Kazuo Ishiguro's Novel Never Let Me Go Essay

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Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go tells the story of three young people in a dystopian version of the near future. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are not traditional beings; they are clones who were scientifically created for the sole purpose of organ donation. They will each give up their organs until they "complete," which is the euphemistic term used in the novel for the death of the clones. Each of these three characters must, in turn, come to terms with their eventual fate. Ruth, Kathy, and Tommy will all complete once their organs have been harvested and given to acceptable human beings. As children the three attend a boarding school called Hailsham wherein the students are taught nothing in the way of life skills or academic lessons which would lead them to fully functional adulthood. Instead they spend all of their time making art and poetry and engaging in sexual experimentation with their classmates. Although these three characters are the main portion of the book, they are not individual in any particular way. They are emblematic of the three variations for existence that all the clones in this society have. Ruth is the angry one who demands companionship while she wastes away her short existence. Tommy is the rebellious one determined to find a way of staying alive. Kathy is the accepting one who realizes that there is only completion waiting for all of them. In opposition to these clones are the few human characters in the novel who are teachers at the boarding school. There is Miss Emily, who detests the clones, and Miss Lucy who is more sympathetic. The latter is potentially the most interesting character in the novel because she has feeling for the plights of the clones, even to the point of informing them of their purpose. Unlike most of the people the clones interact with, she does all she can to help them even though she realizes that this is ultimately futile.

When the reader first encounters Miss Lucy, she is teaching at Hailsham.

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Her description is nothing spectacular. She is described as a plain looking woman; "bulldoggy" is the term that Kathy, the narrator, uses (Ishiguro 26). Even though Miss Lucy is stout and rather hard-seeming, she is athletically inclined and will play with the children in sporting games. She willingly communicates and interacts with the students at the school. From Kathy's early description, it seems that Miss Lucy treats these students as any good teacher would treat their pupils. She engages with them emotionally to the point where they can have a relationship where they can play and one side can win and other can lose without the potential for hard feelings or damaged self-image.

The students imply that somehow they have been aware of their true natures and their futures. However, Tommy senses that Miss Lucy wants to share something with him, something that would be the opposite of the statements of all the other adults that surround them. All of the students at the school are encouraged to create creative works in the forms of paintings or poetry, anything that required creativity and the exhibition of the emotions of the artists. Tommy, unlike many of the other students at Hailsham, does not perform well in his artistic project at school. He is despondent over this, an emotional condition which becomes worse when the boy is chastised by other guardians, the term for the adults and teachers at the school, who demand that he try harder and not make excuses for his lack of success. Instead of make similar demands on Tommy, Miss Lucy endeavors to build up his self-esteem and instill in him a feeling of hope that the situation could get better (Ishiguro 27). Her personality begs Tommy to keep trying even when he feels that he has no artistic or creative abilities. She wants to give him the belief that he can in fact develop artistic talent over time.….....

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