BROKEN IDENTITIES OF POSTHUMAN SOULS IN A CYBERPUNK SOCIETY REFLECTED IN ALTERED CARBON BY RICHARD KINGSLEY MORGAN Pamukkale University Graduate School of Social Sciences Master Thesis Department of English Language and Literature Arzu YILMAZ Supervisor: Associate Prof. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN January 2021 DENİZLİ I hereby declare that all information in this document has been presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that as required by these rules and conduct I have fully cited and referenced all materials and results that are not original to this work. Signature: Arzu YILMAZ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Associate Prof. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN for his great effort, guidance, inspiring suggestions and his patience in the course of writing process. I would like to express my profound gratitude and thanks to my mother, father and sister whose endless support, motivating attitude, patience and true love is really unutterable. Without their support, encouragement and patience, I could not have the strength to complete this dissertation. ii ABSTRACT BROKEN IDENTITIES OF POSTHUMAN SOULS IN A CYBERPUNK SOCIETY REFLECTED IN ALTERED CARBON BY RICHARD KINGSLEY MORGAN Yılmaz, Arzu Master Thesis Western Language and Literature Department English Language and Literature Programme Adviser of Thesis: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN January 2021, İV+87 pages The objective of this dissertation is to analyse the broken identities of prominent characters in a cyberpunk society fictionalized in Altered Carbon by Richard Kingsley Morgan within the scope of posthuman theory. Altered Carbon provides its reader with a wide range of cyberpunk features including high technological inventions like artificial intelligence integrated with a human body as well as offering a high technological future time plot. Considering a cyberpunk society with full of artificial intelligences and cyborgs as half-humans all around, and as a result of the physical, mental and biological transformation process of man the ‘identity problem ’comes up. Altered Carbon, as a science fiction novel, displays what the life of man in the future might be like, how it could feel to be a posthuman as well as paving the way for a challenging inquiry into identity problems arising as a result of transformations. In the light of these ideas, the first phase to be followed is to trace back how and why man has undergone transformations. Thus, the first section aims at providing knowledge of certain historical processes man has been through as well as certain theories such as existentialism and humanism in correlation with posthuman theory. The purpose of the second section is to discuss the relation of science fiction and its sub-genre – cyberpunk - as the dominating genre of Altered Carbon with the posthuman theory by referring to the plot, time and characters of the novel. The third section focuses on the identity problems arising as a result of the transformations man and the society have gone through by associating the identity issues with the some prominent characters in the novel such as Takeshi Kovacs, Laurens Bancroft and Ortega. The final section of this study presents a conclusion analysing the broken identities of posthuman souls which arise as a result of living in a cyberpunk society in correlation with the key characters in the novel giving the signals of ‘broken identity’. Key Words: Posthuman, Science fiction, Cyberpunk, Cyborg, Artificial Intelligence, Transformation, Identity. iii ÖZET RICHARD KINGSLEY MORGAN ’IN ALTERED CARBON ESERİNDE YANSITILAN BİR SİBERPUNK TOPLUMDAKİ POSTHÜMAN RUHLARIN PARÇALANMIŞ KİMLİKLERİ Yılmaz, Arzu Yüksek Lisans Tezi Batı Dilleri ve Edebiyatları ABD İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Programı Tez Yöneticisi: Doç. Dr. Cumhur Yılmaz MADRAN Ocak 2021, İV+87 sayfa Bu tezin amacı Richard Kingsley Morgan’ın Altered Carbon eserinde kurguladığı siberpunk toplumda baş karakterlerin parçalanmış kimliklerini posthümanizm kapsamında analiz etmektir. Altered Carbon okuyucusuna, insan bedeni ile bütünleşmiş bir yapay zeka gibi ileri teknolojik buluşların da içinde bulunduğu geniş çaplı siberpunk özelliklerinin yanı sıra ileri teknolojinin hakim olduğu bir gelecek zaman olay örgüsü sunmaktadır. Dört bir yanda yapay zekalarla ve yarı insan olan sayborglarla dolu bir siberpunk toplum göz önünde bulundurulduğunda ve insanın fiziksel, zihinsel ve biyolojik dönüşüm süreci sonucunda ‘kimlik sorunu ’ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bir bilim kurgu romanı olarak