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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cloud Atlas, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cycles of History
Greed
Slavery and Imprisonment
Aging and Mortality
Summary
Analysis
Picking up where the story left off in Chapter 5, the Archivist asks Sonmi what Hae-Joo’s real identity was. Sonmi continues her story. Hae-Joo is part of the Union. He says Sonmi will have to trust him if she wants to stay alive, and Sonmi agrees to trust him. They go down to Chang, who drives them off in a plain car. As they go through a tunnel, Hae-Joo cuts into his finger and takes out a little metallic egg called his Soul. He tells Sonmi to also get rid of the Soul that the university gave her so that no one can track them.
It takes over half of Cloud Atlas’s length before the full structure of the book becomes clear. The novel is not, in fact, a collection of unfinished stories, but instead a collection of nested stories that get interrupted but continue on the other side of the book, with Chapter 6 being sole chapter whose story plays out without interruption. This return to Sonmi’s story resolves the issue of Hae-Joo’s identity, which was where the previous Sonmi chapter left off.
Themes
Enforcers chase Chang’s car, and after a disorienting journey, Sonmi and Hae-Joo make it to a Union stronghold. Chang disappears, and Hae-Joo takes Sonmi to a poor neighborhood that is full of disease. Sonmi wonders why such a place exists in a great capital, but Hae-Joo explains that all cities need a place for “human waste” and that the upper classes benefit from having a place to enjoy illegal pleasures and to harvest healthy organs from the dying.
As Sonmi’s story progresses, it draws from conventions of the thriller genre, making it somewhat similar to Luisa Rey’s story (since Luisa is also on the run from forces much more powerful than her). The poor neighborhood that Sonmi visits demonstrates that in addition to the atrocities committed against fabricants, corpocracy also leads to suffering among less-privileged pureblood humans.
Themes
Hae-Joo takes Sonmi to the house of Ma Arak Na and gives her the bad news about Mephi’s arrest. They communicate with the distant An-Kor Apis, who is also part of the Union. An-Kor Apis explains that other cells of the Union have also been compromised. Mephi managed to die by suicide before interrogation could begin. Apis orders them to journey across the city for Union business.
The resistance members have names that recall dangerous bugs (with “Arak Na” sounding like “arachnid” and “Apis” being the genus for bees). This suggests they are small but powerful. Mephi’s reported suicide seems to suggest how deeply ideological he was, willing to give up his own life before his principles, although a later part of the chapter raises questions about Mephi’s fate.
Themes
In order to travel around the city, Hae-Joo needs a new Soul, so an implanter comes and gives him a new little egg with a new fictional identity. The implanter then performs an operation on Sonmi’s collar to remove her own identity and give her a human Soul. Next, they take Sonmi to someone who can give her a new face to make her look like a pureblood. In the present, the Archivist asks why Sonmi currently looks like a standard fabricant Sonmi, and she replies that the government restored her old face for the court proceedings.
Humorously, the corpocracy is so materialistic that even the soul becomes a physical object. A whole black market exists where people buy and sell these souls, providing a metaphor for how money can buy some people’s metaphorical souls. The Archivist’s interruption addresses a potential plot hole in Sonmi’s story while also demonstrating yet again how the corpocracy understands the propaganda value of external appearances.
Themes
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Sonmi continues her story. She and Hae-Joo take off to complete An-Kor Apis’s orders. Along the way, Sonmi asks if Hae-Joo’s name is really Hae-Joo, and he replies that no one in his profession has a real name. A guard at a checkpoint stops them and asks about Hae-Joo’s finger. Hae-Joo replies that he cut it trying to slice an avocado. The guard lets them pass, and they keep driving. To avoid curfew that night, Hae-Joo and Sonmi spend the night in the spare room of a genomics unit, where “wombtanks” of new fabricants incubate. It’s the type of place where Sonmi herself was created.
Between the exchange of Souls in the previous section and Hae-Joo’s answer that he has no real name, this chapter questions what truly defines a person’s identity. Hae-Joo’s lie that he cut his finger on an avocado is funny but also hints at the deeper truth that people in this dystopia have become so disconnected from nature that even simple acts like trying to cut an avocado become difficult. The wombtank reveals how fabricants like Sonmi come into being.
Themes
The next morning, Sonmi asks Hae-Joo why the Union wants to protect her so much. Hae-Joo says it’s complicated. Basically, the corpocracy is killing itself by poisoning the land. Though the poor are dying first, eventually the wealthy will die too. The corpocracy’s plan is simply to deny that anything is wrong, hoping to replace the fast-dying lower classes with fabricants and eventually stabilize things. The Union, on the other hand, wants to put a stop to the corpocracy through revolution by ascending six million fabricants.
The corpocracy’s greed leads it to be short sighted and ultimately self-destructive. This passage has a clear environmental message, recalling Luisa Rey’s efforts to expose the dangers of the Swannekke nuclear plant (which also has the potential to poison the land). The fabricants’ “ascension” takes seems to take inspiration from the goals of real-world revolutions, perhaps most notably resembling yet another Marxist idea of “class consciousness” for the working class.
