Author: Dr. E. Ram Bhaskar Raju, E. Namratha

Abstract: This paper examines Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) through Sigmund Freud’s theories of the Uncanny (Das Unheimliche) and narcissistic projection, integrated with a Lacanian reading of the 'Mirror Stage' and a Foucault-inspired biopolitical critique. While speculative fiction frequently frames artificial intelligence through the lens of techno-dystopia, this study argues that Ishiguro utilises the Artificial Friend (AF) to externalise deep-seated human psychological anxieties regarding mortality, grief, and substitutability. By analysing Chrissie’s attempt to use Klara as a surrogate for her dying daughter and the structural pressures of the elite 'lifted' education system, we demonstrate how the machine functions as a psychological mirror and an emotional prosthesis. Klara becomes an empty signifier—a literalized objet petit a—where the human characters attempt to bypass the mourning process and maintain narcissistic equilibrium. Ultimately, the paper contends that the true dystopia in Ishiguro’s text is not technological tyranny, but the psychological commodification of love and the institutionalised performance anxiety that erases the alterity of the human and non-human other.

Keywords: Kazuo Ishiguro; The Uncanny; Narcissistic Projection; Objet Petit A; Lifted System; Biopolitics; Speculative Fiction; Psychoanalytic Criticism.

Article Info: Received: 21 Sep 2022; Received in revised form: 19 Oct 2022; Accepted: 24 Oct 2022; Available online: 31 Oct 2022

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.75.40