This picture represents Josie saying goodbye to Klara as she leaves for college. My friend is modeling the picture.
When Josie is leaving for college, in the whole period when she heals and gets ready to leave, she stops treating Klara like a person. Up until now, Josie really considered Klara to be a friend. She took into account her wants – like realizing Klara would love the sunset – and she really cared for her as a friend. In that period, Josie’s behavior completely changes as she stops paying attention to Klara and she is perfectly content leaving Klara in the utility room. She had told her “No one’s saying you have to hide” (290), but she did not ever make the effort to include Klara in anything and did not spend time with her anymore. Klara became just an old stuffed animal that we leave at the back of the closet until we take it out every now and then to say hi to and remember old times. We can see this in the picture of this project as the stuffed husky represents Klara. Klara's personhood is revoked in Josie’s mind as she grows up and leaves Klara behind as an object. The day of her departure, Josie says goodbye to Klara knowing very well that Klara might be disposed of, and in Josie’s words “you’ve been just great, Klara. You really have” (297), we can hear her thanking Klara for her service and saying goodbye with a tone that says ‘thank you, I don’t need you anymore.’
This event seems to question Ishiguro’s final argument about robots in this book because, in this moment of farewell, he suggests that truly believing that robots have personhood is just a childish dream, and now that Josie grew up, she knows better.
However, Ishiguro speaks in the first person with Klara for the whole length of the book, so we have really seen Klara’s personhood, her thoughts, her feelings, and her care. The length of the book seems more significant than a brief moment near the end, so we can conclude that he is making the opposite argument: we know Klara, we know she is a person, so let us not be fooled by self-serving assumptions and open our eyes to seeing her personhood. He is telling us to observe Klara like she observes us and take the time to see her personhood instead of discarding it like a childish dream. That would be no better than the way the children wanted to treat Klara at the beginning of the book: “‘Come on,’ the boy Scrub called out. ‘Throw her over. If she can’t coordinate, I’ll just catch her.’” (78). Ishiguro is saying that Klara is not a teddy bear to be put at the back of the closet. Indeed, the theory of solipsism in philosophy states that we can never truly know if other people have person, think and feel, unless we are them. This is the most extreme test of personhood because it does not recognize any symptoms of personhood. In this case, reading the book in the first person, we are Klara, so we can be sure of her personhood. Klara’s personhood transpires in the picture through the husky’s sad eyes, showing Klara’s feelings and surrendered pain at not being recognized as the person she is.
Ishiguro further confirms Klara’s personhood in her ability for self-determination in her project with sun. Indeed, when she decides whether or not to take the liquid out of her head, it is truly her own decision. As the father says, “this is your call, Klara” (224).
Ishiguro finalizes the establishment of Klara’s personhood when Klara is in the yard and she reflects on past memories. This action, of going through memories at the end of one’s life, is a very human activity. It shows that Klara cares about her memories: she is sorting through them even though she is in a junkyard, and no one will come and recycle her hard drive. She is doing this activity for herself. Klara tells the manager that she has “her memories to go through and place in the right order” (302), like if she was organizing and storing them, which is more of a robot action. So, in that last conversation, Klara finalizes the reconciliation of her robot self and her personhood as she uses her robot abilities and nature for a truly emotional and human action.