Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Book Analysis Essay Sample

From the Artificial Friend Store where Klara is introduced to the Junkyard where her story ends; Klara and the Sun explores what it means to be human. Kazuo Ishiguro includes many symbols that are used to enlarge the meaning of the work as well as to convey messages and ideas. The most important symbol included in the work is the Sun, due to its heavy involvement with the development of the characters and themes of the work as a whole. 

From The AF Store, it is apparent that the Sun is used to develop characters and the themes of the work. This idea is displayed at the beginning of the novel when Klara is sitting at the AF storefront window and sees two characters she has nicknamed, Coffee Cup Lady and Raincoat Man reunite on the street in front of her as the Sun starts to shine through the clouds. 

“Then the Coffee Cup Lady reached the RPO building side, and she and the man were holding each other so tightly they were like one large person, and the Sun, noticing, was pouring his nourishment on them.” (Ishiguro 22).

In this instance, Klara uses the Sun to make sense of normal human interactions. This decision affects the work by displaying how Klara views the Sun as a sentient being since she is Solar Powered, and views it as a source of life and therefore alive itself. This is significant because Klara, throughout the work, constantly calls on the Sun to help her and ​​continuously uses it to explain Human behaviors that she can not make sense of herself. 

After Klara and Mother return from the visit to Morgan Falls Josie’s health rapidly declines and it is evident that the Sun is used to further the development of Klara’s character by having her question why the Sun hasn’t healed Josie of her illness. 

“… my mind had become filled once more with the Josie worries, and specifically the question of why the Sun hadn’t yet sent his special help as he’d done for Beggar Man and his Dog. I’d first expected the Sun to help Josie in the days when she’d become weak before Morgan’s Falls. I’d then accepted that he’d perhaps been correct at that point to wait, but now with Josie so much weaker, and so many things concerning her future in uncertainty, it was puzzling why he continued to delay.” (Ishiguro 115-116).

Ishiguro includes this in order to have Klara question the Sun which she had previously put complete faith in. This affects the novel by causing Klara to have internal conflict over the fact the Sun decided to heal the Beggar Man but not Josie when in actuality the Beggar Man was deceased, not healed. This internal conflict furthers the development of the plot in the novel as seen with Klara destroying the cootings machine to try and convince the Sun to heal Josie. This is significant because it shows how far Klara is willing to go to help Josie, which furthers the theme of faith over rationality in the novel as Klara puts more unfounded faith into the Sun than simple rational conclusions.