An Analysis of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Isolation and the Shattered Self in Present-day Society: Cramped in the 'Room'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62843/jssr.v5i3.575Keywords:
Socio-Psychoanalytic Theory, Alienation, Existentialism, Identity, Human Freedom, Psychological IsolationAbstract
This work focuses on the major works of existential philosophy and socio-psychoanalytic theory on the dome and world of Emma Donoghue’s Room, particularly on the dread of isolation and self-identity formation. The dark trauma of mental and physical confinement, control with artificial and present-day modern technology is reshaping the psyche of the being. The Room is both a literal symbolic prison and a metaphor of present-day alienation in the epoch of modern exploration disguised under the burden of technology. This study relies on Kierkegaard philosophy of life, and the analysis shows how Ma, in the process of supportive parenting, regains herself while her child, Jack, finds meaning within the confines of his building fascination. This dichotomy represents a universal bitter truth: even in the face of disturbing and oppressive man-control systems, purposeful life is created through minute acts of struggle and fight. Beyond a depraved story of a boy and a mother’s kidnapping, Room is a profound reflection of today’s disintegrated identities, the product of social disconnection and systems of survival. The story offers a metaphor of survival which turns in on itself to critique modernity, exposing alienation while simultaneously grappling with the hope of self-reinvention through social bonds. The primary source is the original text of the novel.
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