DINCOLO DE UMAN ÎN ROMANUL SLADE HOUSE AL LUI DAVID [612762]

UNIVERSITATEA ’BABEȘ -BOLYAI’ DIN CLUJ -NAPOCA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
CATEDRA DE LIMBA ȘI LITERATURA ENGLEZĂ

LUCRARE DE LICENȚĂ

Coordonator științific:
Lector Dr. Petronia Popa -Petrar

Absolvent: [anonimizat]
2019

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UNIVERSITATEA ’BABEȘ -BOLYAI’ DIN CLUJ -NAPOCA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
CATEDRA DE LIMBA ȘI LITERATURA ENGLEZĂ

BEYOND THE HUMAN IN DAVID MITCHELL’S
SLADE HOUSE

DINCOLO DE UMAN ÎN ROMANUL SLADE HOUSE AL LUI DAVID
MITCHELL

Coordonator științific:
Lector Dr. Petronia Popa -Petrar

Absolvent: [anonimizat]
2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………… .3
CHAPTER 1: Beyond the human ?………………………………………………………………………… ..5
CHAPTER 2: David Mitchell’s Univers e…………………… ………………………… ..11
CHAPTER 3: Slade House ………………………………………………………………. .21
CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………. 36
Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………… ……. .38

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INTRODUCTION
In the contemporary era, post -humanity has beco me an important subject not only
because of the unprecedented technological and scientific development which already implies
a future overshadowed by machines, artificial intelligence and that may possibly hold a key
to the prolongation of life (e.g. immortality, reincarnation) but also due to the fact that the
term itself hints to the questions: ‗What happens to humanity?‘; ‗What comes after its time
passes?‘.
It is undeniable that technological progression is a requirement at present time and the
majority of the population des ires to find out what inventions are coming out next, whether it
is a mere new type of phone, a robot which acts as a human, or a computer that allows you to
download your memories inside a chip. But, this emphasis on the machine brought up some
matters r egarding the humankind such as globalization, identity problems and superficiality
to name just a few. In addition, the idea of the Anthropocene era coming to an end and being
overpowered by artificiality has raised a wave of fear and grief between humans mostly due
to the reason that the individuality of the mind and soul decayed in importance in the face of
a socially inducted masquerade where everyone must obey to certain appearances and
behavioral patterns.
This paper has the purpose of discussing what happens to the human in a world where
human nature is no longer the center by basing the argumentation on the book Slade House
(2015) published by British author David Mitchell.
The thesis is structured in three main chapters. The first c hapter will contour what
means to be beyond the human. This signals the necessity of drawing the line between two
different terms : ‗trans -humanism‘ and ‗post -humanism‘ which, are, inevitably, used if you
wish to characterize the position of the human at present time o r in a potential future.
The second chapter will outline the features of David Mitchell‘s fiction, that being the
unity which he achieved to produce between his works by interconnecting each one of them
through an expanded time and space and the appearan ce of recurring characters from one
novel to another. Such mechanism exhibits the globalization that emerged in the twentieth
and twenty -first centuries and brought along some issues that are of concern at the moment:
loss of identity; trying to find you r true self; trying to cope with a society obsessed with
power ; standard images and behavior; the notion of being ‗perfect‘ or ‗the best‘ . Each of

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these issues is represented differently in the novels of Mitchell so that we can observe distinct
perspectives of trans -humanity, some which hold a positive prospective and some, less
positive. Nonetheless, skimming through these novels we are brought face to face with
ourselves, our humankind, with what humanity has become. The future is in our hands and
with any malevolent or benevolent endeavor we write a new page but we interfere with the
issue of time . Time limitation is similar to a disease, so to say, that each person is born with
but with no guarantee whe n it will be over. In this regard, how much time do we have left to
write a future for us if we do not have a shared desire to live on this planet?
The third chapter will provide an analysis of the novel Slade House highlighting the
points which depict the interaction between the human and the ‗evolved‘ human wh o
acquired immortality.
For reaching the goal of co ntouring the ‗post -human‘ aspects of this work , significant
attention will be given to the got hic dimension of the novel. There w ill be a short introspect
on gothic fiction as this genre reflected on the interaction between the human and non -human
entities, on what are the imminent effects of the Anthropocene era fulfilling its wishes of
exceeding the natural . Then I will review the supernatural c haracteristic of the novel, that
being the Grayer twins, who by combining science and spirituality, achieved one of the
greatest yearnings of humanity: immortality. After looking upon the twins‘ backstory, I am
going to dwell on the state of the humans, ho w they are adapting to the post -human scenery .
This aspect will be considered in reference to the theme of consciousness, as one‘s
perceptions can be easily altered by their surroundings, and in this view I will give great
thought to the Faustian Myth and how it was adapted by Mitchell . The recurrence of history
is another key-point of the narrative which I will pond er upon in reference with Ja cques
Derri da‘s concept of hauntology. Then, I wish to bring into discussion the myth of Icarus
which can be spotted in a secondary plan and can bear a resemblance to our hastiness to wards
progress.
In the ending, I am going to meditate on the question of how you can keep under
control the progressio n of events, so that post -humanity will truly mean a time of evolvement
and composure between the human and non -human.

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CHAPTER 1: BEYOND THE HUMAN?
The explanation for this chapter‘s question lays in the definitions of two major terms
that critics explored in the contemporary era, specifically: ‗trans -humanism‘ and ‗post –
humanism‘. But before properly going into details with these two concepts, we must think
what exactly a human is or what the meaning of humanism is.
There is a considerable amount of views which regard what characte rizes a human
being. In the fifth issue of the twenty -first volume of Evolutionary Anthropology conducted
by James M. Calcagno and Agustín Fuentes , scholars were brought together to contemplate
on the prospect of the ‗human‘. In their essays, they displayed such opinions which affirmed
that: ―Humans may be more, rather than less, emotionally sensitive to their social
environment, giving the group a greate r impact on our emotional life‖1; or that there are three
main traits: ―Symbolic behavior is the ability to create alternative worlds, to ponder about the
past and future, to imagine things that don‘t exist. Language is the unique communicative
venue that enables h umans to communicate not only in proximate contexts, but also about the
past, the future, and things distant and imagined, allowing us to share and pass our symbols to
future generations. Culture is the ability found only in humans for different population s to
create their own shared symbolic worlds and pass them on‖2.
Taking into account these arguments, being human means having the rational capacity
to be conscious of your surroundings (past, present, future); to envision other possible
universes; to imagine, plan and create never -seen before things; to pass their legacy to the
generations to come. In addition to this, a human being is affected by society as the
humankind holds the ability to communicate through language, so that he/she can live among
and adapt to other individuals of society whom, may or may not, have a different cultural
background , education, vision, motivation . Rationalism was fundamental and any belief that
could not be logically and scientifically demonstrated was considered a vic e. Another key
element for humanism is morality which is acquired from the ve ry reason that man is a social
animal: wellbeing, fulfillment, mutuality, behavior, experience are taught through the hands
of society. Also, individuality is encouraged by humani sm in such a manner that society

1 Campbell, Benjamin. ‘A Neuroanthropological Perspective’ in Evolutionary Anthropology, vol.21 (5), Wiley
Periodical,Inc, 2012, p. 187.
2 Sussman, Robert. ‘Why We Are Not Chimpanzees?’ in Evolutionary Anthropology , vol.21 (5) , Wiley
Periodicals, Inc., 2012, p.185 .

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should be inclusive with the individual and live together harmoniously and constructively not
exclude one another3.
In regard to human nature there is one feature which is necessary to be taken into
account – the self -referential/other -referential dimension. Self-referential conception of
human nature (…) assumes that people are interested in improving their own fortunes without
any necessary reference to anyone else‖4. Whilst other -referential is ―a person‘s perception of
their interests is intrinsically reliant on the welfare of others‖5. Ideally, each human should be
both. On one side it is compulsory to be an individual and improve yourself without any
reference to your surroundings. However on the other side you need to take into
consideration your fellow humans, not by comparing yourself with them an d but by trying to
improve them . John Rawls works with a ―hybrid of self – and other -referential views of
human nature in that he argues that rational people will always wan t to improve the lot of the
worst -off individual in society, relative to what it was before, even if this means that who is
the worst off changes ‖6.By keeping this in mind we can now consider contouring what it
means to be ‗trans -human‘ or ‗post -human‘.
Trans -humanism is a move ment which reflects on the enhancement of the human by
the means of scientific and technolog ical evolution and it focuses on , similar to humanism,
notions such as: rational thought , progression , optimism and well -being for the human
species7. This point alludes that science and technology act as an aid for humans and that
humanity is a ‗work -in-progress‘ and due to this a number of enhancement s have been
proposed : ―radical extension of human health -span, eradication of disease, elimination of
unnecessary suffering, and augmentation of human intellectual, physical, and emotional
capacities (…) space colonization and the possibility of creating superintelligent machine s,
along with other potential developments that could profoundly alter the human condition‖8.
Trans -humanism, therefore, pledges for a future where human s will live a qualitatively and
quantitatively developed life where time limitation , diseases, anxiety, self-esteem, judgments,
labels, hatred , pollution or any issue that the humanity is facing at the present moment is

3 Pollok, David. Humanism – Beliefs and Values , lectures to PGCE courses , York St John University, September
2010 – 2012, Web
4 Edward, Craig . The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia Of Philosophy , Routledge, New York, 2015, p. 393
5 Ibidem
6 Ibid.
7 Ferrando, Francesca. ‘ Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism, and New
Materialisms Differences and Relations ’ in Existenz 8/2 (2013), p.27
8 Bostrom, Nick. ‘ Transhumanist Values ’ in Ethical Issues for the Twenty -First Century , Philosophy
Documentation Center , 2005, p. 4. Web

