Never Let Me Go as a dystonian novel

Dystopian literature has become more and more popular and influential in society since the last century. We’re presented with different but non-the-less disturbing worlds one after another. From the Hatchery to Room 101 to the Donating centers, brilliant minds had shown us possibilities of this world that we could never think of but rational and realistic. In most dystopian worlds, humanity is the most mentioned and discussed topic and is often redefined, twisted, ignored. However, In Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro approached this topic with extreme delicacy and sensations.

Never Let Me Go is a story about a society which uses clones to produce organs in order to produce cure certain diseases like cancer. The story is told from a point of view of a clone which forced the reader to travel along with the narrator in this new world with limited information. Kathy is brought up in an entirely different society than the reader(I hope so), not only cultural-wise(as it’s set in England) but also system-wise. She is brought up as a clone, and normally it would be hard to connect to this kind of character as you share no similarities in the environment. However, in the novel, Kathy tells the reader her past with extremely detailed descriptions, reflections, her own interpretations, the kind of narrative that allows us to actually connect and sympathize with the character. You can feel a part of you in Kathy. She grew up like other children doing stupid and weird things like riding imaginary horses and pretending to be a spy/guardian of whom she liked. She also punishes her roommate for asking questions in class. In the beginning, Ishiguro creates a kind of discord: a weird feeling that something’s different, and further into the novel it turns out the characters you feel a bit sympathetic with will give out their organs and die.

Never Let Me Go also discusses humanity in a very different way than other dystopian novels I read. Ishiguro shows you these main characters who are perfectly human, have emotions, eat food, etc. He shows their complicated relationships: how they hurt each other, reconcile, alienate, reconcile again, and finally separated by death. Everything about them is humane, however, their humanity is rejected by the society, those who created them. The system in Never Let Me Go also is a lot different from the system in other dystopian novels I’ve read. Instead of being mechanical, grim, absurd and totally rational, the system showed its humanity. The normal people do not know exactly how to deal with clones, so they just leave the problems in the shadows, some people like Ms. Emily thinks clones should not be treated like this, but still fails to answer why Hailsham at first. They are as humane as those clones who struggle to find their meanings which is more than their organs.