Never Let Me Go



Never Let Me Go

Introduction

Narrated by Kathy, Never Let Me Go is basically the story of a life-long friendship forged in childhood. Told in three 'acts', it begins in 1978 at Hailsham, a boarding school in rural England, where the happy, rosy-cheeked youngsters appear to be orphans. Their uniforms look worn but clean under their coarse jumpers. Well-behaved when assembled before the formidable Miss Emily, the boys are less sweet as they tease Tommy, gleefully anticipating his inevitable primal scream of utter frustration. His misery is alleviated when Kathy befriends him. With her other friend Ruth, Tommy and Kathy become firm friends(Jervis 2012, 189-205). Although it takes a while to adjust to the fact that this novel is actually science fiction, we gradually realize that this is no ordinary orphanage. We observe how outsiders treat the children with an oddly apologetic awkwardness.

It is only when their 28th 'guardian' in nine years, the sympathetic Miss Lucy, blurts out the true facts that the children begin to understand their pre-ordained role in life. Like them, we begin to grasp the meaning of 'donor' and 'carer'. However, by the middle section of the novel, when the trio have left school and are living in 'The Cottages' in 1985, sexual tensions and jealousies are causing the friendship to flounder. At the same time, they are seeking answers to questions about their origins, their past...and their future. As Kathy recalls, “our lives, so tightly interwoven, unraveled so quickly”. Leaving Ruth and Tommy at the Cottages, she applies to be a 'carer'. This brings us to the final act, 'Completion', set in 1994. Long after seeing the novel, the issues reverberate. Apart from the obvious ethics of cloning, Ishiguro is exploring what it is that makes us human. Through Kathy he is asking whether we live for ourselves or for other people. Alex Garland worked closely with Ishiguro in the process of developing the screenplay and the design and performances are well nigh faultless(Griffin 2009, 645-63).

Discussion

Dystopian Futures

The novel revolves around Kathy S, a young woman who has spent about 30 years of her childhood in an unusual boarding school and later her adult life as well. The action takes place in the anti-Utopical UK in the end of the XX century, in which people are cloned to create living-donor organs for transplantation. Kathy and her friends at the orphanage created such donors. Before becoming donors, all of them for a longer or shorter time work "mates", caring and supporting those who have already become donors. As in other studies Ishiguro, truth becomes clear and is not immediately revealed gradually, through hints. Moreover, the notion of free will, somehow is attached with the possibility to change the destiny. It is such a complete absence of this concept makes it important for the book. As in many other dystopias, in Hailsham practiced "default", ie pupils do not lie, but just do not tell everything, especially their destination(Carroll 2010, 59-71).

The novel can be interpreted as an ...