by David Marler
Kazuo Ishiguro made headlines when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017. The Nobel Committee wrote that Ishiguro “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” One of Ishiguro’s most influential works is Never Let Me Go (2005), a dystopic science fiction novel that focusses on the lives of a group of friends who grow up and come to learn that they must give donations – they are clones whose sole purpose is to provide organs for the critically ill.
What makes a man a man?
Never Let Me Go deals with many themes that authors like Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) have grappled with – what makes a person a person? what is the human soul? What are the ethical boundaries around science? Is cloning okay against any cost? Ishiguro’s characters are raised at a boardinghouse called Hailsham and, at first, appear to be oblivious to their true purpose. As they grow older, they are forced to take on new roles; first as carerswho help their fellow clones as they donate their organs and slowly die, and later as donors, who literally give all.
Workshopping the novel
The 100-minute workshop for this novel is split into two parts. Part one focusses on the text: what happened, what the novel discusses, the main ethical debates, etc.. Part two focusses on theme and genre. Part two consists of a small lecture on dystopic and science fiction novels and then there is an activity around the what the novel/author says about society.
Part 1: Knowledge of the text
Activity 1: Focusing on setting (20 minutes)
Hailsham was one of the most influential places in the text. As Kathy goes around caring for donors, they often ask her to recall her time at Hailsham – a place of tenderness in a cruel world – even if she hadn’t ever been there. The same can be said of some of the other places in the novel. For this activity, the students will be broken into groups and each group will be given a place in the novel. Their task is simple, they have to describe what the place looks like, and state the importance of this place in the novel to the various characters.
- Hailsham
- The Cottages
- Trip to Norfolk
- Tommy’s Recovery Centre (Kingsfield Recovery Centre)
- Madame Marie-Claud’s house
The students will be given 10 minutes to come up with a description and analysis of their respective setting. They will then present their answers max. 2 minutes.
Activity 2: Class Discussion on Characters and Events (20 minutes)
This portion of the workshop is geared at moving the students from a superficial knowledge of the text towards a deep understanding of the events and their literary significance. For the purpose of this short group discussion, we will spend five minutes on each of the talking points below:
- We know from the text that Hailsham was one of the best places in the novel. What do you think that the caretakers (and Madame) were trying to do with their kinder approach at Hailsham? Why did they have them focus on creating art?
- Why do you think that characters in the novel never revolted, ran away, or refused to become donors?
- How does Tommy change throughout the novel? Why does he continue to draw animals even when he leaves Hailsham?
- How did the non-clone characters react towards the clones in the novel? What were their feelings towards the clones? Why do you think they acted that way?
Part 2: Knowledge of genre, theme, and symbol
Activity 3: Lecture: To which genre does Never Let Me Go belong? (20 minutes)
In this lecture the students will learn about various genres. We will mainly focus on the characteristics of science fiction, dystopian novels, and horror. The basis will be to move from “realism” (or literary realism) towards the more speculative and fantastic fiction.
The lecture will also focus on the themes that are common to each genre.
Dystopian fiction (literary genre): “Dystopian literature is a form of speculative fiction that began as a response to utopian literature. A dystopia is an imagined community or society that is dehumanizing and frightening. A dystopia is an antonym of a utopia, which is a perfect society.” (source: Writing Masterclass). The themes that are almost always present in dystopian fiction are relevant to contemporary society. Think about political, social, and ethical themes.
Science fiction (literary genre): “Science fiction is a time-sensitive subject in literature. Usually futuristic, science fiction speculates about alternative ways of life made possible by technological change, and hence has sometimes been called “speculative fiction.” Like fantasy, and often associated with it, science fiction envisions alternative worlds with believably consistent rules and structures, set apart somehow from the ordinary or familiar world of our time and place. Distinct from fantasy, however, science fiction reflects on technology to consider how it might transform the conditions of our existence and change what it means to be human. “Sci Fi” is the genre that considers what strange new beings we might become-what mechanical forms we might invent for our bodies, what networks and systems might nourish or tap our life energies, and what machine shells might contain our souls.” (source: Dr. Beshero-Bondar)
Horror (literary genre): “Horror is a genre of literature, film, and television that is meant to scare, startle, shock, and even repulse audiences. The key focus of a horror novel, horror film, or horror TV show is to elicit a sense of dread in the reader through frightening images, themes, and situations. In the horror genre, story and characters are just as important as mood and atmosphere. A horror story often shocks and provokes with its exploration of the unknown.” (source: Masterclass)
Activity 4: Genre presentations what is LMGO’s genre? (20 minutes)
For this activity, the students will be split into three (or six) groups. Each group will be given a genre and the definition (see above). Each group will have 10 minutes to come up with at least three instances from the text that prove that the novel is part of their literary genre. In the last 10 minutes, the students will present their findings with the group. If you are working with six groups, then they will present their findings in two smaller groups.
