The Sun and the Market: Economy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s "Klara and the Sun"

Amirhossein  Nemati Ziarati; Hossein Pirnajmuddin; Pyeaam Abbasi

doi:10.18172/jes.6805

Authors

Amirhossein Nemati Ziarati University of Isfahan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8653-9853
Hossein Pirnajmuddin University of Isfahan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8349-2626
Pyeaam Abbasi University of Isfahan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4264-5873

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.6805

Keywords:

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, economy, cognitive economy, neoliberalism, surveillance capitalism, posthumanism, affective labor, energy economies

Abstract

In this article, we offer a reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun in terms of economy. This novel depicts a speculative not-too-distant posthuman world where artificial intelligence sways, redefining relationships, care, and value under neoliberal capitalism. We consider Klara, an Artificial Friend (AF), as a representation of how emotional labor and genuine human connections are commodified. Drawing on a variety of critical perspectives (including insights from the New Economic Criticism, cognitive science, and discussions of humanism/posthumanism), we highlight the novel’s engagement with surveillance capitalism, ecological exploitation, and speculative investment in engineered, precarious futures. We also examine Klara’s dual role as a technological product and affective caregiver to further highlight how the novel critiques neoliberalism’s dehumanizing ethos and calls for reprioritizing care over profit. Also at issue is the relation between AI and Alife. These we consider in relation to what we call cognitive economy. At the macro level, Ishiguro’s novel addresses the economy of the relation between the human and the non-human, human consciousness and non-human networks. More specifically, involved in Klara’s intelligence (including emotional one) is the reciprocal/supplementary relation–economy–of the heuristic (experience-based) and the algorithmic models of consciousness. This novel, ultimately, encourages us to imagine alternatives beyond transactional logic and see the value of life as humanely nurtured rather than commodified. Keywords: Economy, neoliberalism, surveillance capitalism, posthumanism, affective labor, energy economies.

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Author Biographies

Amirhossein Nemati Ziarati, University of Isfahan

Amirhossein is a researcher and Ph.D. candidate in English literature in the University of Isfahan. He received his M.A. and B.A. from the University of Tehran and Shiraz University, respectively. He is currently a part-time visiting lecturer at Persian Gulf University of Bushehr, Iran. He is interested in doing research in critical literary studies, primarily focused on the New Economic Criticism and the fiction written by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Hossein Pirnajmuddin, University of Isfahan

associate professor of English literature

Department of English Language and Literature

University of Isfahan

Pyeaam Abbasi, University of Isfahan

Pyeaam is an associate professor of English language and literature at the University of Isfahan. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Shiraz University. He has published numerous publications in many different scholarly journals and has been cited by many.

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