Self-Awareness In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

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Essay #1

Never Let Me Go

“If you’re to live decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, everyone of you.” ( Ishiguro 81) The three main characters in the novel “ Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro have varying levels of self-awareness. Throughout the novel, Tommy, Kathy, and Ruth, search to find who they really are while figuring out how they would manage their inevitable fate. By the end of the novel they all are more self aware and accepting of their true selves.

Ruth had very little self awareness at the beginning of the novel. She did not know who she really was and constantly lied to her friends in attempt to try and create an image of someone she was not. For example,Ruth tells Kathy that

But in the end, we can’t stay together forever.” He was looking forward to spending more time with Kathy before giving his next donation, but he was then faced with the painful reality he has been dealing with his entire life. During his tantrum, when Kathy runs to calm him down, she says “He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. (Ishiguro 94-95) The fight going out of him represented his acceptance of his fate and the situation. There was nothing he could possibly do about it, so he just gave up. Tommy gave his next donation and

Her friends and the veterans were all having sex, so eventually she started to have sex too. They did not talk about sex much at Hailsham so she was curious as to why she was having these feelings. She even asked Ruth if she ever had feelings similar to hers. Then, while searching for Ruth's possible, she comes up with the idea that her possible might be in the porn industry because she was having these feelings. She looks through porn magazines to try and find someone who looks like her. Tommy witnesses Kathy obsessing about her possible and says "Our models, what they were like, that's nothing to do with us, Kath. It's just not worth getting upset about." (Ishiguro 168) Tommy was telling Kathy that they may look the same as their models but they are their own person. Later when Kathy sees that the woman Chrissie and Rodney thought was Ruth's possible was actually nothing like her, she gives up on looking through magazines to find her possible. This event gave Kathy a better understanding of herself because she discovered that she is her own person and that her possible really has nothing to do with her.

In conclusion, all of the main characters in “Never Let Me Go” developed a better understanding of themselves by the end of the novel. In my opinion, Tommy has done the least developing because I believe he was already very self-aware in the beginning of the novel. Ruth has done the most devleoping because