Never Let Me Go Literary Analysis Essay

Never Let Me Know We are born, we go to school, we work for years and then we die. Isn’t fate cruel? Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, introduces a reality in which characters are complacent with living lives dedicated to “donating” organs and then dying. One would expect these characters to start a rebellion, to run away, to do literally anything but be passive towards their so-called lives. How can one be so complacent with a predestined life? Ishiguro’s answer: Memories. Only through memories can one cope, reach self-understanding and ultimately find their identity. The protagonist Kathy is able to come to terms with her life by focusing solely on her happy memories. Kathy lives in the past. As she drives around various parts of the country she finds herself subconsciously looking for the compound she grew up in. “I might pass the corner of a misty field…in the distance as I come down the side of a valley…and I'll think: “Maybe that's it! I've found it! This actually is Hailsham!” Then I see it's impossible and I go on driving” (7). The elusive diction of ‘distance,’ ’maybe’ and ‘misty’ not only amplify the futility of Kathy’s search for Hailsham (as these words establish its seclusion) but …show more content…
Miss Emily believes she did the ‘students’ a great favor by attempting to “prove you had souls at all.” While she remembers her efforts as heroic in order to keep her conscious guilt free, she actually did the students a great disservice. By never learning anything other than the arts, and to value creativity, the students never questioned the shadowy system that held them captive to their predestined futures. One may argue that without the childhood Hailsham provided Kathy she would have no pleasant memories to keep her content within the harshness of life, who is to say that she could not find happiness as an escaped donor, living life with all her organs and with actual life