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eradicated . In result to this, an ‗enhanced‘ human will be born, so to say. By eliminating the
bad in the world, there will be more time, o r possibly unlimited time, to concentrate on
intellect, the planet, being truthfully happy, living a peaceful life with one another or even
other life forms, on using our technological and scientific capacities by creating anything that
our imagination could come up with.
Posthumanism has a much wider range of definitions but it mainly ― questions how
relations between humans and nonhumans operate within the environments where they are
assembled. What forms of political agency, what codes of ethics, but als o what aesthetic
principles would be needed to arrive at a posthumanist world ‖9. This means that
posthumanism places the human in a dualistic state with the non-human (e.g. animals,
machines, supernat ural beings) and meditates on how these species will interact in a possible
future when the accent does not fall on the ‗human‘ anymore. There can be such an instance
as the one mentioned earlier, where everything is balanced, the emphasis being on
progression; evolve ment, but on the other side, the accent could be on a vices as
competitiveness and domination, which create such probabilities as the overpowering of
artificial intelligence or the extinction of humanity itself (non -humanity). The main difference
is that p osthumanism does not believe transformation is possible the way the transhumanists
do (e .g achieving immortality by giving up our bodies and downloading our minds in
computers), or at least not without drastically giving up what makes us human.
In the Transhumanist Declaration it is underlined that: ―humanity faces serious risks,
especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that
lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable. Some of these scenario s are
drastic, others are subtle. Although all progress is change, not all change is progress. (…)
Policy making ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously
both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing
solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe‖10.
This can be referred to John Rawls‘ before -mentioned belief about rational individuals being
the change society needs in order for progression to take place. However, another dualistic
instance interferes into this matter – the powerful and the weak. ―Unable to outgrow
competitiveness we have —in desperation —glorified and institutionalized it. We have made a

9 Clarke, Bruce. Rossini, Manuela. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman , University
Printing House, Cambridge, 2017, p. xiv
10 The Transhumanist Declaration, Humanity= Board, 2009 (1998)

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virtue out of a crude wasteful behavior that goes back to our earliest primate origins. (…)In
creating a competitive environment we allow the people and the products with the greatest
mass appeal to rise to the top. We mistake popularity for quality. We set up false standards
that undervalue th ose qualities (such as creativity and originality) that most stimulate
progress. (…) We trivialize learning —trivialize intelligence —trivialize creativity —trivialize
science and art and business and politics and sports. We trivialize human relations‖11. Due to
the reason that we always have to define what/who is the best or what/who is the worst, we
allow mediocrity to be the standard, hence, we offer the power to the people who prefer to
draw a line between them and other fellow humans , opposed to consider ing us a unity.
The boundaries between human and non -human have not been certainly outlined, and
due to this reason I am going to tackle this aspect as it is an important detail regarding our
post-human future. The chances of a world where the non -human category can take the reign
of supremacy are higher if you take into consideration the aforementioned idea, because
throughout histor y there are some cases when certain humans where considered less than
human due to the i mplementation of social classes. A widely known example is the white
population looking upon the black population as slaves without any rights at one point in
history. But there are other more concrete example s mentioned by Karl Steel : a French satire,
Contempt for Peasants that depicts the shock towards peasants being allowed to eat proper
meat instead of ―pasturing on all fours on thorns and roots, like other livestock‖12; a Norman
knight, Rotgerio who tolerated captives eating one another; or a hero who is admired for
feeding on Muslims13. Because of this, Steel ponders upon what or who is going to be treated
as an animal next, since even the category of the ‗human‘ seems to not be clearly defined due
to the social division and hesitates to call ―this failure – of humanism a posthumanism, s ince
it did not follow a clearly articulated humanism so much as it surrounded it, ran alongside it,
or even inevitably followed efforts to define human supremacy, which, as they do so often,
devoured the very humanity th is humanism was meant to defend‖14. However, the resolution
to social classes and slavery has been predicted as far back as Aristotle, who alluded to the
invention of such machines that can execute human -specific errands: ―For if every instrument
could accomplish its own work, obeying or ant icipating the will of others, like the statues of
Daedalus, or the tripods of Hep haestus, which, says the poet, << of their own accord en tered

11 FM-2030. Are you a Transhuman?, Warner Books, Inc ., New York, 1989, p. 53
12 Clarke, Bruce. Rossini, Manuela. The Cambridge Companion to Litera ture and the Posthuman p.7
13 Ibidem
14 p.8

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the assembly of the Gods;>> if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum
touch the lyre, chief wor kmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves (…)Now
instruments are of various sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a
ship has a lifeless, in the look -out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the servant is a kind
of instrument … [he is] an instrument for instruments ‖15. Kevin Lagrandeur points out the
undeniable suggestion for the basic idea of posthumanism of blending the mechanical with
the natural in Aristotle‘s words, but, additionally, remarks th at Aristotle hints at the idea of a
system which has as the center one intelligent entity and the rest of t he network is an
extension of the central entity, point which is in oppositio n with Edwin Hutchins‘ belief in a
distributed cognitive network where all entities h ave a certain role in the system so that the
cente r is represented by the unity between the entities16.
In regard with these networked systems, we can compare them with the
interconnectivity which dominates our present world. If you take into consideration
Aristotle‘s view, the capacity of changing, of progression stands in the hands of one powerful
entity (or multiple entities which have the same influence level) which should be aware of
his/her position and thus conduct the r est of the network to a certain goal. In addition, we can
reflect again on Karl Steel‘s opinion on som e humans being considered less than human17. As
much as Aristotle‘s presupposition alludes to the possibility of human labor being made
easier by the appar ition of mechanical instruments and that ―the interests of part and whole,
of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is part of the master, a living but separated part
of his bodily frame‖18, it does not exclude the potential crude behavior that can perturb this
system‘s functionality due to the competitiveness which exists in our society. Moreover, at
that time, Aristotle could not predict that the primitive behavior would still be an issue in the
future and due to this matter his system is doomed to lead towards a heinous post -humanity.
Nonetheless his point about the interests of part and whole to be the same are better applied
in Hutchins‘ system where every entity must have an equal role in the progression of the
network. In this view, he takes into account the supremacy of the human in the
Anthropocene, and he is aware that everything that is happening to this world is in direct
connection with the activities conducted by us, daily. In ot her words, we are responsible for
our future and we are networked with each other in the creation of that future. If one person

15 p. 17
16 P.18
17 See footnote 12
18 Ibid.

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deserts the network, the network fails and thus we are prone, as the system produced by
Aristotle, to the same primitive future.
With this being said, humanism thought cannot change the route we are heading to
since it does not apply to the reality we are facing . But, perhaps, post -humanism can be a
turning point by pondering on an important question: ‗who am i?‘ followed by ‗wha t am I?‘
and ‗where and when are we?‘ and ―this shift in the social and individual perception of the
human is one of the most important challenges we are currently facing as a species, as
individuals, as moral, ethical and social beings. As individuals who care about the future,
because we know that the future is already present. It is here now, in our acts, in our visions,
in our behaviors. In our words, in our dreams. (…)Our Bright Future, which is melting in our
lovely hands …‖19.

19 Ferrando, Francesca . ‘The Party of the Anthropocene : Post -humanism, Environmentalism and the Post –
anthropocentric Paradigm Shift ’ in Relations Beyond Anthropocentrism vol. 4 (2), 2016, p.168. Web

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CHAPT ER 2: DAVID MITCHELL’S UNIVERSE
Beginning from an episodically written novel, Ghostwritten (1999), which takes us to
nine different places across the globe through the eyes of nine different characters whom by
coincidence are linked to one another, to stretching time and space, narrating about the
possibility of immortality through reincarnati on or soul theft in a fantastical war between
Anchorites and Horologists in his latest ones, The Bone Clocks (2014) and its smaller
counterpart, spiced with a pinch of gothic and horror , Slade House (2015), David Mitchell
has acquired a notable place betw een conte mporary authors due to the goal he strives
towards . Each publication of Mitchell is a brick to something wider, more complex unit than
any author has ever attempted to create and that is a ‗macro -novel‘ which develops a ―cross –
temporal, cross -cultural narrative world whose combined subject is the global trajectory of
humanity itself‖20. Interestingly , each novel has a different manner in which was written,
different focus and theme, however all come together as a whole and display a universe
similar to ours: a transitioning world.
Contemporary fiction is an ambiguous subject to ponder upon ―since to be
contemporary suggests being with other times, our perception of contemporaneity is then
held up for scrutiny in terms of its distance – or pro ximity – to the present ‗now‘ ‖21) and ―is
thus rooted within a complex philosophical discussion concerning the nature of temporal
experience as it mediates between historical time and lived, subjective time‖22.In the last
centuries, literature has come to m imic our accelerated, digitalized, intertwined lives and
because of that matter a new type of novel has risen: ‗the networked novel‘. Those novels
―knit together a disparate set of temporal (and frequently disjunct spatial) locations that are
interconnecte d at the level of narrative structure, as well as being thematically interlaced.
Such novels stretch the boundaries between the novel and the short story collection, pulling
into contiguity characters that are dotted throughout historical time to present a story that
takes as its primary figural terrain the image of the network‖23.
David Mitchell‘s universe is characte rized by interconnection, aspect which can be
related to the post -humanist view of individuals always being networked. Each novel is

