Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas
What is this life worth living for? This seems to be the central question that David Mitchell seeks to answer in his magnum opus, Cloud Atlas. It is important to note the diction ‘this’ life suggests an awareness of other lives – past lives that existed at a different point in time, future lives tha...
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| Format: | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| Language: | English |
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Nanyang Technological University
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/159537 |
| _version_ | 1826117053819387904 |
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| author | Lai, Zaneta Zhi Yan |
| author2 | Neil Murphy |
| author_facet | Neil Murphy Lai, Zaneta Zhi Yan |
| author_sort | Lai, Zaneta Zhi Yan |
| collection | NTU |
| description | What is this life worth living for? This seems to be the central question that David Mitchell seeks to answer in his magnum opus, Cloud Atlas. It is important to note the diction ‘this’ life suggests an awareness of other lives – past lives that existed at a different point in time, future lives that have yet to exist, and the present life that certainly exists in the ontological now. The author candidly says in an interview that “all of the characters except one (Adam Ewing) are reincarnations of the same soul in different bodies throughout the novel, identified by a birthmark” (Mitchell). So what is the primary connection between the multiple lives that one lives? The present consciousness must attempt to draw the connections with the other consciousnesses which have lived, is living and will be living. The characters’ awareness of their reincarnated otherness in the novel is what I will define, for the purpose of this essay, as “a shared continued Consciousness (with a capital C) that transcends beyond the temporal lifetime of many other singular individual consciousness”. From this, I argue that individuals in Cloud Atlas find meaning in a contemporary existence through continued Consciousness. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:21:29Z |
| format | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| id | ntu-10356/159537 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:21:29Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Nanyang Technological University |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1595372023-03-11T20:09:33Z Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas Lai, Zaneta Zhi Yan Neil Murphy School of Humanities CAMurphy@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Language What is this life worth living for? This seems to be the central question that David Mitchell seeks to answer in his magnum opus, Cloud Atlas. It is important to note the diction ‘this’ life suggests an awareness of other lives – past lives that existed at a different point in time, future lives that have yet to exist, and the present life that certainly exists in the ontological now. The author candidly says in an interview that “all of the characters except one (Adam Ewing) are reincarnations of the same soul in different bodies throughout the novel, identified by a birthmark” (Mitchell). So what is the primary connection between the multiple lives that one lives? The present consciousness must attempt to draw the connections with the other consciousnesses which have lived, is living and will be living. The characters’ awareness of their reincarnated otherness in the novel is what I will define, for the purpose of this essay, as “a shared continued Consciousness (with a capital C) that transcends beyond the temporal lifetime of many other singular individual consciousness”. From this, I argue that individuals in Cloud Atlas find meaning in a contemporary existence through continued Consciousness. Bachelor of Arts in English 2022-06-23T02:54:33Z 2022-06-23T02:54:33Z 2020 Final Year Project (FYP) Lai, Z. Z. Y. (2020). Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/159537 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/159537 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University |
| spellingShingle | Humanities::Language Lai, Zaneta Zhi Yan Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title | Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title_full | Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title_fullStr | Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title_full_unstemmed | Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title_short | Contemporary consciousness in David Mitchell's cloud atlas |
| title_sort | contemporary consciousness in david mitchell s cloud atlas |
| topic | Humanities::Language |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/159537 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT laizanetazhiyan contemporaryconsciousnessindavidmitchellscloudatlas |