Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Article Example

Introduction In “Never let me Go,” by Kazuo Ishiguro the story develops in stages, as told in the first person point of view by Kathy H., who is an ex-student at Hailsham. Apparently, Kathy seems meek and timid, but behind her meekness strong grit and determination exists that sets a program and sees it through. She provides the best possible elucidation about the happenings at Hailsham. The incidents relating to her life are precedent-shattering and thought-provoking. The mutual interactions between the characters are being revealed in the most natural way and they relate to the convictions for which the novel stands for. This is the uniqueness of the novel. The subject that the author deals through his prime character Kathy is new, the narrations beautiful and therefore, this book turns out to be a rare creation. Kathy narrates this poignant story, without losing the ground and reality in any stage. She is always aware that she is the product of science. “H” after her name is like the badge of subservient status to humankind. The sum and substance of the book is about human cloning. A cluster of cloned children are brought up in an English boarding school, and the reality about their biology is the cause of their intense suffering and leads to some extraordinary happenings. Point of view of Kathy in relation to Tommy and Ruth Kathy’s status is like that of a senior student in a school. She possesses a keen sense of observation and takes a careful note of the happenings around her, particularly the ones related to Tommy and Ruth. To that extent she is the product of an advanced scientific research, like computers are identified by generation. Being naïve and innocent, Tommy is not in a position to tell the story, as he lacks the power of imagination and the sense of anticipation, the essential qualities that are needed in a story teller. Kathy has a keen sense of observation. Ruth’s problems are different. She plays to the gallery, pretends and tries to please all and sundry and the final result is, everyone understands her game, and begins to distrust her. Ruth is, therefore, an unreliable narrator. Kathy seems to carry the scale of justice with her always, possesses the right frame of mind and her emotions, unique observations and opinions are evenly balanced. She is a near-human being. Point of view-Kathy by temperament One point incidentally. Howsoever intelligently one may try to be impartial, the first person narrations have an inherent drawback. The narrator can read the mind of the characters and provide a fair representation of the goings on there, but it is impossible to read one’s heart. The narrator also will not be able to sweep under the carpet his own feelings and the impact of his own thoughts and as such he cannot render one hundred percent justice to the nature of the characters. The reader has to accept the interpretations of Kathy. Temperamentally Kathy is calm and seems to follow the principle, ‘temper is very valuable, do not lose it.’ Her reactions are measured and she takes her own time to take decisions as she analyzes the pros and cons of the issue before her. She reveals some aspects of her personality and how she has matured with her working experience of 12 years as the carer. Ishiguro chisels the character of Kathy thus: “I have developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and confront them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.”(3) She is the conductor of the story. Her measured responses have something to do with her personal life. She lives a solitary life. With compulsions to move to different places, her attachments are not fixed and the relationships continue to be transient. Point of view- the technique used in the story Kathy takes the reader through different stages of her life and she uses flashback technique for this purpose. Her childhood is at a boarding school at Hailsham. During her late adolescence she stays at a farmhouse called The Cottages and remains there till her adulthood. Then she works as a carer, like the job of a nurse and nothing spectacular happens in any areas of her life at any stage. Here lies the beauty of the narrative power of Kazuo Ishiguro. He weaves the ordinary situations in to an extraordinary texture. The outstanding feature of her life is her childhood association with Ruth and Tommy and the beauty and mirth of those carefree days of youth. Great events in someone’s life can be described in style for the author has substantial stuff and important grounds to write about such events. But the complex interactions between the ordinary folks (in the present case, cloned children) are the tough one to deal with to make it an interesting prose. A man writing about a woman in first persons needs skills of a special type and Ishiguro does it with ease like the fish which takes to water. Point of view—is Ishiguro a social scientist? Why Ishiguro makes such intense efforts to create a world through the first person narration of a character like Kathy? Does he have a hidden agenda and wishes to throw a surprise to the reader, as the crafty story writers do? He does not seem to have such an objective. He is interested in raising and not tackling important problems related to the present materialistic civilization. He is interested to address the vexed issues of human nature and the unending search for meaning of life. He takes on issues as they surface and carries no apprehensions about their solutions. He wonders how the lives of human beings are interconnected and he marvels at the strength and import of such connections and indicates thorough his narrations the intrinsic value of such relationships. Point of view-‘small is beautiful.’ ‘Small is beautiful,’ and Ishiguro’s Kathy knows the worth of this assertion. The author is not a novice. He has the latent ability to read the depth of the societal issues the humankind is confronted with in the present times. The reader needs to be a man or perseverance to understand the magical sentences created by the author. Read this example of sentence structure by Ishiguro: “We walked in silence, Rodney leading the way, through little backstreets hardly penetrated by the sun, the pavements so narrow we often had to shuffle along in single file. It was a relief to come out onto the High Street, where the noise made our rotten mood less obvious.”