20 Harris -Birtill, Rose , David Mitchell's Post -Secular World: Buddhism, Belief and the Urgency of Compassion ,
Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, p.1
21 O’Gorman, Daniel. Eaglestone, Robert. The Routledge Companion to Twenty -First Centur y Literary Fiction ,
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2019 , p.75
22 Ibidem, p.75 -76
23 p.83

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interlin ked with the others by some subtle details such as recurring characters and events that
are sown together at certain times and spaces along the stories. This can be observed even
from his first novel , Ghostwritten, which offered a glimpse of Mitchell‘s fictional world,
world that grows and gets contoured with every novel that he publishes.
In Okinawa, Quasar calls a number in the hope of salvation as he hears the news of
his cult leader being arrested. The call is picked up by Satoru, who works at music shop in
Tokyo and it causes him to get together with the girl he loves. Following this, we are
introduced to the life of Neal Brose, who has a rough relationship with his wife, Katy Forbes,
an affair with his maid and a request of his boss, Denholme Caven dish, to manage an account
for Andrei Gregorski from Saint Petersburg. After seeing the love of a couple (the boy and
the girl from the previous chapter), he ends his marriage but dies unexpectedly shortly after
and due to this circumstances, an investigat ion begins at his workplace. At the Holy
Mountains of China, a grandma on her death bed is visited by her granddaughter (the maid
Neal slept with in Hong Kong). In Mongolia a noncorpum is in a quest of finding its roots,
possessing the mind of different p eople (e.g. the grandma from the previous chapter, a boy
who got killed by a KGB agent, Suhbataar). The KGB agent was a client of the group of
thieves coordinated by Andrei Gregorski in Saint Petersburg. The group, consisting of
Margarita Latun sky, Rudi an d Jerome, succeeds in stealing the painting requested by
Suhbataar, but due to the investigation of an account ( the same account managed by Neal
Brose), things take a wrong turn for the thieves. Next, in London, a ghostwriter named Marco
saves a woman fro m getting hit by a taxi. He visits Alfred, for whom he writes an
autobiography but he gets sent away after the man finds out his brother, Jerome, was the
victim of a murder in Saint Petersburg. Afterwards , he also gets brushed off by his publisher,
Timothy Cavendish, for the reason that his brother, Denholme, is facing financial issues with
his institution. Going on into the next chapter, Mo Muntervary, a genius physicist whose
research was used for creating weapons without her consent, returns home in Clea r Island.
She almost got struck by a taxi in London in her way to the airport as she was running away
from a group of men that was chasing her. Mo was also the inventor of the ‗Zookeeper‘ from
the following chapter. This artificial intelligence thinks that its duty is to protect the world
from malevolent forces and tunes in once a year at the Night Train radio show to talk about
his ‗Zoo‘ (the Earth) and what has happened to it lately.
By summarizing the plot of Ghostwritten, I have intended to show the network whi ch
was created between the characters and the fact that ―we all think we're in control of our own

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lives, but really they're pre -ghostwritten by forces around us ‖24. Moreover, when taking a
closer look at these characters, the y can be traced in M itchell‘s other works , the network
build ing up to be even more complex : Neal Brose appear s as a youth in Black Swan Green
(2006) ; Mo Muntervary protects Holly Sykes and her offspring in The Bone Clocks and one
of Mo‘s ancestors, Fiacre Muntervary , works for an East Indian Trading Company in The
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet ; Timothy Cavendish is also the head of a publishing
company in Cloud Atlas (2004) ; Neal‘s wife, Katy , was mentioned to have a comet
birthmark, the very same that the main characters from Cloud Atlas possess ( including
Timothy Cavendish) ; A leader of the Yakuza hired Suhbataar in number9dream ; and there
are other similar connections. By far, he most notable recurring character is the horologist,
Marinus who f irstly appears as a doctor in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
but in The Bone Clocks his history is presented to the reader in order to understand Mitchell‘s
view regarding the development of the universe – born actually in 640 AD, Marinus has
reincarnated himself through time under many names: Dr. Yu Leon Marinus who ‗cured‘
Holly as child from the voices she kept hearing; Dr. Iris Fenby who later recruited Holly to
help the Horologists stop the Chapel of the Dusk; then Dr. Iris Marinus Fenby comes into
sight in the last chapter of Slade House, to give just a few examples of this frequent
apparition in the narratives.
In regard to this large network of intertwined humans , various themes have been
dissected , as Sarah Dillon observed: ―There ar e many other repeated themes in Mitchell‘s
fictional universe – a sense of apocalypse and the end of the world; hope that the actions of
individuals can quell the tide of human predacity; the role of memory and story in creating
identity; cultural dislocat ion; language and miscommunication; reincarnation; fate and
causality‖25. All these subjects are projections of the trans -human, soon -to-be post -human
world .
―I‘ve always been interested in —the world, people, causality, power. To this list,
unsurprisingly, we can add mortality, family, the cycle of life . (…)I wish that the
dictatorships, democracies and voters of the world become persuaded that our species is
committing ecocide on a planetary scale and that we have to change how we live, right now,

24 Mitchell, David. Ghostwritten , Hodder & Stoughton, London p.150
25 Dillon, Sarah. David Mitchell: Critical Essays , Gylphi, Great Britain, 2011 p. 39

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to prote ct both the natural world and our civilization; and that we act accord ingly ‖26 said
David Mitchell in an interview with Rose Harris -Birtill. From this statement we can ded uct
that he pledges for a better future for the human kind , even though, he is aware o f the fact
that we all have to stand united if we want our race to last. It is not only the massive
interconnection that is an issue, but as Mitchell uttered, our Planet is in danger also. We are
draining our resources; we are polluting the air, the water; we are overpopulating the Earth
and destroying nature for us to have a place to live which makes room for the possibility of
vanishing as a species due to our ow n ignorance of our surround ings. The power is no longer
in the hands of the individual but on the group. One person is not only responsible for his/her
future but for the future of several people also. We play a role in the lives of other people
without even realizing it. ‗We are ta lking about one of the most important challenges we are
currently facing as a species, as individuals, as moral beings who care about the future, as
selfish beings who are worried about their own survival. Because we know that the future is
already present . It is here now, in our acts, in our visions, in our behaviors ‘27.
Throughout Mitchell‘s novels, we encounter different case s of the posthuman : how
we live in an interlaced world; how we cope with the fast-changing reality ; how the dualistic
state/ the clash of interests , between the few and the many , affects the individual . Rosi
Braidotti underlines that ―becoming posthuman consequently is a process of redefining one‘s
sense of attachment and connection to a shared world, a territorial space: urban, soc ial,
psychic, ecological, planetary as it may be‖28. Before our own eyes, the Earth is suffocating
in comparison with technology and science which rapidly advance and provided that it falls
into the hands of the wrong person or, by chance, the machines rise against us, we are a
doomed species.
Number9dream explores the difficulties encountered by Eiji in his quest of growing
up and self -discovery. He narrat es his journey through a concoction of daydreams and real
events, which makes him an ―embodiment of postmodern youth and this is evident in the
ways in wh ich his daydreams and fantasies are not only richly infused with, and shaped by,
postmodern media forms, but also in his use of mass -media technology as one of the tools for

26 Harris -Birtill , Rose. ‘ David Mitchell Just Wants the Earth to Last (and Liverpool to Win the League) ’ –
interview with David Mitchell, Literary Hub, Web
27 Ferrando, Francesca. "‘The Party of the Anthropocene: Post -humanism, Environmentalism and the Post –
anthropocentric Paradigm Shift’." Relations Beyond Anthropocentrism . Vol. 4 (2). 2016 . P. 168
28 Braidotti, Rosi. Braidotti, Rosi. “Posthuman Critical Theory” in Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures,
Springer, 2016 p.25

15
his own self creation‖29. Technology acts as an aid for his parental and identity issues. ―It is
my father‘s ‗nowhere‘ that I can‘t handle, not my mother‘s ‗somewhere‘‖30. Between his
father ‗nowhere ‘ and his mother ‗somewhere ‘, Eiji‘s ‗where‘ can be raised into question .
Technology is an escape as he mak es his li fe seem more adventurous than it really is, hence it
departs him from his sorrowful condition. His search of identity does not have a complete
ending in which he finds fully who he is, this aspect being suggestive of the fact that the
novel is postmodern B ildungsroman. In addition to this matter, a personal presumption is that
maybe Mitchell also desired to transpose into his novel the Japanese belief of the road you go
through to achieve your goal being more important than the goal itself (e.g. even the Japanese
words for the arts have in their compound the term ―dou‖ which means ―way‖: shodou –the
way of writing, sadou – the way of tea etc.). Mitchell was probably exposed to this kind of
thinking given the fact that he lived in Japan for a while, this ma tter too being indicative for
the post -human sense of attachment: reshaping yourself after living surrounded by a different
reality than the one you are used to. Moreover, the non -conventional blank chapter which
serves as the ending of this novel could be interpreted in two perspectives: the first, Eiji‘s
self-creation is still in progress; and the second is representative for our transitioning world:
we are in charge of the future and we can write it and re -write it how we desire.
Cloud Atlas consists, similarly to Ghostwritten , of six interlaced tales with a time
range from nineteenth century to a distant dystopian future. What is surprising about this
novel is its Matryoshka doll -like structure: ―Multi -leveled nesting (termed ―Chinese box‖ or
―Russian doll‖ structuring) occurs when narrative worlds are recursively generated within
narrative worl ds‖31. Consequently, each story contains each other concentrically: five stories
are interrup ted midway; the sixth (which is uninterrupted) is placed right after and then the
initial five are continued and closed in reverse order giving the impression of a Russian Doll.
In addition, this structure brings to mind the image of a multi -layered shell. With each layer
lost, its raw, hidden -for-so-long interi or gets to meet the light. Similarly, transposing the
image of the shell into our world, we will soon discover what exactly the man is truly capable
of. As we are in the Anthropocene, we, the humans , are in control and what we do or what we
do not do, will be visible in the next years – an Earth with hu mans or with reminiscence of
humans. For developing this idea we can observe the main protagonists: each character ‘s

