Kazuo Ishiguro’s, Never Let Me Go and Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” are drastically different works of literature, which revolve around diverse worlds. However, the characters, Kathy H. and Gan are similar in regards to their struggles in a society dependent upon them, forced to give their bodies to others. One of the large forces on Kathy H. and Gan is society’s dependence on them, for the health of the human population and the posterity of Tlic’s. In the novel, Never Let Me Go, Kathy is a clone, created to donate her vital organs for human health. However, the school Hailsham was created to collect student’s artwork to show clone’s humanity, to convince others that clones should not have predetermined deaths. Despite Hailsham’s efforts, …show more content…
How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days?” No matter their artwork, souls, compassion, or love, clones will always be subjected to untimely deaths. This is the unchangeable truth. Because of society’s dependence on clone’s donations, they will never be free, forced to donate organs for humanities wellbeing rather than their own. Similarly, Gan has little choice or influence because of society’s dependence on him to repopulate the Tlic population. Tlics, an alien population is eager to impregnate humans to ensure the continuation of their race. At the beginning of the short story, Gan tells the reader the severe dependence and need for humans, also known as Terrans, he states, “T’Gatoi was hounded on the outside. Her people wanted more of us made available. Only she and her political faction stood between us and the hordes who did not understand why there was a preserve- why any Terran could not be courted, paid, drafted in some way and made available to them.” Terrans
Science fiction captures the imaginations of its readers allowing their minds to run rampant as they immerse themselves into a world beyond reality. Science fiction also allows its audience to consider the possibilities of things beyond their normal life and draw parallels to the world around them. Octavia Butler’s short story, “Bloodchild” is a prime example of a well written scientific fiction containing elements of wonder, thrill, and adventure. “Bloodchild” is about humans who take refuge on an alien planet and must and must coexist with with the native species called Tlic. To maintain peace, the humans are granted space to live in exchange for host bodies used as vessels to birth the Tlic’s offspring. The protagonist, Gan, is a male chosen
The use of Henrietta Lacks cells has led to many scientific breakthroughs, e.g., the cure to polio, cloning, and the human genome project. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. These cells underwent a mutation that caused them to become immortal, meaning that they continue to divide since her death in 1951 to this very day. However, her cells raise an ethical question, because before she died she did not give consent for scientists to use her cells and after she died they did not tell her family that they were using them. This has been an ongoing controversy because the cells have been so beneficial for society, but they are derived from shady procedures. The reason way Henrietta’s cells, HeLa cells, didn’t undergo apoptosis was that they were cancerous cells that replicated indefinitely and these cells were modified to be even more resistant due to other diseases Ms. Lacks had.
Olivia Butler writes in the afterword of “Bloodchild” that it’s not a story of slavery, and evidence from close reading can be used to support this statement. Butler uses the human form as a vehicle for defamiliarization to show the mechanical functions readers serve themselves and others. Furthermore, this process is able to reveal their passive nature and ultimately highlight the human allowance for manipulation. She brings light to these behaviors by showing a lack of respect for human life, an unbalanced power relationship between the Tlic and the humans, and Gan’s stripped cognitive process.
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.
Not far off from the introduction which gives insight on what Lia’s birth would’ve been like had she had been born in their native country rather than in Merced, California, the author goes into the description of various medical systems pertaining specifically to women prior to pregnancy, during and after as well as the importance that the placement of the placenta plays not only for the human as a newborn but also for the death and the afterlife
The ethical issues behind the method in which stem cells are obtained out weigh the benefits of stem cell therapy. We should not try to play God, in the aspect of creation of living beings just to be sacrificed for the “betterment of mankind”. Many egregious acts have been committed under the guise of “the greater good”. This is one instance in which the ends do not justify the means.
Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who died from cervical cancer in the 1950s. She sought treatment at Johns Hopkins hospital, where she visited many times and eventually passed away. During visits, her cells were taken without her consent, and given to scientist George Gey. