Androids, Doubling, and First World Insecurities: A Cultural Reading of the Evil Androids of the Professor Shonku Series
摘要
While the doppelgänger, especially the evil ones, have been mostly portrayed and interpreted in psychological terms, a number of doppelgänger narrative present their respective evil doubles as manifestations of a problematic spatiality. In other words, these narratives show how problematic aspects of a milieu can manifest in the evil double. Renowned popular fiction writer and filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s Professor Shonku series of novels features two doppelgänger stories highlighting the spatiality of their respective evil doubles. In these two stories, namely “Professor Shonku and Robu” (1968) and “The Black Night of Professor Shonku” (1977), the Indian scientist Professor Shonku fights against evil androids that function as body doubles of European scientists who channel their own aggression and insecurities into their androids. This chapter will read the two evil androids of these stories through a spatial lens by focusing on the portrayal of First World insecurities in regard to Third World scientific progress as manifested in the murderous androids as well as the jealousy of their sinister makers. Through a close reading of these stories, an analysis of the figure of the “mad” European scientists creating evil androids, and cross-references to other Ray stories where doppelgängers appear within Indian settings, they will be shown to establish an emotional connection with the “self’s” they double.