An Orison of Sonmi-451 - Part 1
This section is among the favorites and for good reason. Mitchell truly outdoes himself, creating a new language, society, and world so different from previous sections that it is hard to believe they are all written by the same author. In Sonmi-451’s corporate-ruled world, Cloud Atlas’s themes of Imprisonment, Predation, and Ascent and Descent cannot help but come alive.
Sonmi and her fellow fabricants are possibly the most prominent enslaved people within the novel. Being engineered solely to work and without the genetics to think freely, fabricants are imprisoned without even realizing it. The perfect slaves upon whom the purebloods of higher society can manipulate and use in anyway they please (i.e. dinery servers, disastermen, target practice, and test subjects). Throughout this section Sonmi was never truly her own person, being owned first by Papa Song, then Boon-Sook Kim, then Dr. Mephi and the University. Genetically created with low IQ’s, fabricants are also thought of as being incompetent – resonant of Timothy’s plight regarding society’s disposition toward the elderly.
The theme of Ascent and Descent is tremendously portrayed not only through symbolism but in language as well. The process of awakening within fabricants is called “ascension” and it describes a fabricant beginning to think freely and gain knowledge of the world around them. Yoona-939 was the first fabricant we know of to begin her ascension but was gunned down as she tried to escape Papa Song’s (in line with the Strong vs. Weak theme). Yoona’s ascension triggered Sonmi’s and her mounting rise in knowledge and fame begun. Sonmi’s life outside of the dinery began as she ascended in the single elevator out of Papa Song’s.
Other Noteworthy Connections
Sonmi and her fellow fabricants are possibly the most prominent enslaved people within the novel. Being engineered solely to work and without the genetics to think freely, fabricants are imprisoned without even realizing it. The perfect slaves upon whom the purebloods of higher society can manipulate and use in anyway they please (i.e. dinery servers, disastermen, target practice, and test subjects). Throughout this section Sonmi was never truly her own person, being owned first by Papa Song, then Boon-Sook Kim, then Dr. Mephi and the University. Genetically created with low IQ’s, fabricants are also thought of as being incompetent – resonant of Timothy’s plight regarding society’s disposition toward the elderly.
The theme of Ascent and Descent is tremendously portrayed not only through symbolism but in language as well. The process of awakening within fabricants is called “ascension” and it describes a fabricant beginning to think freely and gain knowledge of the world around them. Yoona-939 was the first fabricant we know of to begin her ascension but was gunned down as she tried to escape Papa Song’s (in line with the Strong vs. Weak theme). Yoona’s ascension triggered Sonmi’s and her mounting rise in knowledge and fame begun. Sonmi’s life outside of the dinery began as she ascended in the single elevator out of Papa Song’s.
Other Noteworthy Connections
- Hawaii is the fabricant’s xultation destination. (186)
- Vyvyans’ “nightmarish café” dream (79) comes to life as Papa Song’s dinery.
- “Every prison has jailers and walls,” (188) this is especially true for Timothy in Aurora House.
- “I was fritened of incriminating myself, but only my birthmark provoked and passing comment,” “Here, between my collarbone and shoulder blade,” “It looks like a comet, don’t you think?” “...well, coincidences happen,” (198) Sonmi also has a comet shaped birthmark.
- Both Sonmi and Luisa Rey’s stories involve traveling in elevators.
- “I was less a cross-zone tourist, more a time traveler from a past century,” (202) emboldens the idea of reincarnation.
- Sonmi’s remarks about the first time Hae-Joo enters Boom-Sook’s lab, “he did an unusual thing: he looked at me…Purebloods see us often but look at us rarely. Much later, Hae-Joo admitted he was curious about my response,” (210) echo the first moment of connection between Adam Ewing and Autua: “Then a peculiar thing occurred. The beaten savage raised his slumped head, found my eye & shone me a look of uncanny, amicable, knowing!” (6)
- The “antique globe” makes another appearance on page 222.
- “A Juche Boardman was shown opening a newer, safer, nuclear reactor, grinning as if his strata depended on it,” (231) is reminiscent of Luisa Rey’s battle with Seaboard’s nuclear reactors.
