A Story of Longing for Humane Affection Tinged with Memory

Abstract

Never Let Me Go is the sixth novel by Kazuo Ishiguro published in 2005. The setting of the incidents depicted in the novel is England. Spanning more than two decades; between early 1970s up to the second half of the 1990s, hypothetic dystopian novel narrates the experiences of clones whose lives have been pre-determined, shortened and doomed due to forced organ donation so that human can live healthier and longer. Ishiguro’s narration dwells upon the interplay between the themes of memory, grief, longing for human affection, the discrepancy between technologically supported biomedical advances and ethics all of which have far-reaching implications. While search for meaning and essentiality of human affection stand out to be the humanizing aspect of life, they also contribute to the moral qualities of the novel as well as increasing novel’s significance as a cautionary story. In the vortex of emotional exploitation, social conditioning and individual degradation, clones’ experiences present a testimonial quality. Much of clones’ efforts aim at the affirmation of their existence in obtaining meaning with solidarity and memory. Through the reading of this atypical dystopian narrative, the trajectory of quest for meaning, which cannot be made up for anything else and the vitality of interpersonal affection with its unifying essentiality of memory is followed and tried to be pointed out.