Altered Carbon, dönüşümlerin sonucunda baş gösteren kimlik sorunlarına dair iddialı bir sorgulamaya zemin hazırlamanın yanı sıra insanın gelecekteki yaşamının nasıl olabileceğini, posthüman olmanın nasıl hissettirebileceğini gözler önüne sermektedir. Bu fikirler ışığında, izlenmesi gereken ilk aşama insanın nasıl ve neden dönüşümler geçirdiğinin izini sürmektir. Bu nedenle, birinci bölüm insanın içinden geçtiği belli başlı tarihsel süreçlerin ve varoluşçuluk ve hümanizm gibi bazı teorilerin posthüman teori ile bağıntılı bir sentezini sunmayı hedeflemektedir. İkinci bölümün amacı, bir tür olarak ‘bilim kurgu’nun ve onun bir alt türü olan ve Altered Carbon’da baskın olan ‘siberpunk’ın posthüman teori ile ilişkisini romandaki olay örgüsüne, zamana ve karakterlere atıfta bulunarak tartışmaktır. Üçüncü bölüm, romandaki bazı başı çeken Takeshi Kovacs, Laurens Bancroft ve Ortega gibi karakterlerle kimlik sorunlarını ilişkilendirerek insanın ve toplumun geçirdiği dönüşümlerin sonucunda ortaya çıkan kimlik sorunları üzerinde durmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın son bölümü, romanda ‘parçalanmış kimlik ’sinyalleri veren önemli karakterlerle bağıntılı olarak siberpunk toplumda yaşamanın sonucunda ortaya çıkan posthüman ruhların parçalanmış kimliklerini analiz eden bir sonuç sunmaktadır. Anahtar Sözcükler: Posthüman, Bilim Kurgu, Siberpunk, Sayborg, Yapay Zeka, Dönüşüm, Kimlik. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. i ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii ÖZET............................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ iv INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 SECTION ONE CERTAIN HISTORICAL PROCESSES AND THEORIES THAT HAVE CONTRIBUTION IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF MAN ON HIS WAY TO POSTHUMANISM 1.1 A Brief Historical Background of Human Beings .................................................... 12 1.2 A General Overview of Humanism and Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism ............... 17 1.3 The Correlation of Posthumanism and Sartre’s ‘Project’ .......................................... 25 SECTION TWO THE RELATION OF SCIENCE FICTION, CYBERPUNK AND POSTHUMANISM WITHIN THE SCOPE OF ALTERED CARBON BY RICHARD KINGSLEY MORGAN SECTION THREE THE ANALYSIS OF IDENTITY PROBLEMS OF MAN IN A CYBERPUNK SOCIETY ARISING AS A RESULT OF TRANSFORMATIONS WITH REGARD TO THE PROMINENT CHARACTERS IN ALTERED CARBON BY RICHARD KINGSLEY MORGAN CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 73 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 85 CV ................................................................................................................................... 87 1 INTRODUCTION Richard Kingsley Morgan, born in September 1965, is a British writer and the creator of Altered Carbon (2002), later called as Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy with the other following books: Broken Angels (2003) and Woken Furies (2005). He has given works of cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, science fiction and fantasy genres. Altered Carbon is a cyberpunk novel which is a sub-genre of science fiction. As an adapted television series on Netflix in 2018, the novel includes and reflects possible future experiences through which human race might go. The book is set in a future in which it is possible and easy to travel among galaxies. Morgan constructs his reader such a future beyond limits that it is even possible to transfer consciousnesses into new bodies called sleeves via cortical stacks so that people might live hundreds or thousands of years. Takeshi Kovacs, the protagonist, shows up as a previous U.N. eminent soldier, one of the members of Envoys on the colony planet of Harlan’s World. U.N. founded Envoys because there was a need for an elite military team in order to overcome the interspace warfare issues. These military members were trained as specialists who became familiar with re- sleeving and who underwent special psychological transformations. When U.N. colonial commando unit ended Kovacs ’life, he was kept in the stack storage for a long time. Yet, at present on Earth, Kovacs is re-sleeved and charged with investigating the mysterious death of a wealthy man, Laurens Bancroft. In fact, Kovacs ’story on Earth in Bay City begins just after being re-sleeved, and when he meets Ortega, a police officer in the city. What might be more interesting is that the mission is appointed by this very rich man known as the oldest ‘Meth ’alive, aged three-hundred-and-sixty years like a vampire. Meth originates from long-lived Methuselah