29 Dillon, Sarah. David Mitchell: Critical Essays , Gylphi, Great Britain, 2011 p. 123
30 Mitchell, David. Number9drea m, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd , London, 2001 p.143
31 Polanki, Gautama. ‘ The Iterable Messiah: Postmodernist Mythopoeia in Cloud Atla s’ in C21 Literature:
Journal of 21st -century Writings , 6(3) , 2018, p.3

16
story is discovered by the next one through different means of story -telling : travelling diaries;
letters; manuscripts ; movies ; which underline the importance of stories in visualizing the past
and how things reached the point they are at. What is more interesting about those characters
is that they all have a comet -shaped birthmar k which Mitchell defined as ― a symbol really of
the universality of human nature. The title Cloud Atlas , itself , the cloud refers to the ever
changing manifestations of the Atlas, which is the fixed human nature which is always thus
and ever shall be. So t he book's theme is predacity, the way individuals prey on individuals,
groups on groups, nations on nations, tribes on tribes. So I just take this theme and (…) re –
incarnate this theme in different contexts ‖32. The chain of reincarnations shows us how this
vice of hunting and preying was kept throughout the history . Yet if we allow the past to
conduct our thoughts and repeat itself over and over again instead of putting a stop to this
barbaric instinct we are burying ourselves next to the many e xtinct species that could not
adapt to this shared world . ―One fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. (…)
In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
(…) If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races &
creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if
we believe leaders must be just, vio lence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the
Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass‖33. Belief is no longer
enough for the human race to survive. Humanity is in desperate need of actions, not
unfoun ded belief, or its end is to come sooner than we think.
Black Swan Green brings the focus on 13-year-old Jason Taylor who recounts his
happening s during one year of his life. There are three main features about this young boy
which are highlighted in the beginning of the no vel: his stammering; his love for poetry; and
his fear of letting the world know about either of them in order to not be teased by the other
kids his age . We witness a coming -of-age story which unravels how hard is to be yourself in
a society that condemns uniqueness. From a fragile age, children are taught the cruel side of
society , especially if you happen to be the possessor of a different feature than the others, as
Jason is. His desperate yearning to fit in the crowd is rooted in the fact that he just wants to
be treated as a human being that is to not be pushed around, be ridiculed and looked upon as a
‗freak‘ of society. What is more interesting about this novel is the three personas Jason
imagines him to be, personas which define the road he is required to walk to in order to

32 Naughtie , James. ‘Bookclub’, BBC RADIO 4 – interview with David Mitchell, 3 June 2007. Audio
33 Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas , Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York, 2004, p.508.

17
achieve an ultimate goal – to be himself and be proud of it . He firstly begins as the Hangman ,
a boy with a speech impediment , burden which he hides and is afraid that at any moment
someone will find about his secret, and, hence, this persona may point to the image of being
‗hanged‘ up and sneered at by the rest as an object. Next is the Maggot, the bitter title Jason
was assigned by the surrounding world at the moment his secret was discovered . From this
point on, Jason is in a critical position as he is given two choices: whether he subdues to the
many and so accepting this appellative or he outgrows this condition. Finally, the third
persona is the ideal one, the ‗Unborn Twin‘ – the person he wants to become, the true vers ion
of himself, unaltered by anyone‘s view of him. His progression can be resembled with that of
a caterpillar in his way of becoming a butterfly if I may say. It is a bumpy and lonesome road
for the caterpillar but when it is ready to fly, it knows. And t he same happened to Jason. He
found out he need not to subdue to the rules of socie ty on two instances: he returned the
wallet to one of the boys who tormented him and when he stood up for the rest of the bullied
kids at school. He realized that all he st rived throughout that year was within him. He needed
to accept himself so that he could bloom. Hence, he was responsible for his own misery as he
asked for acceptance in the wrong place. ―The world's a headmaster who works on your
faults…you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand:
Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us…that's a hidden step. Either you
suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and
fix it ‖34. In this novel, Mitchell brings forth that o ne is to be his or hers salvation into this
world, and to rely on your own individual power . The ending words of ―everything will be all
right in the end ( …) if it‘s not all right, is not the end‖35 are said with a positive prospect for
the humankind, as with each person who grows up to be a butterfly in this world, the odd for
an enhanced humanity in the future are getting higher.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet takes us in Japan , in the year 1799, when
this country was still under the self -chosen isolation ist policy, specifically, the period it cut
itself off from the rest of the world in order to conserve its culture and beliefs. However, for
trading intentions a window for interaction and meeting was left open, and this was the
artificial port of Nagasaki harbor, Dejima. Moreover, as a Dutch E ast Indies Company arrives
on the island of Dejima, M itchell begins to unravel the clash of the Western and Eastern
cultures ; the encounter with the new; t he challenge to comprehend a stranger when you were

34 Mitchell, David. Black Swan Green , Random House, New York, 2006 , p.626
35 Ibid. p. 632

18
brought up with different values of what is right or wrong . This feature is highlighting for the
fact that each nation believes that it has the best policy of governing, but truthfully looking
into perspective they all have their up and downs . For example, the Orientals are left
dumbfounded when learning about the freedom of democracy a s all people, including slaves,
have the right to vote who is presiding over them , whereas they are of the opinion that lower
classes should not have a say in such a decision. Between this interaction of the Occident and
Orient comes Jacob de Zoet, a clerk who arrived with the Dutch company. He is on five year
quest of prospering his financial status so that he could ask for the hand of his love interest,
back in Holland. But his adventure goes a bit of the sidetracks when he starts having feeling s
for Orito, a Japanese midwife, who eventually gets sold to a sadistic cult by her mother. This
novel expresses the trivial human craving for being the best , that one‘s way is better than the
other‘s; doubled by the subject o f how financial status can grant you such mere benefits as
marrying someone or not being sold as an object , benefits which should have been conducted
by consciousness and emotion. ―The present is a battleground . . . where rival what -ifs
compete to become the future 'what -is.' How does one what -if prevail over its adversaries?
The answer . . .'Military and political power, of course!' is a postponement, for what is it that
directs the minds of the powerful? The answer is 'belief '. Beliefs that are ignoble o r idealistic;
democratic or Confucian; Occidental or Oriental; timid or bold; clear -sighted or delusional.
Power is informed by belief that this path, and not another, must be followed‖36. People
prefer to act violently to decide which belief is better rather than wait for a while and ponder
on the possibility that the other may also hold a plausible opinion . We prefer fighting over
comprehending, money over emotion, judging over accepting. Holding on to these attitudes
instead of trying to hold an open mind will degenerate the world and will bring it back to the
past when people were not enlightened enough to know any better than to act that way.
Nevertheless, at present we have access to information, to knowledge but we still live by
these old conc epts whilst we are oriented on the new, on progression.
The Bone Clocks presents six tales from around th e world, each exhibiting different
moments from the life of Holly Sykes . The story begins in 1984, Gravesent , when she flees
from home due to a disagreement with her mother but in her runaway encounters she receives
hints of the potential existence of a fantastical universe which remains undercover through
most part of the novel. Next , we switch the narrator and m eet Hugo Lamb in ‗90s Cambridge.
Lamb is a playboy who boosts about his lustful lifestyle, and whilst on a ski -resort with his

36 Idem, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet , Sceptre , 2010 , p. 416 -417.

19
friends, he encounters Holly and starts falling for her. Afterwards we skip to 2004 when the
husband of Holly, Ed Brubeck, is kee ner on his journalistic work than spending time with his
family. Then we stumble across Crispin Hershey, a not -so-talent writer who befriends Holly
at a convention. In the fifth story, the science fiction thread becomes more radiant as the war
between the immortal beings, which discreetly sowed its way in the precious chapters, takes a
toll on the action line. There are two main dualistic instances that are significant in this p art.
The first is the opposition between malevolent Anchorites – conducted by g reed and halting
their aging by drinking the souls of innocent children; and benevolent Horologists – ethically
correct and reincarnate in the bodies of dying children, hence, saving their lives. Furthermore,
the second is, unsurprisingly, the dualism betw een ‗the bone clocks‘ (a metaphor for our
human feature of mortality) and the immortals . As it can be deducted t he focus falls, yet
again as in Cloud Atlas , on the subject of predacity in our world. The hunters, the soul
vampires are not only targeting the people, but the Horologists as well, for the reason that
they are atemporals ‗by nature‘ and do not need to rely on the occult practice of
‗psychosoterica‘. Alternatively, along the t heme of hunting, there is the theme of survival
which is denoted by Holly. She intercalated with this war as she possessed some psychic
power through which she could sense and communicate with these evolved beings and also
because she had an dynamic role i n the war, by parting with the Horologists. The sixth and
second story, set in 2043, Ireland, puts forth the aftermath of the war: a post -apocalyptic
scenery in which an old but alive Holly reminiscences about humanity: ―It‘s grief for the
regions we deadl anded, the ice caps we melted, the Gulf Stream we redirected, the rivers we
drained, the coasts we flooded, the lakes we choked with crap, the seas we killed, the species
we drove to extinction, the pollinators we wiped out, the oil we squandered, the drug s we
rendered impotent, the comforting liars we voted into office —all so we didn‘t have to change
our cozy lifestyles‖37. ‗Ignorance is bliss‘ may be the words that can sum up the description
of humankind uttered by Holly in this plausible future. This is another sample of our future,
foreseen by Mitchell, if we continu e to be led by such mindless behavior.
As a brief overview of this chapter, David Mitchell, through his work, created a
mirror for the humankind to look at and rummage what is happening to our world, what have
we become and where we are headed to. His perception lays divided as he foresees a post –
apocalyptic future in which few of us have survived. H owever, by writing about such themes
as interlacing, hunting , preying, greed , dominance, machines taking over or our planet dying

37 Mitchell, David . The Bone Clocks , Random House, New York, 2014. P. 1063

20
is a form of awareness, a wake -up call for whoever cares (or dares) to read. Along with every
well informed individual, there ca n be a slightly bigger chance for us, humans, to live, to
enhance our prospects of life. It all comes down to what we treasure more in this world. Is it
our will for commodity, for fitting in, for subduing to the mediocre, and allowing it to choose
for us? Or is it our will for survival , accommodating to our surroundings , but not letting them
fool us, manipulate us therefore standing up for ourselves and preaching for future
enhancement?

