I read the book Never Let Me Go which was first published in 2005. It was written by Kazuo Ishiguro who is a Japanese-born British author. The story describes a dystopian world where clones have been created to cure before incurable diseases.
The story building is in three acts. The first one tells us about the childhood of our characters(Hailsham), the second one about their teens and early adulthood(cottages) and the last one about their donations. The clones were made from normal people, but they grew up in institutions with other clones and when they reached adulthood they start to donate their vital organs. After Wolrd War II people started experimenting with clones and in few years’ time, medical science took a major leap and the clones weren't an idea but reality. The setting of this story is when the clones had existed for some time or in the 80's. The Narrator, who also happens to be the protagonist, is reviewing her life and undergoing memories of her lost friends. She tells us about her life, what it was like being a student at Hailsham. The little incidents, her relationships, what it was like leaving Hailsham, about the cottages, what it was like being a carer and basically everything until she becomes a donor herself. The time frame there for is technically just one day or so, but it spans her whole life until now. The story that the protagonist tells us takes place in Hailsham, the “school“ or the institution they grow up in. The cottages and the countryside of England. The most disturbing thing about this story is how the society is just fine with this. People think it is all right that clones die so they can use their organs when their own start to malfunction. And when they are reminded that the clones ar...
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...ry depressing and sad, but in between there is some sort of comic relief but then it gets sad again.
I thought this novel was brilliantly written. All the relationships are so real and you can identify with almost every single character. I liked the way the story was told. It was like listening to someone tell a story and you knew all along how it would end, so it was no reason to stress. It made me laugh but it also made me really angry. I was so mad at Ruth and at Hailsham and society in whole for doing this to the clones. The clones aren’t just clones, they are people with feelings and soles, and the society should have stop breeding them as soon as they found out. I almost lost all believe in human kind, and if that was the authors intention he nailed it. But what I really think is that he was trying to make us notice how selfish we really are and ungrateful.
Once I get past all of the rambling I did in the past paragraphs, I honestly really enjoyed the book. Though it wasn't like most of the other books I’ve read (meaning I didn't cry during the process of reading it), the characters were just as provokingly interesting as the characters in other stories, it was a little edgy and made me want to yell at it, shouting at Sam when she wouldn’t let Tyler play video games with Danny, or Danny when he called to have Sam and Tyler taken to a separate facility. Overall, this book opened me up to something that just isn't a romance novel. This story really shows that there are people with a lot of difficulties in their lives, and that’s what I liked the most about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and believe it to be one of the best books I have ever read. It was extremely well written and challenging for me to understand at times. It conveys that dark side of human ambition very well, and it has given me much to think about.
The plot was immense, organized in a logical way, and kept you guessing. It was easy to understand what was going on since the events that occurred were so relatable. Crossan’s love for poetry was evident throughout the story. Every few chapters included a poem and I thought that this was a nice addition. There were a lot of depressing moments but overall the book was very well written, in my opinion. The characters were unique, although a few were stereotypical, such as Apple’s English teacher Mr.
Ren’s story begins in St. Anthony’s Orphanage where he has no biological family. Ren is surrounded with the other young boys where he views Brom and Itchy as “his only friends” (Tinti 8). Ren’s one dream living at the orphanage is to one day be adopted and have a family. He knows that his chances are limited because of his lack of an arm. Once Benjamin comes into the orphanage and chooses Ren, he is surprised that he will finally have the family he’s been dreaming about. As Ren and Benjamin travel to a destination unknown by Ren, Benjamin paints a picture of Ren’s past. He tells him about their mother and father and how “they were murdered” (48). Ren believes that Benjamin is his brother and because his dream has come true it makes him vulnerable and willing to do whatever Benjamin wants him to do. Ren ends up helping Tom and Benjamin take dead, “fresh”, bodies from a cemetery to Doctor Milton “at night, to the door that leads to the basement” in exchange for money (134). After this scene, Ren’s morals begin to vary significantly from where he began. Tom, Benjamin, and other people he comes in contact with affect the way he views life and how he judges others. Ren becomes a different person because of his environment and his expectations in life change, making him an unhappy boy in the end. Hannah Tinti gives an analogy at the end of the novel comparing Ren’s search for a family to a game
I think my favorite thing about this novel was the realistic ending. Some books try to just give you a fairy tale but this book had an ending that mad you think in the end if I was in the same position would I do the same thing. I didn’t like the fact that the novel portrayed mental illness in a way to say that it needed to be hidden and protected. I thought this novel was very believable for the time period that it was set in. I think the ending to this novel was perfect it was an accurate ending to this
Children grow up watching movies such as Star Wars as well as Gattaca that contain the idea of cloning which usually depicts that society is on the brink of war or something awful is in the midsts but, with todays technology the sci-fi nature of cloning is actually possible. The science of cloning obligates the scientific community to boil the subject down into the basic category of morality pertaining towards cloning both humans as well as animals. While therapeutic cloning does have its moral disagreements towards the use of using the stem cells of humans to medically benefit those with “incomplete” sets of DNA, the benefits of therapeutic cloning outweigh the disagreements indubitably due to the fact that it extends the quality of life for humans.
