Doutorando em Filosofia na Universidade de Warwick (Reino Unido) e na Universidade Monash (Austrália). Pesquisador Visitante na Universidade Johns Hopkins (EUA). Financiado pela Bolsa de Doutorado Conjunto Monash-Warwick e pela Bolsa de Doutorado e Carreira Inicial de Pesquisa de Warwick. E-mail: gustavo.dasilva@monash.edu. Orcid: 0000-0002-1149-5411.
Bacharel em Direito pela Universidade de São Paulo (Brasil). Pesquisador visitante na Universidade Masaryk (República Tcheca). E-mail: eb.jr@alumni.usp.br. Orcid: 0000-0001-5971-3046.
This paper, in the intersection between Philosophy and Literature, aims to analyze the fifth story, “An Orison of Sonmi-451”, from David Mitchell's novel “Cloud Atlas” (2004), concerning Sonmi~451’s life, resistance, and death in Nea So Copros (a dystopian futuristic plutocratic State that is set Korea). To do so, we will briefly present the novel’s narrative structure, emphasizing its significance for the temporal arrangement of its contents, along with insights from other commentators. Afterward, this paper will be divided into three sections: 1. On Religion, 2. On Capitalism, and 3. On Cannibalism. These sections respectively address three types of oppression: (i.) ideological control, imposing subjective chains based on religious discourses; (ii.) labor-related subjugation, involving the systematic extraction of economic productivity and political obedience as an actualization of slavery; and (iii.) corporal domination, in which all fabricants (non-naturally born) are viewed merely as an exploitable product-body, particularly when it comes to biological functions. In conclusion, the hypothesis here defended is that Mitchell describes a full dispositif when it comes to their means of production, surplus extraction, and power relations.
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