War on the Posthuman: Narrative as Resistance and the Reinvention of the Self in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Abstract

Within a world of grand narratives, testimonies from the margins carry the potential to rewrite history. Through an examination of Kazuo Ishiguro’s renowned novel Never Let Me Go, which places an emphasis on the posthuman subject, this paper approaches the documentation of one’s experiences as a revolutionary act. The memoir kept by the cloned protagonist Kathy H. not only sheds light on the inhuman practices exercised by the state, but it also provides a fictional space for the self to be perpetuated. When one’s fate is decided beforehand, when the potential of identity development is confined, the documentation of one’s experiences constitutes a subversive act that allows the subject to regain control over their self-realization. This is portrayed through the interplay between the narrating, the experiencing, and the narrated self, whose interdependence can be translated into the fluidity of identity. The physical body is complemented and sometimes even replaced by the textual body, while the self is liberated within the ongoing process of becoming offered by the imaginative and reconstructing act of autobiographical narration. Ultimately, the preservation of one’s memories constitutes an act of agency that illuminates the dark, silenced side of history.