An author’s way of writing and portraying a character are one of the important things to note when reading a novel. Whether they use third or first person as their view point, have their main character have an underlying dark secret that is not revealed until the end of the novel. However an author wishes to write their novel, there is always a drawback to it. Kazuo Ishiguro’s way of writing his novel Never Let Me Go is in a first person perspective where the narrator, Kathy H., reassess her life of being a clone but the way Kathy remembers and discusses her memories of living in Hailsham is hindered by the fact she inputs her own feelings and thoughts into what happened in the past.
What if there was a world with clones? There would be a way to live for up to 100 years effortlessly, have easy transplants, and maintain a precise memory. But, the recipient would be taking organs from someone else. "So what", he or she may justify, "they're clones, they are inferior. They don't matter because they are stupid." But what if someone had the power to allow them to be of normal intelligence? He or she might think that he or she is doing the clone a favor, but when the clone is killed for spare parts it's an even worse situation than with a retarded clone. Not for this "bandido" (Farmer 37). El Patron is a cruel, selfish, heartless man who clawed his way to power in his youth and rules people with fear, though he is powerful, he is always nagged by the fact that he may lose everything. There is no way on earth he would let that happen.
I found the book to be easy, exciting reading because the story line was very realistic and easily relatable. This book flowed for me to a point when, at times, it was difficult to put down. Several scenes pleasantly caught me off guard and some were extremely hilarious, namely, the visit to Martha Oldcrow. I found myself really fond of the char...
Mitchell, Dr. Elizabeth. "Human Clones: Created To Die." - Answers in Genesis. N.p., 30 May
Cloning humans has recently become a possibility. It is achieved by the production of a group of identical cells or organisms that all derive from a single individual (Grolier 220). It is not known when cloning humans really became a possibility, but it is known that there are two possible ways that we can clone humans. The first way involves splitting an embryo into several halves and creating many new individuals from that embryo. The second method of cloning a human involves taking cells from an already existing human being and cloning them, in turn creating other individuals that are identical to that particular person. With these two methods almost at our fingertips, we must ask ourselves two very important questions: Can we do this, and should we? There is no doubt that many problems involving the technological and ethical sides of this issue will arise and will be virtually impossible to avoid, but the overall idea of cloning humans is one that we should accept as a possible reality for the future. Cloning humans is an idea that has always been thought of as something that could be found in science fiction novels, but never as a concept that society could actually experience. "It is much in the news. The public has been bombarded with newspaper articles, magazine stories, books, television shows, and movies as well as cartoons¡¨, writes Robert McKinnell, the author of Cloning: A Biologist Reports (24). Much of this information in these sources leads the public in the wrong direction and makes them wonder how easy it would be for everyone around them to be cloned. Bizarre ideas about cloning lie in many science fiction books and scare the public with their unbelievable possibilities. David Rorvik wrote a highly controversial book entitled In His Image. In it he describes the story of a wealthy man who decides to clone himself. He is successful in doing this and causes quite an uprise in his community. This book was written in the late seventies and even then, societies reaction to the issues of human cloning was generally a negative one. We face a problem today even greater than the one in this book and it involves the duplication of human beings in a society that has always been known for its diversity. The main issue as to whether or not human cloning is possible through the splitting of embryos began in 1993 when experimentation was done at George W...
Living in a world where they have successfully created human clones for organ donations, is not a great achievement to mankind in any way, shape, or form. It makes you wonder, where exactly do you draw the line between the advancement of technology and the dehumanization that occurs because of it?" Never Let Me Go is a Novel based in the main character Kathy’s memories of her experience in Hailsham and after she left. Hailsham is a boarding school for children who have been cloned from people considered as low life’s or unsuccessful, the only purpose given too these children are for them to develop into adults and donate as many of their mature organs as they can till they die, or as the students and guardians refer to it “complete”. The author focuses on the sick ways of our current society and warns us about the possible future that may be introduced and excepted, Kazuo Ishiguro writes with the intent of teaching and affecting the reader on an emotional level at the same time.
It is set in alternate “England, late 1990’s where human beings are cloned and bred for the purposes of harvesting their organs once they reach adulthood. These "clones" are reared in boarding school-type institutions” (Cusk. 2011). The reader follows retrospective and episodic accounts of these experiences through a series of flashbacks from the main protagonist and point of view of ‘Kathy H’ introduced in the beginning of the novel as a “thirty-one year old carer” the only option available to the clones in which they can experience any sense of normal societal life i.e. employment, their own transport and accommodation (Ishiguro. 2005: 3).
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.
Throughout Kazu Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, he choices to depict children as outsiders to the world which can be furthered by the setting in Britain’s countryside because it helps give a sense distance from true reality. In the framework throughout his novel Ishiguro focuses on three main characters Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. These three students are seen by others to have an advantage because they were lucky enough to be raised at Hailsham by the guardians. Over the watchful eye of the Guardians the children were able to grow accustom to being different than others. This can be seen when the characters all mature and grow after they leave Hailsham and become accustomed to life at the cottages. There newly found freedoms at the cottages lead them to question many of their previous schooling standards and beliefs. These freedoms can be seen by every student trying to hold on to their sense of individuality through small and random collections. This suggests that humans attempt to create an appearance through their own belongings and incorporate into their own lives. The students at Hailsham are encouraged to seek creativity and individuality in the things they create which could include sculptures, paintings or poems. These many collections that each student holds close to themselves offers them a small chance for control in their life because they can pick and choose the pieces they would like to incorporate into their individual collections.