Klara and the Sun Literary Elements

Fiction, dystopian fiction

America, probably a few decades in the future

The novel is narrated from the perspective of Klara, the AF companion for a girl named Josie.

Tone: solemn, straightforward, optimistic, hopeful
Mood: unnerving, uncanny, foreboding, contemplative

Protagonist: Klara, Josie; Antagonist: Cootings Machine, Mr. Capaldi

Will Josie die from her illness, and will Klara "continue" her?

Klara realizes that she has to open the blinds in Josie's room to let the Sun pour his rays down on the sick girl. This is a dramatic moment where everyone is watching and waiting for Josie to respond—which she does, seemingly being healed right then and there.

1. Early on in the novel, Ishiguro foreshadows that Josie is sick by having Klara observe her odd walk as well as how thin she's become the second time she comes by.
2. Ishiguro foreshadows what Klara will be asked to do in terms of becoming Josie when the Mother asks her several times to talk like her and act like her.
3. The fact that the portrait is not really a portrait is foreshadowed by Rick's concern about it.
4. The Mother's surprising actions, such as asking Klara to sit in the front of the car, or calling her "honey," foreshadow that there may be a different relationship between the two of them in the future

Klara often speaks in understatements, which derive from her non-human nature. An example is "I believe I have many feelings" (98).

1. Josie says her cello-playing "sounded like Dracula's grandmother" (53) an allusion to Bram Stoker's vampire in order to suggest her playing is monstrous.
2. There are explicit allusions to 20th-century fascism.
3. Klara's views of the Sun may allude to gods, such as the Christian God or the Egyptian Sun God.

There are many powerful images in the text:
1. the pollution-spewing Cootings Machines, which are commentaries on how humans have destroyed the environment
2. Klara's multi-faceted box views of people's faces, which is how Ishiguro conveys the complicated and multifarious emotions humans feel
3. the beauty of Morgan's Falls, which serves as an idyll of a nature quickly passing
4. the brightness and beauty of the Sun, which illuminates and heals and is worth admiring because it has not been corrupted by people

1. Klara as a robot seems to be just as human as the humans in the novel.
2. Klara is a robot made of industrial materials but gets nourishment from the sun.
3. Klara demonstrates more religiosity than the humans she is around.
4. Young lifted kids are supposed to learn how to interact with humans for their future success, but they are given AFs, which are not human.

Not applicable.

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1. The Sun is personified every time Klara talks about it/him. An example: "The Sun sometimes shone brightly through the gaps between buildings, and I wondered if he was wishing to encourage me, or simply watching and monitoring my progress" (218).
2. The Father says "Hope... Damn thing never leaves you alone" (219).