A Heideggerian Reading of the Posthuman Treatment of Death in Don DeLillo’s Zero K

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the idea of death in relation to posthuman technology in the American novel Zero K (2016), by Don DeLillo. The idea of death is studied from Martin Heidegger’s existential perspectives which postulate that death and temporality constitute the “being” of humans, and death is what gives meaning to existence. Heidegger, who distinguishes between authentic and inauthentic attitudes to death, claims that authenticity entails anticipation of life as being finite, while inauthenticity is displayed by an inclination to avoid death. Relying on this postulate, we argue that the posthuman technological tendencies to eliminate death strip the person of human essence and throw him into inauthenticity and existential boredom. In so doing, we discuss the point of view which claims that posthumanism reserves a utopian future for humanity. The article concludes that Zero K alerts at the existential plight which awaits humanity under the technological apriorism of immortality.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. DeLillo’s cryogenic enterprise in Zero K, which is situated in Cherlyabinsk, somewhere in Kazakhstan, is not a purely prophetic or imaginary space. The first real equivalent facility in the world is the Russian “KrioRus,” (2006) where the body of Vladimir Lenin is currently preserved (Bernstein767). There also exist two American companies: “the Cryonics Institute in Michigan and Alcor in Arizona” (769).

2. For more criticism on Don DeLillo’s work in the light of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, see David Cowart’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls: Don DeLillo’s Americana” and “Don DeLillo and the Power of Language” Johannes Voelz’s “In the future, Toward Death: Finance Capitalism and Security in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis”.

3. In addition to Heidegger, states Boxall, DeLillo’s writing echoes Marx, Freud, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Adorno, Deleuze, Derrida, Kristeva, Baudrillard and Virilio.

4. See page 60 of Bonca’s article for more information about the common points between DeLillo and Heidegger.

5. Heidegger uses the term Dasein to refer to the being of man; it is “the being which I myself always am” ( Being and Time 53).

6. Death in Being and Time has an important existential and ontological value because it defines “Being” (248). Heidegger refers to the “Being” to which Dasein always relates and which allows it to understand itself as “existence” (13). He postulates that death is an existential phenomenon which does not strip life of its meaning but rather offers a “potentiality-for-Being” (251).

7. What holds existential and ontological paramount significance for Heidegger is not the moment of demise but rather “the anticipation or forerunning (vorlaufen) towards death” which constitutes Dasein as mortal (Carel 70). Anticipation of death requires to “live as finite and to understand one’s structure most fully” (Carel 73). For Heidegger, anticipation turns out to be the possibility of understanding “one’s ownmost and uttermost potentiality-for-Being – that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence” ( Being and Time 263).

8. Heidegger explains the meaning of “being bored by” using the example of the station and the train which is to arrive in four hours. He describes the station as a disagreeable place while the waiter cannot make time go quicker. The failure to pass the time, he explains, generates boredom ( The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 93).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kahina Enteghar

Kahina Enteghar is now a Ph.D student at Mouloud Mammeri University, Faculty of Letters and languages, Department of English, Tizi-Ouzou, and an assistant professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Letters and Languages, University of Boumerdes, Algeria.

Amar Guendouzi

Amar Guendouzi is a professor of Literature at the Department of English, Mouloud Mammeri University, Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria, and a visiting lecturer at a number of other Algerian universities. His research interests and publications deal with postcolonial literatures and theory and trauma studies.