EXPLORING THE POSTHUMAN CONDITION: TECHNOLOGICAL DOMINANCE AND HUMAN IDENTITY IN MANJULA PADMANABHAN’S HARVEST

Abstract

In an era where the boundaries between the human and the technological are increasingly blurred, Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest vividly encapsulates this confluence, presenting a dystopian future dominated by machine hegemony. The play immerses its audience in a world where the onslaught of technology challenges human autonomy, symbolizing the broader implications of a techno-colonial era. Through its narrative, Harvest portrays a flesh-market controlled by Western entities, unraveling the life of a family entangled in the mechanistic web of this new world order.

This paper delves into the intricate tapestry of posthuman drama, as mirrored in Harvest, exploring themes of digital identity, techno-colonial exploitation, and the human resistance to machine intrusion. Padmanabhan crafts characters that transform into extensions of the machine, alongside electronic devices evolving into authoritarian entities. This dramatic representation critiques the deprivation of jobs, the alienation stemming from the replacement of humans by machines in the workplace, and the grim reality of organ trafficking. Through the postcolonial lens, this analysis highlights the resistance against machine dominance, particularly embodied in characters like Jaya, who symbolize a beacon of human defiance in a posthuman world. The paper seeks to underscore the critical discourse of cyberculture and posthumanism, examining the ethical and socio-political ramifications of digitized identities and the urgent need for human-centric governance in a landscape increasingly governed by cybernetic control.