Vision and Ethics in East Asian Science Fiction: Kobo Abe and Liu Cixin

초록

This paper provides a comparative analysis of works by Kobo Abe and Liu Cixin. Both The Three-Body Problem and "Raccoon Dog of the Tower of Babel" revolve around the problem of sight. Human beings who lose their subjective sight and fall down to be seen only are depicted in two stories, on the levels of civilization level and the unconscious. As Sartre writes in Being and Nothingness, "It is shame or pride which makes me live, not knowing the situation of being looked at." It is an abasement to an unethical dimension when human dignity and the perception of reality are abandoned, and these themes are explored in the two Asian works of science fiction analyzed in the present study.

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