Abstract

Kurt Vonnegut’s Galápagos is his most studied novel after Slaughterhouse-Five. A considerable number of the studies produced on the novel investigate it using a posthumanist theoretical framework, for its unprecedented narrative spans a million years, employs a ghost for its omniscient narrator, and depicts human extinction and the evolution of a post-Homo sapiens species. This article questions scholarly claims that Galápagos is a truly posthumanist text. It begins with an account of the anthropocentric and humanist thought originating in the Western tradition and then touches upon the many strands of posthumanism that strive towards decentring the human and promoting inter-species equality and justice. Next, it dissects in detail the flaws of Vonnegut’s posthumanism and his incorrigible humanist bent in Galápagos, and goes on to identify the novel’s plot as echoing the archetypal trope of the creation myth—a humanist construct. The article thereby concludes that Galápagos, despite its depiction of the post-human in the form of an evolved post-Homo sapiens species, suffers from Vonnegut’s ever unstable humanist and posthumanist impulses and thus manages to remain a humanist–posthumanist concoction at best.

摘要

库尔特·冯内古特的《加拉帕戈斯》是继《第五屠宰场》之后他研究最多的小说。相当多的关于这部小说的研究使用后人类主义的理论框架来研究它，因为它史无前例的叙事跨越了一百万年，使用幽灵作为无所不知的叙述者，并描绘了人类灭绝和后智人物种的进化。本文质疑加拉帕戈斯的学术主张是真正的后人类主义文本。它首先描述了起源于西方传统的人类中心主义和人文主义思想，然后触及了许多致力于使人类去中心化和促进物种间平等和正义的后人类主义。接下来，它详细剖析了冯内古特的后人文主义和他在加拉帕戈斯群岛不可救药的人文主义倾向的缺陷，并继续认为小说的情节与创世神话的原型比喻相呼应——人文主义建构。文章由此得出结论，尽管加拉帕戈斯以进化后智人的形式描述了后人类物种，遭受冯内古特永远不稳定的人文主义和后人类主义冲动，因此充其量只能保持人文主义-后人类主义的混合物。