(154) This picturesque description produces a painting of the locale as if, and the action as if they are happening on the stage of a drama. The beauty of the nature, the rush of the people, and the noise in a city everything is ingrained in this sentence and the author has not used any difficult words or complex structure in sentences. The words, “rotten mood,” indicate that something unpleasant is going to happen and Ishiguro creates a sense of anticipation in the minds of the readers. Point of view--Does Kathy subscribe to nihilistic philosophy without her being aware of it? The answer to this question is both yes and no. Yes, from the point of view of an intelligent reader and a knowledgeable critic of literature. No, from the point of view of Kathy, as her backgrounder information and the stages through which her life has progressed, the level of her progression will not make her an ideal raw material for the focus of discussion on such a topic which is the domain of the intellectuals. A question arises in my mind as to why Ishiguro has made Kathy, the central character in such an important story. What merit does she possess? If one investigates a bit deeper, one will come to the conclusion that Ishiguro is right. He deliberately places the common people on the high pedestal, and in his scheme of things, the commoner gets a seat in the front row. Kathy’s generous heart transcends all the obstacles, vies with sympathetic disposition in all the situations and has the remedy for all types of ills. In the battleground of politics and ideologies that leave some comments in the mind of a right-thinking individual, Kathy remains calm and collected and any worst situation does no harm to her style of thinking. Nowhere in the novel she makes a principle-based statement and reveals as to what philosophy she belongs to. It is for her critics to classify her approach to issues related to life and provide a label to her, bearing in mind that she is the product of cloning. Point of view of Kathy and other characters as for fate If the characters, including Kathy do not subscribe to any philosophy, what do they exist for? Is there a struggle for identity? Let us try to understand the situation through the uneventful life of a common individual. Majority of the common people lead a passive life, they work for their daily sustenance along with the members of their family, beyond which they do not seem to have any goal in life. This may be due to their lack of ambitions, or due to the social circumstances and the impact of the oppressive social or political forces. Some strong feelings of opposition may torment from within, but their outward expression in the form of actions for resistance are stalled due to fear of uncertainty about the safety of the self and welfare of the family members dependent on the individual. So the characters become submissive and carry on with the available social discipline in the society even though they crave for a state of perfect discipline. Kathy and other children belong to this category of submissive generation. They are evolved to be submissive as per the cloning procedure and they cannot be otherwise. Point of view—Kathy at the center stage of the novel Ishiguro needs someone at the center stage of the novel as the main focus, and he chooses Kathy. No special reasons exist for the choice and she has no important message to give. But her position is like the spider in the cobweb. Without the spider, the cobweb has no existence. Similarly all other characters are created around Kathy. The sum total of human emotions can be seen through the characters of children, teenagers, adults, groups and each segment has the duties and responsibilities cut out for them. Their interplay and mutual interaction is subtle mostly and direct occasionally and it is intelligently woven around time tricks. No incident is related from the beginning to the end in one go. Abrupt intermissions are created; Ishiguro shifts to another issue, and reverts back to the original position once again. This generates suspense to some extent, but overuse of artificial suspense frustrates the reader. Truth is doled out in installments in the entire novel, as if a research project is in progress, and the results are declared in parts as and when a particular issue is resolved successfully after intensive experimentation. Point of view of the Novel—the gradual solution to the mystery No one knows the truth about Hailsham; the guardians know only half of the story and have a conviction that Hailsham stamp on their future life will work well. The faculties of discrimination of the readers are tested to the hilt by the author. The characters meekly submit to the course of events that take place in their lives. They do not question nor do they protest. They do not even ask why they are the chosen ones to make the final sacrifice. Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are at times perplexed why they are denied the facility of owning souls. This indicates their earnest desire to become complete human beings, as they feel they qualify for it. They are intelligent, talented and possess complex emotions and yet they are treated as disposables by the normal human beings. At this stage of the story of the novel, the reader’s disappointment is at the peak, as to why something sensational about the lives of Kathy, Tommy and Ruth does not happen. In the broader perspective, one wonders what the use of advancement of scientific research is, if its moral applications and implications on humankind are not decided in advance. In the final conversation between Tommy and Kathy, Ishiguro has codified the entire novel in a synopsis of one liner when the reader is made clear that both are aware of the reality of their existence but are not in a position to do anything nor they are prepared to take any action to defend their existence from the cruelties being inflicted on them by humankind. Conclusion: Through the character of Kathy H, Ishiguro has made efforts to depict the mind-set of the scientific and research community in the present times. Without mentioning a particular person or ideology, he brings in the theme of oppression, through the identity of clones. That their internal organs are systematically plucked out, reminds one of the international ramifications of the illegal organ trade. The author does not mention about the existence of difference between the clones and the normal population, and when the former are exploited, one is reminded of the poorest of the poor human beings being exploited by the super-rich class. Ishiguro has presented before the readers a complex web of socio-economic and issues related to scientific research, without giving any solutions. No writer will be able to give solutions either; therefore Ishiguro has preferred to tender the dynamic presentation before his readers related to the clash between morality and science. He provokes his intelligent audience by introducing to them the gravity of the situation and hints that something tangible needs to be done. In fine, this book can neither be overlooked nor ignored. Works Cited Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. Knopf, April 5, 2005; Print . Read More