Individual Identity

The quest to find one’s identity and have a sense of individuality is rampant in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The humanistic urge to have purpose is embodied in the characters of Kathy, Tommy and Ruth very differently. They each know that their life’s purpose is to donate until “completion,” yet on the way there they explore themselves and find out there is more to each of them than their vital organs, even if that is how society has labeled them.

The three main characters, clones who are lepers of Ishiguro’s dystopian society, attempt to find purpose in their existence beyond containers of vital organs. The clones’ background at Hailsham gave them insight into culture, art, and the world for everyone else but there identity was always predetermined as was their fate. They may have experienced sensations of existentialism through art and life experiences but they were destined to donate and that was all. Their true identities lived and died with the people they connected with, both at Hailsham and in those they met on their paths to completion.

“My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years old, and I've been a carer now for over eleven years” (1). Kathy’s whole existence is summed up in these opening nineteen words. No family. No desire. Simply Kathy H. the thirty-one year old carer for the past eleven years. This is the first line in the entire novel and it sets the tone very quickly as to the status of the clones. They are made from “trash” to provide organs. The final line of the novel is as follows. “I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be” (288). Her entire existence in the novel is bookended by two quotes that articulate her insignificance. In between the p...

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...d surround ourselves with. It is not what we have done that is important but the people we choose to do it with that defines each and every one of us. The clones each search for their own identities as they go through their lives but are not able to find an answer until they realize it was the people that they were with that made the difference.

Kathy may only describe herself as a thirty one year old carer but her relationship with Tommy served as the true substance of her life. Hailsham gave her and the other clones that were lucky enough to go there a taste of life as a regular human. Her life experiences were tied up in the people she held dear. Once Tommy had completed Kathy simply went back to being lost in the world. She became, once again, defined by a few simple words.

Works Cited

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.