21
CHAPTER 3 : SLADE HOUSE
David Mitche ll‘s seventh novel continues to build on the post -human universe,
bringing forth similar themes as the rest of his fiction, such as dominance & predacity and
recurrence of history . At the same time it offers the reader a m uch closer look on a potential
clash of the human and non -human entities , bringing into focus a resonant theme encountered
in literature, the Faustian Pact , which can be considered in a systematic view and applied to
the contemporary era. Distinctly to his other works, Mitchell sows a gothic thread into this
story which also mimics the reality of the twentieth and twentieth centuries.
The titl e spells out the focal point of the action, which is static, most of the time the
scenery being the house itself or the pub in the near surrounding , The Fox and the Hounds.
The title can be taken literary as ‗t he valley house‘ because as it is mentioned in the first
pages, the ‗supposed‘ position of the house is down the Slade Alley between two streets:
Westwood Road and Cranbury Avenue , which bestows an eerie felling on the place as it is
practically impossible to site a house on such narrow width. Additionally , the non –
conventional ity of this ‗supposed‘ placement is stressed by its entrance : the small black iron
door with no handle, no keyhole and no gaps between the edges, leads into a considerable
garden with the view of Slade House at the top. Beginning from this very confined route to a
strange entrance which leads to an old mansion which logically cannot fit in such urban
scenery, the gothic image ry slowly emerges into the narrative. Typical for a gothic décor , the
mystical , the old house and the entrapped atmosphere could no t be excluded from this
writing.
Gothic fiction can be traced back to eighteen century, when Horace Wal pole believed
that literature was mimicking reality as much as it was possible, being influenced by the
rationality of that period and thus, set the fundamentals of a new novel. ―It was an attempt to
blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former all was
imagination and improbability: in the latter nature is always intended to be … copied with
success (…) Nature has cramped imagination ‖38. David Blair considered that Wal pole desired
a return to the Middle Age s when the imagery and emotions were dominated by the unusual ,
remarkable and spontaneous, hence, attempting ―a means of repossessing imaginative and
emotional territories which had been largely surre ndered in the rational, enlightened culture

38 Walpole, Horace apud Sigurðsson, Snorri. The Gothic: Function and Definition , Leiðbeinandi: Guðrún
Guðsteinsdóttir, 2009, p.3

22
of the eighteenth century‖39. In this view , we can affirm that even in the Medieval times the re
had been reflections on the possibility of exceeding the ‗natural ‘ or to use our imagination to
think of probabilities which are out of the world (e.g. meditating about the likeness of
heaven; the supernatural). It comes without say that the similitude of the gothic with trans –
human ism (or post -humanism) lay s in this wish to go beyond our condition, to think about
other worlds , to reflect of the likelihood of presuppositions, to have a dreamlike state of
emotions. However, our era is not characterized by contemplating on the unimaginable, but
by giving life to the unimaginable.
In the century when the Industr ial Revolution was still at its early stages and
rationality was at its pinnac le, Walpole published the first gothic novel , The Castle of Otrant o
(1764) , which defied the mentality of the period by inscribing out of the ordinary
manifestations: doors closing by themselves , pictures moving and the idea of spirits . Adding
to this idea, t here is a general sublime atmosphere of angst which leads to awakening ,
opposed to the reserved and composed ambience of rationality. Moreover, t his combined
feature of curiosity and uneasin ess towards peculiarity can be observed in the works of the
following gothic genre writers : Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein (1818) explored the idea of
inventing a creature similar to ours; Edgar Allan Poe‘s The Fall of the Hou se of Usher (1839)
described the entrapment, internal madness, the fight with your alter ego ; Bram Stoker‘s
Dracula offered appeal to the fiction regarding vampires and immortality; to give just a few
examples . The topics which the predecessors of the gothic speculated about and sketched in
words are on the brink of fulfillment in our physical world. The reason is that t he human
resembling creature can be compared to the artificial intelligence prototypes (e.g. robot s,
cyborgs , and others); science and technol ogy is continuously doing research on life
prolonging methods. Howe ver the psychological distress is already present because the
possibility of inventing such things brings along the probability of the cre ation overpowering
the creator. ―The gothic displays the attraction to the discomfort and ambivalences over how
dominant categorizations of people, things, and events can be blurred together and so
threaten our convenient, but repressive thought patterns, its creators and onlookers have the
opportunity to make Gothic show us our cultural and psychological selves and conditions, in
their actual multiplicity‖40.Domination , corruption, egoism and greed are strong vices of
humanity which can be observed even from the beginning of histor y (e.g. preying on each

39 Blair, David apud ibid.
40 Hogle , Jerrold E. The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction , Cambridge University Press , Cambridge, 2002 ,
p.19

23
other for territory and power , slavery ) could be passed on to our inventions due to the fact
that they are set to imitate the human . If the humankind has not realized from past events that
these vices are only prone to inducing more violence, hate and discrimination, why would our
developments be any different than ourselves? It is necessary to be cautious and conscious in
the contemporary era . The medieval dreamy meditation on the extraordinary, the modern
strong fascination and anxiety of imagining of how the meeting with the extraordinary will be
like and actually living into a post-human world together with the supernatural and the
artificial are three different concepts.
The novel Slade House is a depic tion of the third aforementioned instance and its
inevitable issues. Behind the doors of this old mansion, the inhabitants are a pair of unique
twins Norah and Jonah Grayer . What offers them this bizarre air is the fact that they are part
of the Anchorites, the ‗evolved ‘ humans who feed on human souls to support their life
expectancy , cult which was first introduced in the previous novel, The Bone Clocks .
Specifically, t hey are vampires wh o lure an ‗Engifted‘ visitor into their residence every nine
years. Distinctly, the Anchorites from the previous novel used black wine and the image of
the Blind Cathar to extract the soul of the children, whereas Norah and Jonah use a subst ance
named ‗banjax‘ which the chosen visitor must drink/ eat by his own volition and the Ninevite
Candle. The latter is a reference from the bible and can be a symbol for the soul of the man.
After Jonah, the prophet , saved the people from Nineve by warning them about the danger
which was bestowed upon them , his action was resembled with a lighted candle placed on a
candlestick : ―No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither
under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light‖41. In this
view, perhaps the light symbolizes hope in the darkest of times ; the truth which had to be told
for salvation and placed on its support may allude to steadiness, to positive prospects of the
future. But on the other hand candles are li t in the time of death, which is the case for
Mitchell‘s novel . Nonetheless, the victims in their last moment s are facing the truth, the truth
that they gave into the temptation of evil when the twins offered as bait a desired illusion of
each of them and made them ingest the banjax, which can be compared to the apple offered to
Adam and Eve by the snake.
In addition to this, the light of the candle can be extinguished, it is not eternal; it
reminds us of our mortality: ―Cast on a naked body or a contemplative face, it is soft,

41 The Bible, King James Version, Luke 11:33. Web

24
humanising, and forgiving. Then again, candles go out: their light is precious and time bound.
Since no candle burns forever, it is always a memento mori‖42.This asp ect is also important
due to that before stealing their souls they permit their victims to look into the mirror, to
observe themselves in their last moments in front of a flickering candle light , act followed by
the extraction of the soul. At that point , the victims are mesmerized by the beauty which hid
inside of them but could not see it due to the corruption they were blinded with. This can be
associated with Edmund Burke‘s concept of sublime ―Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite
the ideas of pain, a nd danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant
about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime;
that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of f eeling …‖43.
The sublime is a method of awakening, you are feeling the angst of no t experiencing such
powerful emotion before but after you are aware of it, you are transformed for the reason that
a revelation was conferred to you. Comparable to Mitchell‘s writing, Norah and Jonah gifted
their victims the occasion to experience the sublime, precisely, becoming conscious of the
beauty of their soul which they ignored in the spite of trivial matters that were implanted into
their minds up until that moment. As Nathan the first narrator of the book notes in his last
seconds of humanly existence: ―Bliss I howl and my howl echoes‖44.
Ignorance is a tremendous fault of the humankind which causes us to forget
our mortal feature. Similar to the light of the candle mentioned earlier, one moment there is
light, and then the next the light could vanish and all that remains is darkness and emptiness.
Time is a two -bladed sword for the huma n: we have the time to accomplish marvelous deeds
but, simultaneously, we do not have the t ime. You never know when your time is on the
verge of running out and so you need to make a good use of it in order to live your life
according to your beliefs , aspirations. On this account, t he idea of immortality was brought
up along the centuries. But what if time could actually be controlled and halted? As I
mentioned earlier in this chapter, we dreamed about immortality, speculated about it and in
our develop ed times, it can be truly do -able. The answer to the aforementioned question lies
in the pages of David Mitchell‘s Slade House .

