The Windup Girl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Symbols & Motifs

Windups

Windups symbolize an alternative form of humanity designed by the Japanese and despised by the Thai. Emiko has made her way to Bangkok as part of the Japanese delegation that abandoned her, and she has been engineered to practice pure servility. She has, however, also been given an uncontrollable sexual nature as a former “companion.” Windups represent survival, swiftness, and sheer power. After the loss of her obedience, Emiko illustrates the rapidity and violence that windups can inflict. As cyborgs, quasi-humans, and inventions, windups represent a threat to natural humans, as Gibbons indicates. He is at home with these creatures whereas others despise them for their soullessness and lack of karma in a culture permeated by Buddhism. The windups might be seen as humans’ collective karma coming back to haunt them; alternately, they can be viewed as simply the next step in human evolution.

Genetically-Modified Food

Genetically-modified foodstuffs are another example of the blurry boundary between the natural and the constructed in the novel, since new foods can be created using genetic manipulation. This practice also raises the question of whether humans should be interfering so drastically with natural, vegetative processes; in the world of the novel, however, and given the blighted environment, creating genetically-modified food has become a necessity. While these products may possess a viability, it is temporary, as they inevitably become infected by plant diseases that have also mutated in ways mirroring the human manipulation of the seeds. The plants and crops grown to help people live also end up killing them.

Cheshires

Cheshires are a humorous allusion to Lewis Carroll. They are a new species that can shimmer, disappear and reappear. They are viewed by most as vermin, however. At first a funny curiosity, they multiplied to the point that the common housecat disappeared due to extinction. Seemingly innocuous, they represent a threat to humanity as they embody the obliteration of the old species. Although the cheshires are vermin, they are also technological wonders, appreciated by Gibbons for their cyborg nature. Hock Seng also admires their survivability for, as a yellow card, he recognizes his own precarious position in Bangkok as something despised yet tolerated.