NON-FINALITY AS THE FINALITY: A POSTHUMANIST STUDY OF ISAAC ASIMOV’S THE LAST QUESTION

The Last Question, a short story belonging to the genre of science fiction, has hadmultiple and even contradictory readings and interpretations, most of which are along the lines of posthumanism. The work is replete with ambiguities, uncertainties and indeterminacies regarding portrayals and their significations. The idea or discipline of posthumanism, and related ones of transhumanism and anti-humanism, are also similarly pervaded by indefiniteness and uncertainties. This paper attempts a literary study of these indeterminacies, first by analyzing certain contentual and formal aspects of The Last Question – characterization, events, themes, dialogues, structure etc. - and evincing the ambiguities therein, also briefly relating the same to the author’s persona; then by examining the argument of posthumanism and stating the indefiniteness thereof, also considering other factors like novelty of the discipline. Mathematicalconcepts have been utilized and employed, and other texts like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein dwelled upon, as and when required in the course of the study. The paper finally seeks to assert non-finality as the finality or the only possible certainty that can be arrived at in a reading of The Last Question or in a study or theorization of posthumanism.