Themes
Although the corpocracy is powerful, it relies on fabricant labor and would crumble if the six million fabricants ascended. Sonmi provides proof that ascension is possible and could act as an ambassador between the Union and newly ascended fabricants.
Like many revolutions, the Union hopes to overthrow a small but powerful ruling class by relying on superiority in numbers.
Themes
Sonmi and Hae-Joo continue their journey. They leave the wombtanks and make it out of the city to some mountains, where they leave the car to hike. Sonmi is fascinated by her first hike and notices a giant cross-legged figure carved out of rock who has a face that reminds her of Timothy Cavendish. They make their way to an old abbey that houses a colony of purebloods who have abandoned city life. An old woman greets them. She is the Abbess of the Mountains.
Humorously, the rock figure that Sonmi compares to Timothy Cavendish (a person she recognizes from seeing on film) is actually Siddhartha, the Buddha. In terms of personality, Timothy has almost nothing in common with the Buddha, although Timothy does possess a comet birthmark, suggesting that perhaps he is part of a lineage of reincarnation (which is an important concept in Buddhism).
Themes
The purebloods in the abbey all come from different backgrounds and have learned how to live off the land away from the corpocracy, like the nuns that lived in the area for centuries before them. The Union provides the people with technology in exchange for being able to use the colony as a safe house. When Sonmi wakes up the next morning, the Abbess of the Mountains greets her and tells her about the colony. She explains that the giant carved stone man is Siddhartha, a man from the past who believed that people could overcome pain and be reincarnated in better forms in future lives. Sonmi wishes she can be reincarnated in the Abbess’s colony someday.
As is often the case in the novel, nature represents salvation from technology and the struggles it brings. When Sonmi tells the Abbess that she wishes to be reincarnated in her colony, her wish seemingly comes true, since Sonmi has the comet birthmark and Meronym (who has the same birthmark) lives for a year in a different Abbess’s colony. Notably, because of how the book is structured, the audience already knows that Sonmi’s wish comes true, further blurring the lines between past and future.
Themes
Soon, Hae-Joo and Sonmi must leave the colony. As they do, the Abbess of the Mountains whispers in Sonmi’s ear that she’ll ask Siddhartha to grant Sonmi’s wish. While Hae-Joo and Sonmi are out hiking, they see a car that looks too expensive to be so far out in the woods, driving over a suspension bridge. A man steps out of the car and takes out a cage that holds a 30-centimeter-tall woman, grabs her by the hair, then throws her off the bridge into the rocks below. The woman was a fabricant living doll.
This scene that Sonmi witnesses brutally and efficiently shows how little people value the lives of fabricants, treating them like disposable dolls. In fact, this scene demonstrates a point so concisely that later Sonmi will think back on it and wonder if everything was really what it seemed to be.
Themes
The man comes over to Hae-Joo and Sonmi and complains about how he had to buy the living doll for his daughter because all her friends had one. But the doll went out of fashion and official disposal is expensive, so the man decided to just throw it off the bridge. His wife is with him, waiting by the car. He talks with Hae-Joo about golf, and Hae-Joo pretends to be enthusiastic. Sonmi considers the man a murderer, albeit one too shallow to even realize it.
Like much of the violence in the story, the man’s decision to throw his fabricant doll off a cliff stems from greed rather than cruelty. It’s more expensive to decommission a doll the proper way, so the man chooses the option that’s most convenient for him, regardless of the suffering it causes.
Themes
By nightfall, Sonmi and Hae-Joo reach their destination, Pusan. Pusan has a reputation as the place where Seoul executives come to fulfill their vices. Hae-Joo meets up with a woman he knows who runs a flophouse and provides them with a run-down room for a couple nights. After taking care of some errands that night, the next morning Hae-Joo takes Sonmi to the window and makes her close her eyes. When she opens them, the sees the ocean way in the distance for the first time.
In order to avoid being caught, Sonmi and Hae-Joo journey along the margins of society. While Sonmi witnessed pureblood humans living in relative privilege at the university, she finds that outside of the major urban centers, the corpocracy often fails to live up to its promises, even for purebloods.
Themes
Hae-Joo brings out a contraband transceiver to communicate with An-Kor Apis. Apis says it’s time to teach Sonmi a few things, so she can decide on her own if she wants to keep going. Apis disconnects, and Hae-Joo says they’re going to Papa Song’s Golden Ark, which Sonmi recognizes as the place fabricants go to be exulted after 12 Starring Ceremonies. They go into the city, disguising themselves as maintenance people, and manage to infiltrate the Ark (which is supposedly a ship set to sail to Hawaii) without much difficulty, since few people have any desire to enter the Ark illegally.
The “Golden Ark” of Papa Song’s is a play on words. An “ark” can refer to a boat (like Noah’s Ark) or an agreement (like the Ark of the Covenant), and Papa Song’s Golden Ark is both—a boat that serves as a promise of a well-earned retirement for fabricants. “Golden Ark” also sounds very similar to “Golden Arches,” the logo for McDonald’s, suggesting that Papa Song’s is not just a spiritual successor to the dehumanizing work conditions at businesses like McDonald’s but perhaps also the literal evolution of McDonald’s.