42 Jones, Jonathan. ‘ The timeless wonder of candlelight, a glimmer of love in our dark world ’, Art & Design
category, The Guardian, 26th December 2016, Web
43 Burke, Edmund. apud. Donoghue , Denis, ‘Why Edmund Burke’s sublime and beautiful ideas still resonate ’,
Irish Times, 4th April 2015, Web.
44 Mitchell, David. Slade House , Sceptre, Great Britain, 2015, p.36

25
This novel has a similar pattern to the rest from Mitchell‘s universe – five stories of
five different time frames, narrated by the visitors which have in common the attraction for
this specific house . But this attraction is implanted into the visitors‘ minds by the twins a s
those people are their support for an ever -lasting life. Born in 1899, the twins were said to be
giving signs of supernatural powers, specifically, telepathy, from around 1910 when Norah
received a ‗telegram‘ from Jonah which announced that a family member had been injured
after falling while riding a horse . At first, the Chetwynd -Pitts, the pair who brought up the
twins, were skeptical about what Norah exclaimed but going to the named place, they
realized it was true. This initiated a research on the twins and they were in fact able to
communicate telepathically with ease . The man who tested them advised the m that they
should not refer to their ability in public as ―less excitable persons be tempted down wrong
paths‖45. At this point, a man named Léon Cantillon appears into the story. He heard about
the twins‘ gift and considered that they were ―an annunciation of the New Age of Man‖46.
Cantillon was the one who brought the twins to Albino Sayyid, who was a master of the
Shaded Way and taught the two young children his k nowledge as he saw potential in them.
The Grayers were fast learners and so they lived with Sayyid only until April 1919 when ―the
time‘d come for the great globe itself to be their master‖47. However they knew nothing about
the outside world as they had li mited places to explore (the place they grew up at and the
mountains where they lived with Saiyyd) and so Cantillon was their guide. The three of them
travelled a lot around the world using the talents of the twins to make a living. T he Grayers
were able to read people‘s mind, and on top of it, to scatt er their thoughts and find things
from the darkest corners of those persons‘ consciousness ; mind control (suasion); memory
erasing (redaction) ; and so they knew what to say to aid their clients, l ike psychologists, they
studied people.
Furthermore, in 1925, Cantillon aspired to create a biography of the twins and unveil
the fundamentals of a new discipline, ‗psychosoterica‘ – a concoction between spiritualism
and science . Unfortunately, the Grayer s were on the opposing end , wishing to keep a low
profile and hide from the public eye. He lied to them, vowing not to write it but he did it
nevertheless . His choice cost him his life as in 31st March 1927, two days after six dozen
copies were mailed around the globe , Cantillon was seen jumping from a window his last
utterings being: ―The Mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of

45 Ibid. p.149
46 p.153
47 p.158

26
heaven‖48. After this ‗accident‘, u ntil August 1931 when they bought Slade House there was
almost no sight of the twins. At that time, the house was pl aced in a very populated area
which was favorable for the twins as they were in need of guinea pigs for their striving
desire: immortality. Desire which they achieved in 1941 with four psychosoteric
breakthroughs: first they managed to create a small place which time cannot penetrate , a
lacuna which is the attic of the house ; then comes the stage of astral projection when they
separate from their body and meander as they wish; afterwards their soul is capable of
possessing a body of their choosing. The last stage of psychosoterica is luring an Engifted
(potentia l psychic) into their orison so that they can steal their soul, provided they ingest
Banjax , a chemical that fastens the soul to the body. The lacuna can be sustained nine years
from the power of one eaten soul. Therefore, every nine years when the voltage is on the
point of draining the Grayers hold an ‗Open Day‘ for hunting and preying on their visitors.
Underneath the gothic dimension, Mitchell‘s theme of predacity is again one of the
main topics as the dualistic state of the powerful and the weak accentuated by the dualistic
state of the post -human and the human displays how these different entities woul d adapt to
one another provided the elixir of life ever -lasting would actually be invented and its magic
ingredient is the human . In this regard, the topic of networked systems, which I mentioned in
the first chapter, can be again raised into discussion . I will give thought to a system with high
resonance in literature, and that is the Faustian Bargain, which also applies to the no vel, Slade
House .
Kevin Lagrandeur illustrates how Christopher Marlowe‘s Faustus tries to bring under
his control Mephistophe les‘ network of demons by giving up his soul so that they could act as
prosthetics under his network. H owever the demon is aware of his position in his own
network and take s advantage of Faustus‘ s flaws – hastiness, greed, ignorance, in such regard
that Mephistopheles turns the plan of Faustus in to his favour which exhibits a potential
scenario of the posthuman. Faustus is not conscious enough of his bargain with the demon as
he skipped the necessary study and offered his soul mindlessly instead. Because of this
matter , Mephistopheles put forward the necessary appearances (e.g. Franciscan friar – a
soothing image) in order for Faustus to not become suspicious of his deal with the demon.
―The real aim of the devils‘ agreement to form a servile network for F austus is actually a
stealthy attempt to reduce his resistance to its assimilation of him. In essence, the collective

48 Milton, John, apud Mitchell, David. Slade House , 2015, p.168

27
behavior of the demonic group toward Faustus at the beginning of the play is that of a
parasite that injects a numbing agent into its host so that it can be digested more easily‖49.
By having this presentatio n of the Faustus system in mind, we can compare it with the
system projected by the Grayer twins. Norah and Jonah are the r epresentation of
Mephistopheles as they delude their vi ctims with different masks and settings so t hat they
feel safe and trust the façade they have in front of them. The same as Mephistopheles, the
twins use the weakness of the victims to earn their trust and , additionally, the parasitic
behavior of the demons is s imilar to the quest of the twins to convince their prey to ingest the
substance named ‗banjax‘ so that the extraction of the soul is ea sier. However, distinctly from
Faustus, the targets of the twins were , theoretically, ‗forced‘ into this pact, because their
conscious/unconscious minds were exploited. But at the same time, they were the ones who
gave into the illusions, even though they were aware that sometimes, the scenarios put
upfront by the twins were too good to be true. Also, another major difference between the
system of Faustus and that of the twins is that the latter need to replace their prosthetic every
nine years, otherwise , it would fail.
The narrative of our book opens with Nathan and his mother looking fo r the small
black iron door near the local pub The Fox and the Hounds in the year 1979. They were
invited at a soir ée by Lady Grayer at her manor, Slade House. At first, they seem like a
typical mother and son pair, but throughout this chapter Nathan is ur ged to act normal, issue
which makes Na than have a psychological ‗impediment‘ inside of him so that before saying
or doing something he meditates on how a normal boy would react. Also, this can be traced
back to his mother‘s behavior that supports the idea of building an appropriate image for the
upper -class society (e.g. lying the y arrived by taxi when in reality they walked there; buying
expensive shoes instead of paying a bill). ―There‘s lying (…) which is wrong, and there‘s
creating the right impression, which is necessary‖50 are the words Nathan‗s mother lives by,
words which su mmarize the primary conception of society – how you present yourself is
much more important than the truth. This ‗necessity‘ is a standard established by powerful
people to showcase their authority, but it must not be by any means compulsory to apply to
their rules if you take into consideration the basic human rights. This oppression to rise to
some artificial standards clashes with our individuality. Nathan‘s weakness stands in his
inability to conform to this society. His innocence is affected by unwritten requirements

49 Mitchell. Slade House , p.23 -25
50 Ibid. p. 4

28
which make him have an unnatural behavior. Even when Nathan gets to the house and meets
Jonah, disguised as a boy his age, he does not distance himself from the ‗appropriate ‘
behavior he was forced to have till that point, not only b y his mother, but by one of his
professors: ―I‘m about to tell Jonah about the safari Dad‘s going to take me on, but Mrs.
Marconi says talking like ping -pong: you take turns. (…) I think of Mrs., Marconi telling me
to ‗Focus on the subject‘‖51. However, as the two spend some time together, Nathan notices
that Jonah does not treat him like other kids (e.g. calling him names or making him feel bad
for liking class ical music instead of football ), reason for which he identifies Jonah as a friend.
In addition to this, Jonah asks Nathan about his feelings; his nightmare; aspects about which
no one cared to ask him until that point, and thus, the mas querade of Jonah earning Nathan‘s
trust even more. However, the scenario which catches the boy into their network is the sub-
orison in which he is together with his father . He did not have a paternal figure in his life , and
thus, his struggles to stand up for himself may be related to this fact. This point can be
accentuated b y the moment when he does not have second t houghts about how such a drastic
change of scenery between Slade House and his father‘s lodge could happen. His craving for
his father company subdued his perception, instance which the twins bargained for.
The next chapter takes us in 1988, where we meet Gordon Edmonds , a detective who
was assigned to check the case of Rita and Norah Bishop who vanished in 1979 when they
were searching for Slade House. He visits the place, but instead of a Lady Grayer, he
stumbles upon Chloe Chetwynd, who is in fact Norah. What is more, he begins fancying her,
which is the Grayers plan as he just underwent a slit -up with his wife , and coincidentally,
Chloe lost her husband not so long ago. This is the instance which gets Edm onds interested in
the hidden network of the Grayers. Edmond embodies the greed of society as emotions stand
no chance in face of the financial prosperity. He seems a bit perplexed why such a good
looking woman would give herself so easily because in reality it hardly happens. On the other
hand , he does not complain ab out this matter as considering that he ends up marrying her, she
would be his financial security. Additionally, his conception of balancing the relation ship
lays in him filling the male figure in her life and eventually loving her after engaging in
several sexual intercourses with her . What is more, his financial booming fantasy through
marriage was given thought to just after a few days of knowing her wh ich defines an
accelerated and uncommitted ‗love‘ – ―This is your fifth visit to Slade House (…) It‘s not

