Posthuman Care and Liquid Dystopia in Klara and the Sun

Abstract

Science fiction today often moves away from distant futures and instead focuses on everyday systems that shape human life. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun is one such text that explores technology, care, and social inequality in a near-future setting. Drawing on Lars Schmeink’s ideas of dystopia, posthumanism, and liquid modernity, this paper examines how the novel presents a world in which systems of control, genetic enhancement, and technological dependence gradually shape human relationships. The novel introduces Artificial Friends as companions for children, but it also reflects deeper social problems such as isolation and inequality. At the same time, the idea of “lifting” creates a divide between individuals, showing how biology itself becomes a site of control. As Schmeink suggests, contemporary science fiction often shifts from digital control to biological and social regulation, where life itself becomes structured and managed (Schmeink). This paper argues that Klara and the Sun presents a form of quiet dystopia, where control is not forceful but normalised, and where care itself becomes something designed and distributed. The novel does not give clear answers, but it raises uncomfortable questions about identity, replacement, and what it really means to be human.