Language and Betrayal: Posthuman Ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro’s <em>Never Let Me Go</em>

Abstract

Netty Mattar discusses in her article “Language and Betrayal: Posthuman Ethics in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go” the complexities of ethical compassion in this biotechnological age. Mattar highlights how genetic technology creates new forms of life that dissolve the line between ‘human’ and ‘technology.’ In spite of this, contemporary ethical discussions do not take into account changing conceptions of human subjectivity and instead reinstate older assumptions about what ‘human’ is. Mattar argues that speculative fiction (SF), as a self-conscious play on signs and signification, can draw attention to how ethical responses are determined by the language we use. Mattar reads Kazuo Ishiguro’s SF novel Never Let Me Go as a critique of liberal humanist ethical discourse, which eliminates difference as it promises inclusion. She argues that Ishiguro’s uncanny narrative presents a posthuman ethics that forces the reader to confront their own dependence on exclusionary understandings of ‘human’.