Never Let Me Go - What does it mean to be human?
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a novel which explores how people live in a society where some people are clones that are predetermined to be organ donors for other people. The novel follows the main character, Kathy, who is a clone, from childhood to the time she is destined to become a donor. Ishiguro wants to emphasize that the donors are no different from ‘normal’ people and they have hopes and aspirations that they will never get to achieve because of their predetermined fate. Ishiguro uses metaphor and irony to illustrate how humans use false hope and lies to hide from the negative aspects of their lives..
The extract I will be examining is from pages 257-258 and it is a scene where Kathy and her boyfriend Tommy are making a plea to their old Hailsham teachers Miss Emily and Madame to be able to differ from Tommy’s last donation before he dies. Kathy and Tommy heard a rumor that couples that truly loved each other could get deferrals from donating for a few years so they could live together for a little more before they died. Madame tells them the hard truth when she says “Within Hailsham itself, whenever this talk started up, I made sure to stamp it out good and proper. But as for what students said after they’d left us, what could I do?”(257). Madame uses a metaphor here to compare her trying to break down rumors to stamping them out like they are some sort of fire. This metaphor really brings out the picture that Ishiguro is trying to paint about human nature; that humans will always try to find a spark of hope in a situation where they are hopeless. That spark of hope becomes a fire as it is spread around and others start believing in it as well. Kathy’s reaction to the devastating news also shows how hope is so prevalent in human nature. Kathy thought “and even though Miss Emily’s words should have crushed us, there was an aspect to them that implied something further, something being held back, that suggested we hadn’t yet got to the bottom of things. “(258). Kathy is still trying to plead and hope even though she knows her fate is predetermined. Kathy’s denial is ironic because it is known that her fate has always been to be a donor and it will never be changed.
In this extract, Ishiguro also explores the humaneness, or lack thereof, of this donor system. Madame states “Even back when Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things”(258). Madame uses a metaphor to compare Hailsham to a beacon that people look up to to be more humane. The irony in this comparison is that there is no real way to make forcing people to donate their organs humane. This shows how humans will try to twist how they think about things to justify their actions. In our society this practice would be seen as cruel and inhumane, but their society seems to have accepted it. It is interesting to see how similar the behaviors of the victims of this inhumane system are to the benefactors. The victims create rumors and fantasies to create false hope and detract from their fates, and the benefactors twist their actions to make them seem more humane. This shows how human nature is to try to hide the negative aspects of life and not face them.
Ishiguro uses this irony to show how human nature is to not face our problems but to hide them. We are unable to face our inadequacies and that does not allow us to enact positive change. Nobody in Never Let Me Go wanted to stop the donor program because it allowed them to live longer, and selfishness denied any form of humaneness. All of this shows that the meaning of life is different for people on different levels of society. The people that are oppressed live lives of hope that something may change in their favor, and the people who benefit from oppression live lives of selfishness and denial because they don't want to face the fact that what they are doing is wrong.
"We live in a paradox, desiring change while craving the comfort of constancy".
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