The cyborg dilemma: body, identity, and bioethical conflicts in Mary. E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Abstract

AI capacitated the introduction of a different world of power dynamics, especially in healthcare sectors. The diseased body, which is devoid of any kind of agency, is an almost similar kind of body which Michel Foucault terms as “Docile Body”; and has been a site of direct control and subjugation in terms of the rigid singular decision made only by doctors and caregivers concerning the patient’s well-being. With the growing colonization of AI in the medical field, this “body without agency”—the sufferer—becomes even more vulnerable to inhumane and often indecisive processes of recovery. Despite the apparent gift of new life, these interventions risk reducing the essence of living to mere computational monitoring of one’s mind. This paper, therefore, explores the issue of inhumane surveillance by the apparent “powerful”, as in the case of Jenna Fox’s body and mind, and delves into the bioethical concerns that arise after she transforms into a “Cyborg” in Mary. E. Pearson’s novel The Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008). Questioning the mechanics of power imposed by AI and its users on Jenna Fox’s “docile body” (after the accident), this paper attempts to locate the dilemma between machine consciousness and human consciousness showing how Jenna encounters a split—rather than a reconciliation—between these two selves, through a series of existential questions she puts across the course of the novel.