Identity Boundaries and Place Construction in Tom Cho’s I, Robot, and Pinocchio

Authors

  • Jaroslav Kušnír Institute of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Presov, Ul. 17. novembra č. 1, 080 78 Prešov, Slovak Republic
  • Martina Pavlikova Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, B. Slančíkovej 1, 949 74 Nitra, Slovak Republic

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2024.1.507.520

Keywords:

Tom Cho, I Robot, Pinocchio, identity, boundaries, technologies, media, pop culture

Abstract

Thesis. Using the example of two literary works, the contribution reflects the influence of media and technology on the formation of an individual's personality and on his or her value orientations. The starting point is a comparison of the works I Robot and Pinocchio with a focus on the question of individual identity. In the mentioned works, we mainly observe the relationship between the attempt to escape from technology and, at the same time, the inability to break free from dependence on technology.

Concept. Based on a comparison of the motives in the behaviour of the heroes of the studied works, we analyse the key aspects that lead a young person to become aware of the risks associated with the use of technology. We focus on those moments in which a person faces moral dilemmas when using technology. We pay special attention to the penetration of technology into the essence of the human person and the creation of a certain hybrid form of a person who is also a machine.

Results and conclusion. Both the personal and cultural identity of the protagonist is linked to the creation of believable "lies" represented by media, pop culture and technology, believable from the point of view of this young protagonist and his girlfriend, and thus their personal and cultural identities become empty, fluid and merging with the image that these characters create about themselves, their identity and the reality represented by stories, fantasies, TV shows and lies that they believe more than the reality outside them, that is, the cultural identities of most of the protagonists.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

  • Jaroslav Kušnír, Institute of British and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Presov, Ul. 17. novembra č. 1, 080 78 Prešov, Slovak Republic

    Jaroslav Kušnír is Professor of American, British and Australian literature at the University of Prešov, Slovakia. He is the author of Poetika americkej postmodernej prózy (Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme)[Poetics of American Postmodern Fiction: Richard Brautigan and Donald Barthelme]. Prešov, Slovakia: Impreso, 2001; American Fiction: Modernism-Postmodernism, Popular Culture, and Metafiction. Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem, 2005; Australian Literature in Contexts. Banská Bystrica, Slovakia: Trian, 2003; and  Postmodernism and After: New Sensibility, Media, Pop Culture, and Communication Technologies in Anglophone Literatures. Nitra:ASPA, 2015. Specificity of Place, Region and Space in Anglophone Literatures (ed.). Nitra: SlovakEdu, 2019.  

  • Martina Pavlikova, Department of Journalism, Faculty of Arts, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, B. Slančíkovej 1, 949 74 Nitra, Slovak Republic

    A university teacher, senior lecturer at the Department of Journalism, Constantine the Philosopher University in NItra, Slovakia. She graduated in English Language and Literature from the Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava. She completed her doctoral studies in the field of Cultural Studies at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. She has also given several lectures and completed research stays at foreign universities (University of Toronto, University of Seville, University of Granada, University of Skopje,  etc. ) . Her research is devoted to the literature of English-speaking countries, ethical behaviour in the mass media and modern trends in visual arts.

References

Appadurai, A., & Breckenridge, C. (1989). On moving targets: Editors' introduction. Public Culture, 2(1), i-iv.

Ashcroft, B., Wilson, J., Sandru, C., & Lawson W. S. (Eds.). (2010). Rerouting the Postcolonial. New directions for the new millennium. Routledge.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. The University of Michigan Press.

Crevecoeur, H. St. J. (1904). Letters from an American farmer. Fox, Duffield & Company.

Hall, S. (2007). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In S. Mannings & A. Taylor (Eds.), Transatlantic Literary Studies: A Reader (pp.131-138). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474470674-024

Cho, T. (2009). Look who´s morhing. Giramondo.

Madsen, D. (2007). Asian-Australian literature. In N. Birns & R. McNeer (Eds.), A Companion to Australian Literature since 1900 (pp. 105-126). Camden House.

Ommundsen, W. (2012). Transnational imaginaries: Reading Asian Australian writing. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 12(2), 1-8. https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/JASAL/article/view/9813/9701

Philips, A. A. (1950). Cultural cringe. Meanjin. https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-cultural-cringe-by-a-a-phillips/

Robinson, A. (2010, April 20). Becoming Tom Cho [Review of the book Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho]. TEXT, 14(1). https://www.textjournal.com.au/april10/robinson_rev.htm

Roubalová, M., Judák, V., Králik, R., Slobodová-Nováková, K., & Maturkanič, P. (2021). Nejstarší židovský ‘Bejt Hakneset’ v Praze v kontextu ustanovaní Halachy [The oldest Jewish BEIT HA-KNESSET in Prague in context of provision of the halakhah]. Historia Ecclesiastica, 12(1), 3-16.

Vertovec, S. (2009). Transnationalism. Routledge.

Downloads

Published

2024-06-13

How to Cite

Kušnír, J., & Pavlikova, M. . (2024). Identity Boundaries and Place Construction in Tom Cho’s I, Robot, and Pinocchio. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 15(1), 507-520. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2024.1.507.520

Most read articles by the same author(s)