Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go: The Societal Implications Alexandria Ross College

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a dystopian novel set in London, focusing on the lives of special humans called donors. These donors are actually human clones, who are raised in private schools until adulthood, when their vital organs can be used for transplants to normal humans with health issues. Not only is Ishiguro's novel dystopian, it's also uncanny, offering "the revelation of what is private or hidden: that which should have stayed secret but has been revealed" (Marks 341). The novel can be considered an uncanny one because "bioethical alarm at the prospect of human cloning is clearly linked to a fear of the uncanny, in the sense that the clone constitutes a crisis of the 'proper' and of the 'natural'; a comingling of the familiar and the unfamiliar" (Marks 341). The uncanny nature of the novel is significant because it creates a sense of discomfort for the reader; the emotional and moral implications of this discomfort force the reader out of his comfort zone. In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro uses the genre of the uncanny to subtly criticize the modern-day class system and general ignorance of suffering. This is done with the use of a clone's perspective to tell the narrative, the humanization of the clones, and the...