What if love can save us… A study of romantic love in the dystopian fiction Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Abstract

This article was developed through a bibliographic study based on the concept of romantic love among clones in the dystopian society portrayed in “Never Let Me Go” (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro. The discussion on society and clones’ position is based on the theories of utopia (Trousson, 1990), dystopia (Vieira, 2010), and heterotopia (Foucault, 2009). The clones were regarded as a group of entities who were seen as less human or even non-human entities created to be consumed as organ repositories and discarded by the so-called real humans. The work debates how the construction of romantic love (Johnson, 1987) is depicted in this fiction, especially among the clones. The narrative exposes how the bodies are depersonalized, controlled, and subordinated by coercive strategies in that dystopian space. Romantic love arises as a way of surviving and as an attempt of nonconformity to face that society, that is, romantic love means a reaction and resistance against that social system.