Slavoj Žižekian Ethics and the Ideological Fantasies of Identity in Caryl Churchill’s A Number

This study aims to capture and analyze the ideological illusion of identity in Caryl Churchill's A Number by focusing on Slavoj Žižek's psychoanalytic theory of ethics. Specifically, by analyzing the sameness and difference between replicants and humans and the ethical status of the replicated ‘I’ in combination with Žižek's concepts of ‘symptom,’ 'negativity,‘ and 'death drive,’ this study aims to reveal how identity is produced in an ideological structure rather than as a simple self-identification. The disintegration of the clones' identities and the ideological tensions based on the father fantasy offer a deep reflection on how human subjects in the posthuman era confront their inner negativity and death impulse, and how they construct themselves in fantasy. I will also explain the significance of Churchill's choice of minimalist theatrical form in this play as an extension of Žižek's ethics. The paper suggests that minimalism and the iterative theatrical form serve as ethical spaces of practice that communicate Žižek's theoretical concepts to audiences in everyday language. In conclusion, this paper argues that A Number offers audiences a new space for ethical reflection by embodying the biopolitical forces of posthuman subjectivity, its death impulse, and its ideological manifestations in a minimalist narrative. (Dongguk University)