51 p.17

29
been a long courtshi p, true, but, it‘s been intense, sincere and not remotely slutty or porny‖52
Intense and sincere are petty matters in spite of the latter options if you take into
consideration his aim. As FM 2030 noted about people of our century: ―they have turned
away from soul -searching and stress of emotional commitment . . . They seek light
relationships ‖53. In this view, we can say that relationships have become more important for
our social image than our emotional wellbeing as displayed by Edmund. He even mentioned
that for such situation to happen in reality is unlikely. But his greed was greater than his
conscious ness so he gave into the twins‘ mas querade which, as Nathan, ended in him being a
prosthetic to their network .
In 1997 we stumble across Sally Timms and the Paranormal Society, group which
takes interest in the Slade House case. She is not part of this certain group because s he is a
paranormal activity aficionado, but due to the reason that the boy she likes is a member of it .
In this view, Sally‘s weakness is her desire to spend time with him and she would do
anything for that to happen, even if it means lying. On top of this , she has other f laws such as
low self -esteem and other -referential mentality – ―If I were slimmer and funnier and sexier,
I‘d known what to say to Todd‖54; Freya (…) Norse goddess of (…) Love, sex, beauty,
fertility, gold, war and death. (…) As opposed to <<Sally>>, a doomed pit pony, or a tart in
the East End docks in a Dickens novel‖55: ―Todd Cosgrove. A good name for a boyfriend.
(…) ‗Sally Timms‘ sounds like a shat -upon events organizer, but ‗Sal Cosgrove‘ could be a
rising star at the BBC, or an interio r designer to the stars, or a legendary editor. Sal Cosgrove
isn‘t fat either (…) With Todd as my boyfriend I‘ll stick to my diet.56. She gives attention to
trivial matters instead on focusing on herself, on enhancing her individuality on her own will .
Her goals are also strongly based on the social standards of beauty (e.g. appearances matter
more than the mind) or popularity (e.g. her attention to names suggests the importance of
having mass appeal). In comparison with Nathan and Edmonds, Sally is an easie r target
because from the beginning she projected her abilities into the image of Todd . Specifically,
she perceives him as a human -prosthetic that will help her surpass her condition. This is
similar to Faustus who strongly desired for Mephistopheles to be his servant and to grant him
the ability to use magic . However, as the demon, yet again, Jonah disguised as Todd deludes

52 p.66 -67
53 FM 2030, Are you a Transhuman p.37
54 Mitchell. Slade House , p. 96
55 Ibid. p. 105
56 p. 109

30
his victim into giving her soul and, under this circumstance, their lacuna is secured for
another nine -year period.
Furthermore, in the year 2006 , waiting at the local pub, Fox and the Hounds, we meet
Sally‘s sister, Freya, who wishes to know more about the incidents of Slade House due to the
reason she lost her sister nine years before. In this regard, she meets with Fred Pink, a minor
figure in the novel, but at the same time of a certain importance since he was the only witness
who saw the Bishops before their disappearance. Nonetheless, shortly after seeing them he
was hit by a car that put h im in a nine -year coma through which he survived. This aspect
offers Freya a great amount of uncertainty because she does not know if he really has genuine
information or his words are the creation of his min d. However, he is the only lead she has
into thi s story, so she interviews him and in case his tale seems plausible enough for further
investigation, she records it. Notably , the words uttered by Pink (actually Jonah) are true as
he unveils all the background information on the Grayers‘ past, but Freya does not believe
him. She is not open -minded about the idea of immortality or twins stealing souls, given the
fact that she mentioned her disbelief in the existence of the human soul. Her unwillingness to
consider the possibility of exceeding the natural is the weakness the Grayers exploit. In
addition to this flaw, Freya gives signs of ignorance towards her surroundings as she did not
know her sister had a poor mental state before Pink showed her Sally‘s psychiatric reports. In
this view, we can observe a significant vice – not realizing our mistakes sooner so that we can
change the outcome of events . However, Freya‘s story differs from the others and also from
Marlowe‘s story, due to the fact that her soul is saved by the interference of Sally in the new
system as she stabs Jonah with a needle . Also, it may not be similar to the faustian pact of
Marlowe, but it resembles Goethe‘s. In his reiteration of the myth, the soul of Faust is saved
by the fact that in his last years of his life, he regretted seizin g the cottage of
Baucis and Philemon and vowed to build a Utopia for humanity . His regret for the death of
the elderly couple is emphasized by his will to carry out his plan even after his sight was
blinded by the old hag named Care. In comparison, I may say that Sally , although just a mere
ghost, wished to repent for her ignorance by saving the soul of her sister in order to make
room for a change and stand against the system.
The last chapter which takes place in 2015 puts upfront a unique case. The twins are
drained of power as the lacuna was not recharged. This means that their theatre is weaker and
there is no room for mistakes in their next opening. But, their targe t, Dr. Iris Marinus Fenby,
differs from the rest of their victims. As I mentioned earlier in this paper, Marinus is a n

31
immortal being, a Horologist . Unlike the twins, he/she reincarnates thus not sacrificing any
person in the process. What is more, horologists save the lives of dying children possessing
their bodies, fact which suggests that they are in a peaceful relationship with the mankind .
With this in mind , there are two systems, both using the human as a prosthet ic into their
networks, however one tries to dominate the mankind while the other tries to help it and co –
exist with it.
Furthermore, on this instance we see the twins getting in touch wit h their human side
thus being vulnerable in the face of death . They begin to take the place of their victims in the
bargain , and as a consequence, they are now Faustus trying to overcome their condition.
Alternatively, along th is novel the Grayers have shown some signs of weakness, and more
frequently it was Jo nah than Norah. Norah is the cautious twin, she uses rationality and tries
to calculate every move of the masquerade as opposed to Jonah who is very proud, and
because of this he underestimates their visitors. There were quite a lot of moments when
Norah a ttempted to make her brother understand that vanity is predisposed to failure: ―The
time will come when a <<harmless after image>> will sabotage an Open Day‖57; ―The
operandi works provided our birth -bodies remain here in the lacuna, (…) provided we
recharg e the lacuna every nine years (…) provided our guests can be duped, banjaxed and
drawn into the lacuna. Too many provideds , Jonah. Yes, our luck‘s held so far. It can hold
forever, and it won‘t‖58; ―With each Open Day, these aberrations grow worse. (…) We‘re in
thrall to luck ensuring that nothing goes wrong‖59; and even a few moments before he is
stabbed by Sally, Norah warns him by saying ―One day your flippancy will kill you‖60.
However, as much as Jonah‘s sister tries to keep everything under control, she misses one
significant detail. They possess the ability to halt time and keep the lacuna in the year 1941 ,
the year they perfected the psychosoteric breakthroughs, but outside their time -frozen bubble
the time passes at a normal pace. From 1941, up unt il 2015, the outside world experienced a
technological boom which the twins ignored, opposed to their most recent visitor, Marinus.
The latter turned the twins‘ tricks against them with the help of technology mentioning: ―your
<<banjax>> is the most antiqu ated. (…) An anima -abortifacient so fragile that unless the
patient imbibes it of his or her own conscious volition it fails to work – we haven‘t seen the
Shaded Way deploy such a primitive formula for fifty or sixty years. (…) If only you‘d only

57 p.34
58 p.78
59 p.138
60 p.188

32
updated i t you could have injected in into my body just now‖61. The system of the Grayers
was never updated so that it would lower the chances of failure, mistake exploited by the
Horologist. Norah‘s flaw was her fi xation to preserve the traditional functioning of the
operandi, without reshaping it after the developments which took place in the real time . This
point alludes to Rosi Braidotti‘s sense of attachement to the post -human world62 sense which
Marinus acquired , but the twins did not: ―In the old days, it hardly mattered – a button here, a
hair-clip there, but in this century (…) angels really do fit onto pinheads and the lives of the
multitudes inside a memory stick. We are few (…) but we are well connected‖63. Due to this,
the twins decay , as their victims, to a greater, much more evolved and better organized
network.
Time is, undeniably, a subject to ponder upon. Faustus had a limited period in which
he could exert his acquired power and similarly, Nathan, Edmonds, Sally, Freya and, in the
end, even the twins where overwhelmed by this restraint. ―TIME IS. TIME WAS. TIME IS
NOT‖64 are the words carved on the grandfather clock placed on top of the stairs of Slade
House, words which outline our humanly exist ence. In between the beginning of one‘s time
and the end, life happens. ―Time, famously, is what stops everything happe ning all at once (a
quote often misattributed to Wheeler), yet isn‘t time also what allows everything to happen in
the first place? (…)Yet time can also seem mighty circular, repetitive or phase -like for
something allegedly linear, from orbits and seasons, to the life -spans of civilizations, to the
deja vù you feel when confronted with the all -too familiar fallout of one‘s own repeate d
blunders – ―Will I never learn?‖ Time is an ally: it allows us to exist, to allow free will to
express itself. Yet time is also an enemy: ultimately, we die of it. The clock insists that time
moves at a steady velocity, yet our minds insist that time spe eds up during pleasurable
activities yet drags during unpleasant or arduous or monotonous ones‖65. Mitchell underlines
the recurrence of history in reference with the idea of time, repetition which could be
damaging for a post -human universe. Holding onto t he same behavioral patterns which our
ancestors had in a world which may bear highly intelligent and powerful non-human entities
represents a perilous matter. Again referencing Karl Steel, humans treated some of their kin