Themes
Hae-Joo and Sonmi make it to a chamber that is full of fabricants in turnstiles, including Sonmis, Yoonas, and other models that Sonmi recognizes. They sing the psalm of Papa Song as they prepare to be “exulted” and taken to Hawaii. But when Hae-Joo and Sonmi enter the next room, everything is quiet. Three aids greet fabricants, who entered the room one by one. A helmet descends on the fabricants and kills them with a bolt. It’s a slaughterhouse, and in the next room, workers butcher the remains of the fabricants. These remains become new biomatter for wombtanks, Soap, and even sometimes Papa Song’s food.
The fabricants hope to gain their freedom in Hawaii, just as the enslaved Moriori man Autua hopes to get his freedom in Hawaii in Adam Ewing’s story. But this passage vividly shows that all the promises that the corpocracy makes to fabricants are simply lies. The mechanism for killing fabricants mimics techniques for killing cattle at real-life slaughterhouses. The premise of fabricants being turned into meat recalls the plot of the science-fiction movie Soylent Green, which Timothy Cavendish references at one point in his story.
Themes
In the present, the Archivist interrupts to say that what Sonmi describes is too evil to be possible. Sonmi asks the Archivist if he’s ever seen a fabricant retirement village in person. There should be whole cities full of retired fabricants, based on how many get created. The Archivist protests that fabricants have rights, and Sonmi herself saw fabricants in an ark headed toward Hawaii at Papa Song’s, but Sonmi says those images are computer-generated. The Archivist doesn’t back down but suggests Sonmi should continue her story from where she left off.
Although the Archivist seems to have more sympathy for Sonmi than most other people in his world, he nevertheless refuses to accept her story because it contradicts so many of his own beliefs about the world. Even after Sonmi provides additional evidence and raises important questions, the Archivist refuses to accept her story, reflecting how difficult it is to change people’s deep-rooted beliefs.
Themes
Sonmi continues her story. In the Ark, Sonmi watches the slaughter of fabricants for what feels like a long time. Even after she and Hae-Joo get back to the flophouse, the images continue to haunt her. At the flophouse, Sonmi and Hae-Joo have sex. Afterward, Hae-Joo examines Sonmi’s comet birthmark. In the morning, Sonmi deicides they must destroy all the slaughterships. Consumers need to learn that fabricants are purebloods, even if they’re grown in a wombtank, and if this doesn’t work, then fabricants need to fight with the Union against the consumers. Sonmi proposes creating a Catechism to teach newly ascended fabricants about their rights. This eventually becomes a work called Declarations, which features prominently in Sonmi’s trial.
The word “declaration” is important in many revolutionary documents, perhaps most notably “The Declaration of Independence" from the American Revolution and “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” from the French Revolution. By simply calling the manifesto Declarations, Sonmi seems to be suggesting a universal struggle, likening the fabricants’ situation to the situations of oppressed humans of the past.
Themes
Sonmi writes Declarations outside Pusan. Over the course of three weeks. The very afternoon she completes it, she gets captured. When she goes out for a walk, enforcers suddenly pop out and surround her. Sonmi expected the raid. As she tells the Archivist in the present, she feels that this event, like the other events she’s confessed to the Archivist, beginning at Papa Song’s, was scripted and that all the major people in her story like Hae-Joo and Mephi were following the script. She brings up plot holes, like how Wing~027 seemed just as stably ascended as she was, implying that she was not as unique as the Union said.
Sonmi’s interpretation of events—that the corpocracy actually staged many Union actions—adds a shocking twist to the story. It’s unclear whether Sonmi’s view is correct, or whether she’s simply become discouraged by her failure to bring about change. It’s even possible that author David Mitchell uses this section to poke fun at himself (by calling the book’s plotting too convenient), adding yet another layer to the novel’s twisted, meta structure.
Themes
Sonmi believes the Union is real, but instead of encouraging revolution, its real purpose is to give the corpocracy a defined enemy. Her whole trial and the events leading up to it were one flashy show to discredit Abolitionism. The Archivist asks why Sonmi cooperated with Hae-Joo if she suspected he was betraying her. She says she wanted to get her Declarations out anyway, and that she hopes the wide spread of her Declarations will lead to a better future, even if schoolchildren learn that her Catechism is “evil.” As her last request, Sonmi asks the Archivist to let her download the end of a movie she started watching long ago.
Sonmi’s final answers explore the complicated nature of resistance, showing how people who seem to be protesting might simply be helping to further the goals of their oppressors. Notably, however, Sonmi stops short of embracing nihilism, saying that she is glad that she wrote Declarations even in spite of all the obstacles that might render her work worthless or even harmful to her cause. Despite the bleak ending, Sonmi’s story reaffirms the value of struggling despite impossible odds, an idea that echoes across most of the other stories in the novel.
Themes