- Sonmi and Hae-Joo watched the first half of Timothy Cavendish’s movie and it is revealed Tim had a seizure. (234)
An Orison of Sonmi-451 - Part 2
The second half of Sonmi’s interview is as stellar as the first for we see the overarching themes round out as Sonmi’s valiant story is brought to an impeccable close. Just like in the first half of her orsion, the themes of Imprisonment, Ascent and Descent, Strong vs. Weak, and Predation can be seen.
Although Sonmi is thinking for herself and no longer serves in Papa Song’s dinery, she cannot escape incarceration (although it may be in unconventional forms). She is imprisoned in her own fabricant body and must navigate carefully around the whole of society. She goes about like this until she is “facescaped” and “souled” so that she is unrecognizable as a fabricant. Even then she is still imprisoned by her knowledge and experiences.
One of the experiences she cannot shake was the murder of a fabricant doll. On her way to Pusan, she witnessed a pureblood throw a living doll over the side of a bridge because it was the cheapest way to dispose of the out of fashion living toy. This act adds to the theme of Ascent and Descent as well as highlights the cruelty which fabricants must endure at the hands of pureblood dominated society.
One of the major pivotal points in Sonmi’s orison was the reveal of the actual fate of fabricants. Aboard Papa’s Ark Sonmi discovers that fabricants are literally physical prey, being killed and consumed by the citizen of Unanimity. There is no Xultation or retirement in Hawaii. It’s all a Unanimity charade. This exposure is not the only big reveal. Sonmi also explains that Union does not truly exist but is another fabrication created by Unanimity to instill a governing fear in the collective heart of the population. Unanimity not only preys upon consumers and fabricants but Sonmi herself, playing her like a pawn in a predestined game of chess.
Other Noteworthy Connections
Although Sonmi is thinking for herself and no longer serves in Papa Song’s dinery, she cannot escape incarceration (although it may be in unconventional forms). She is imprisoned in her own fabricant body and must navigate carefully around the whole of society. She goes about like this until she is “facescaped” and “souled” so that she is unrecognizable as a fabricant. Even then she is still imprisoned by her knowledge and experiences.
One of the experiences she cannot shake was the murder of a fabricant doll. On her way to Pusan, she witnessed a pureblood throw a living doll over the side of a bridge because it was the cheapest way to dispose of the out of fashion living toy. This act adds to the theme of Ascent and Descent as well as highlights the cruelty which fabricants must endure at the hands of pureblood dominated society.
One of the major pivotal points in Sonmi’s orison was the reveal of the actual fate of fabricants. Aboard Papa’s Ark Sonmi discovers that fabricants are literally physical prey, being killed and consumed by the citizen of Unanimity. There is no Xultation or retirement in Hawaii. It’s all a Unanimity charade. This exposure is not the only big reveal. Sonmi also explains that Union does not truly exist but is another fabrication created by Unanimity to instill a governing fear in the collective heart of the population. Unanimity not only preys upon consumers and fabricants but Sonmi herself, playing her like a pawn in a predestined game of chess.
Other Noteworthy Connections
- “The final drop shook free an earlier memory of blackness, inertia, gravity, of being trapped in another ford. Where was it? Who was it?” (314) While in a car chase, Sonmi seems to experience déjà vu of Luisa Rey’s Swannekke Bridge crash.
- “I was introduced to the Abbess as Ms. Yoo,” (329) both Zachry and Sonmi’s stories contain a wise abbess figure.
- There is an illness in Sonmi's time called "leadlung" which reminds us of "mukelung" in Zachry's time.
- The Abbess “was raised in an orphans’ bloc in Pearl City Conurb,” (332) which is the name of a present day city on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
- “Nothing is more heinous than the enslavement of your tribe,” (333) both Autua and Zachry experienced their tribes’ enslavement.
- The recycling of fabricants into food products evokes thoughts of Timothy Cavendish’s outburst, “Soylent Green is people! Soylent Green is made of people!” (177)
- Sonmi "hoped that Siddharatha would reincarnate" her into the Abbess' colony. (332)
- Sonmi’s last request is to finish watching The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. (349)