61 p.220
62 See footnote 26
63 Mitchell, Slade House , p. 223
64 Ibid. p.27
65 Harris, Paul A. ‘David Mitchell in the Laboratory of Time: An Interview with the Author’ in SubStance , Vol. 44,
no. 1, 2015. Web

33
as slaves or animal s, behavior whi ch may be passed on these new non -human entities66.The
twins are humans who enhanced themselves by the means of science and spirituality in order
to acquire a hybrid state : they are concomitantly human and non -human. Furthermore, during
their youth they studied humanity and observ ed what are the thoughts, fears and aspirations
of an ordinary human being – pieces of information which could have been used to initiate the
found ation for a Utopian future. However, they mostly preserved the feature which Steel was
anxious about , the barbaric behaviour . The reason behind their option may be based on the
fact that they were aware of the greediness and unconscious choices of humanity : ―Think
about it: about the squalid, shitty reasons that people murder each other in large numbers
now. (…) What wouldn‘t these same warlords, oligarchs, elites and electorates do to enforce
their claims over limited supply of Li fe Everlasting? (…) they‘d kick off World War Three.
(…) If the supply‘s not limited the prospects‘re even bleaker. Yes, we‘d all stop dying, but
we wouldn‘t stop breeding. Would we? (…) We‘d be drowning in our own shit even as we
fought each other for the last Pot Noodle in the la st supermarket‖67. This tendency of
dominance and survival is also emphasized by the words of Norah towards her own brother :
―(…)on that day I will save myself If I can, and abandon you if I must‖68. These words are
the description of the Anthropocene era and the potential post -human scenery provided we do
not put an end to the primitive way of thinking which we inherited from the past.
Additionally, Jacque Derrida ‘s concept of hauntology should also be noted when
speaking of Slade House. ―Hauntology s upplants its near -homonym ontology, replacing the
priority of being and presence with the figure of the ghost as that which is neither present nor
absent, neither dead nor alive. Attending to the ghost is an ethical injunction insofar as it
occupies the pl ace of the Levinasian Other: a wholly irrecuperable intrusion in our world,
which is not comprehensible within our available intellectual frameworks, but whose
otherness we are responsible for preserving‖69. I believe the repetition of history ca n be
illust rative for this term coined by Derrida. We possess the necessary knowledge to be aware
that the behaviour of the past does not fit with our contemporary décor, but we nevertheless
let it haunt us and influence us even today. In this view, if we allow such behaviour to
continue we will end up in destroying any chance of a serene post -humanity. As a

66 See footnote 12
67 Mitchell, Slade House, p.172
68 Ibid. p. 188
69 Davis, Colin. ‘ E´Tat Pr esent – Hauntology, Spectres And Phan toms ’ in French Studies , Volume 59, Issue 3, July
2005 p. 373. Web

34
consequence when these chances are on point of exhaustion, we will have to live with the
image of that future which could have been. Illustrative for this instance are the moments
when the victims see their soul. Until the point they are facing that extraordinary beauty, they
offered attention to trivial matters as finding happiness in other persons. Hence, when they
lost their soul, th ey also lost the future in which they could have conce ntrated on contouring
the magnificence which lay beneath their flesh. In addition, they are left to meander as ghosts
the corridors of Slade House, living forever with the idea that they would never lea ve its
walls due to the reason they were not cautious enough to not seek comfort in a world
conducted by the instincts of dominance and survival.
Finally, I wish to propose the slight resemblance of this nove l‘s theme to the myth of
Icarus. As a brief summary, f ather Daedalus and his son , Icarus , were imprisoned by king
Minos on the top of a high tower. Ruminating on ways to liberate themselves , Daedalus
notices how the birds are fluttering their wings as they fly freely into the sky. As a result of
this sight , he be gins gathering feathers which he joins together with wax until he shapes two
pairs of wings, one for himself and one for his son. Before flying towards freedom, Daedalus
strongly advices his son to not go too near to the sun as the wax will m elt, nor too close to the
sea as the feathers will moisten. However, shortly after they dived into the air, Icarus in a
moment of great excitement, he flew towards the sun, event which ended in him falling into
the sea. This classic tale is of interest whe n pondering on the subject of going beyond our
human condition. It illustrates an example of how the incapacity to cope with the
responsibilities that come along with our inventions will imminently bring the fall of us.
Norah and Jonah transcended their condition and, for a period of time, they maintained it
with minor turbulences in the process. But their pinnacle was short lived as the pride of Jonah
and the blind eye to the changing scenery of Norah resulted in them ‗f lying too close to the
sky‘ as Icarus. Moreover, this myth is applicable when speaking of the targets of the Grayers.
Opposed to the latter, Nathan, Edmonds and the Timms sisters were prisoners of their own
mind , who searched for moral improvement rather t han life everlasting. They were all on a
quest of finding acceptance in the same society that chained them. I may allude here to Jean
Jaques Rousseau‘s famous saying – 'man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains'. When
the twins ‗offered‘ them the op portunity to escape those chains they gullibly accepted it. As
in the case of Icarus, these artificial ‗wings‘ were short -lived. What I may additionally point
in reference with this idea is the distinction between the naïve nature of these aforementioned
characters and the calculated, rational nature of Daedalus and Marinus. The last two

35
mentioned were aware of the risks and responsibilities of their new enhanced reality and so
they adapted to it; whereas the rest were lost in the excitement of its novelty.

36
CONCLUSION
Going beyond the human does not necessarily have to be defined as an enhance ment
of one‘s self through bio -technological means . It may also be interpreted as an attempt to get
attached to the change of scenery due to globalization, interconnectivity and technological
development. We are the focusing point of this era, The Anthropocene, but at a certain
moment in the future there is going to be a shift of this focal point.
In regard to this shift, the terms ‗trans -humanism‘ and ‗po st-humanism‘ are highly
important as this paper demonstrated. Wh ereas trans -humanism ponders how technology will
act as enhancement for humanity so that at some future point the human species is going to
attain an evolv ed state of existence; post -humanism considers the prospects of this idea , how
the human and non -human will interact and adapt to each other. It comes without say that any
concept has different perspectives from which it can be seen, the one proposed by trans –
humanity was no exception. As altruistic as a world in which progress is the focus, the view
in which an impediment will raise against this future fulfilling cannot be put aside.
The past is the most vibrant proof that altruism was not the center of the human
though t, as much as it was d ominance and, alternatively, the recurrence of history has
happened quite a lot. This brings about an eminent chance of a quarrel between the human
and non -human to take place, clash which may end in a negative scope for the mankind. To
prevent this future from occurring, there should be a system in which each individual must
strive for a common benevolent future for themselves and for the others. This is the cause of
the large living network we have become; one person‘s action affects everyone in the system.
If we do not grow to be a well -balanced network with a steady goal of the future , instead of
multiple networks with different goals, we are prone to a bargain exposed to failure.
We are living a on -going Faustian pact sealed between us and our high expectations
about the future, becaus e as Faustus we depend too much on other forces to attain our wishes
instead of realizing that we are the o nes in charge, everything stand s in our hands. For
technology and science to bring our desires to fulfillment, we need to assure the appropriate
environment for them to not rise against us, to not produce another system in which the non –
human is superior. We need not to hold onto trivial matters, similar to Faustus , because with
great power comes great responsibility so that with great development, we must put it to good
usage, not misuse it . In other words, we must adapt to the rational environment that we are in
and give thought to the possibilities that are behind an action.

37
David Mitchell through his networked fiction offers a mirror of our world – past,
present and potential futures. He, unlike any author, enabled the reader to come face to face
to the events that are suggestive for this geological period in which the man is the ‗god‘, so to
say. By using his time lapsing te chnique, he succeeded in displaying how the scenery changes
due to our supremacy and our interconnectivity. More often than not, this fictional mirror
created in our image hinted at a future conducted by a tyrannical system due to our repetitive
aspect of our nature. However, it also offers a comforting note in the sense that there is still
the chance of altering the future, as post -humanity is uncertain . It is compulsory to be
conscious of our evolving environment and not allow our mind s and actions be ‗haunted‘ by
the ghost of the past. Slade House displayed such an example. The recurrence of history can
be halted, by learning from our ancestors, not re -apply their syste m. Furthermore, t he rise and
fall of the ‗evolved‘ humans needeth t o be taken into account in regard to the dualistic future
between human and non -human entities .
The aim of this paper was to highlight one major topic and that is: b etween these two
moments of ascending and decaying which Slade House hidden behind its doors , significant
decisions have been made – to be ignorant or to be updated and adapt to the dynamic and
networked s cenery of the Anthropocene. Similar to those two ends of specter, it is life and
death , between which time takes its toll and waits for no one. It depends on us how we make
use of it in our pursue of a balanced post-humanity. If not, we are going to be the Icarus of
our own supremacy – we are the authors of the future, but we ‗fly too close to the sun‘ by not
being aware of our position in this system -like universe.

38
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