Posthuman Identity and Cyborg Dystopia in Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me Series

Technology is influencing every part of life today. Literature about cyborg culture offers a crucial framework for understanding and assessing the profound and frequently unclear influence of technology on our lives, both now and in the future. This paper offers insights into how technology is extensively employed to create, control, or amplify human abilities in the dystopian landscape of Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me Series, aiding the protection of the world or its destruction. Some of the characters in this series are endowed with superhuman abilities to endure the rule of the tyrannical government. For instance, the protagonist, Juliette Ferrars, possesses the power of lethal touch that aligns with the notion of cyborg identity, as it distinguishes her from ordinary individuals, resulting in her existential dilemma. Such abilities can be interpreted as a posthuman adaptation, an evolution that blurs the boundaries between the natural and the supernatural within humans. This paper also brings forth the idea of postcolonialism in a posthuman viewpoint, where the characters with supernatural powers unite in decentring the notions of the dystopian government known as The Reestablishment.