类共同体，重点探讨其建构逻辑、免疫机制及虚幻本质。研究指出：小说中的共同体并非建立在“共同善”或情感共识之上，而是围绕munus 所体现的责任与债务关系而运作，克隆人自出生即承担器官捐献的原初债务，从而被纳入共同体结构。同时，看护员制度、情感与艺术能力的“人化”审查等机制构成了维持共同体稳定的免疫结构，使其得以通过区隔、豁免与象征性补偿避免崩解。尽管如此，这一共同体本质上仍然是虚构且不可持续的：不平等的权力结构导致理解与共情的断裂，克隆人与人类之间的界限在技术推动下不断模糊，却始终无法实现真正的互认。本文最终指出，石黑一雄通过揭示这一后人类共同体的内在矛盾，提出了关于人类中心主义、生命价值与技术伦理的深刻反思，并为后人类时代的共生想象提供了新的理论视角。