Fiction novels and their literary characteristics

Scifi

Emiko and the New People present some of the most poignant imagery in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel The Windup Girl. The titular character also emerges as a clear but ironic hero, providing a striking science fiction framework with which to view social and political realities. Emiko is an ironic hero because she is not human; she is a windup girl. She shares much in common with other quasi-human characters or species that people the canon of science fiction. Yet she is no android. Her modifications do imbue Emiko with android-like features. Because the New People are genetically engineered, they have sufficient human characteristics to make people like Emiko endowed with full emotional, sexual and spiritual energy. Most importantly, the New People are outsiders, outcastes, and Others.

Although the windup girl herself is the most striking feature, lending herself to the book's title, The Windup Girl certainly possesses all the features of a quintessential science fiction work. The vision is dystopic and yet eerily parallel to the contemporary world -- offering viewers a window or time warp into the future. Bacigalupi chose his settling well, and on purpose. Bangkok is the only conceivable place that the novel could take place in, and still retain its core components and characters. Emiko finds herself amid the conflicted chaos that is Bangkok now and then. Her character is so eerily like flesh-and-blood denizens of the Thai capital that readers feel like they know Emiko already.

Another facet of Emiko that makes readers relate to her, and that makes Bacigalupi capable of crafting a story around her experiences, is that she stands at the intersection of various race, class, gender, and social hierarchies. Her longing to be with "her kind" remains a core thread throughout the novel; yet she has no concept of what such a community of New People would look like. What types of diversity exist within the New People culture Emiko has yet to know. She creates an identity in opposition to the oppressive culture in which she dwells. Her identity has been entirely, and literally, created for her by others. Emiko is "wound up" because she has been toyed with, played with, and manipulated since her creation. The symbolism of being a windup girl also pertains the fact that her destiny is wound up with those around her. Her power is palpable, and Emiko is even more powerful in her humility. The fact that Emiko is unaware of her potency makes her the ultimate postmodern science fiction hero. Emiko therefore subverts and transcends her underclass status in a way that is marvelously graceful.

Her killing of Somdet Chaopraya is a pivotal point in The Windup Girl, for the events but also for Emiko's character development. The event also plays on the symbolism of windup doll. Emiko was wound up spiritually and emotionally by the time she met Somdet Chaopraya. Having numbed herself, tuned out and turned off to the world, and especially to predatory men, Emiko springs to life like a jack in the box. A Tarantino-esque scene unwinds from that point forward, providing the reader with a cathartic and transformative figure.