Activity 5: Reader response criticism (20 minutes)
Finally, the students will be given a short (and very basic) definition of Reader-response criticism. Namely:
Reader-response (literary criticism): “reader-response criticism considers readers’ reactions to literature as vital to interpreting the meaning of the text. However, reader-response criticism can take a number of different approaches. A critic deploying reader-response theory can use a psychoanalytic lens, a feminist lens, or even a structuralist lens. What these different lenses have in common when using a reader-response approach is they maintain “…that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does” (Tyson 154).” (Source: Purdue Owl)
Reader response criticism is especially important for future educators because it relies heavily on the feelings or emotions that a text elicits in the reader – one of the basic principles of reading’s purpose in education.
The students will then be asked to take five minutes to write down “what they have learned or taken from Never Let Me Go.” They will write a short review and then share them in small groups.
Additional Resources
Important quotes from the novel:
p. 27
‘No, I don’t think she meant that. What she was talking about was, you know, about us. What’s going to happen to us one day. Donations and all that.’
p. 61
We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk.’
p. 63
Then she paused and went quiet. Someone said later she’d gone off into a daydream, but I was pretty sure, as was Ruth, that she was thinking hard about what to say next. Finally she said: ‘You’ve been told about it. You’re students. You’re … special. So keeping yourselves well, keeping yourselves very healthy inside, that’s much more important for each of you than it is for me.’
p. 66
By then, of course, we all knew something I hadn’t known back then, which was that none of us could have babies.
p. 73
‘If no one else will talk to you,’ she continued, ‘then I will. The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. But I’m not. If you’re going to have decent lives, then you’ve got to know and know properly. None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you’re even middle-aged, you’ll start to donate your vital organs. That’s what each of you was created to do. You’re not like the actors you watch on your videos, you’re not even like me. You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided. So you’re not to talk that way any more. You’ll be leaving Hailsham before long, and it’s not so far off, the day you’ll be preparing for your first donations. You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.’
p. 126
‘You remember last week, when Chrissie and Rodney were away? They’d been up to this town called Cromer, up on the north Norfolk coast.’ ‘What were they doing there?’ ‘Oh, I think they’ve got a friend there, someone who used to live here. That’s not the point. The point is, they claim they saw this … person. Working there in this open-plan office. And, well, you know. They reckon this person’s a possible. For me.’ Though most of us had first come across the idea of ‘possibles’ back at Hailsham, we’d sensed we weren’t supposed to discuss it, and so we hadn’t – though for sure, it had both intrigued and disturbed us. And even at the Cottages, it wasn’t a topic you could bring up casually. There was definitely more awkwardness around any talk of possibles than there was around, say, sex. At the same time, you could tell people were fascinated – obsessed, in some cases – and so it kept coming up, usually in solemn arguments, a world away from our ones about, say, James Joyce.
p. 127
The basic idea behind the possibles theory was simple, and didn’t provoke much dispute. It went something like this. Since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there must be, for each of us, somewhere out there, a model getting on with his or her life. This meant, at least in theory, you’d be able to find the person you were modelled from. That’s why, when you were out there yourself – in the towns, shopping centres, transport cafés – you kept an eye out for ‘possibles’ – the people who might have been the models for you and your friends.
p. 127
One big idea behind finding your model was that when you did, you’d glimpse your future. Now I don’t mean anyone really thought that if your model turned out to be, say, a guy working at a railway station, that’s what you’d end up doing too. We all realised it wasn’t that simple. Nevertheless, we all of us, to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, you’d get some insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, you’d see something of what your life held in store.
p. 165
‘But I still don’t really get it, Kath,’ he said eventually. ‘Even if what Ruth says is right, and I don’t think it is, why are you looking through old porn mags for your possibles? Why would your model have to be one of those girls?’
p. 205
Then I heard Tommy say behind me: ‘Maybe this is what Hailsham looks like now. Do you think?’ ‘Why would it look like this?’ Ruth sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘It wouldn’t turn into marshland just because it’s closed.’ ‘I suppose not. Wasn’t thinking. But I always see Hailsham being like this now. No logic to it. In fact, this is pretty close to the picture in my head. Except there’s no boat, of course. It wouldn’t be so bad, if it’s like this now.’
p. 236
when Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things,
p. 237
‘Not just that,’ I said quietly. ‘Why did we do all of that work in the first place? Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we’re just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons? Why all those books and discussions?’
p. 238
We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.’
p. 246
There were times I’d look down at you all from my study window and I’d feel such revulsion …’ She stopped, then something in her eyes flashed again. ‘But I was determined not to let such feelings stop me doing what was right. I fought those feelings and I won. Now, if you’d be so good as to help me out of here, George should be waiting with my crutches.’
p. 248
I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.
p. 249
‘Poor creatures. I wish I could help you. But now you’re by yourselves.’
p. 252
I was thinking,’ I said, ‘about back then, at Hailsham, when you used to go bonkers like that, and we couldn’t understand it. We couldn’t understand how you could ever get like that. And I was just having this idea, just a thought really. I was thinking maybe the reason you used to get like that was because at some level you always knew.’