Multiple Subjectivities and the Spectrum of Self: A Metamodern analysis of Orphan Black

Abstract

This study explores human subjectivity and its manifestation from a metamodern perspective in the Canadian TV series Orphan Black and its graphic novel adaptation. To analyze the selected text, two metamodern concepts of Simultaneity and Paradox are used in this article. In addition to metamodernism, transmedia storytelling is used as a theoretical foundation to help understand the manifestation of subjectivity in the form of human cloning in the selected texts.  The study is qualitative in nature and uses Catherine Belsey’s method of textual analysis to read the selected texts. The analysis sheds light on the manifestation of subjectivity in Orphan Black. The said subjectivity manifests in constant oscillation on the spectrum of self. The clones in the selected series simultaneously occupy multiple positions on the spectrum of self and in doing so, the notion of Paradox helps explain how the said positioning is self-contradictory. This eventually creates a trajectory for the subject to move beyond the either-or and neither-nor boundary of self.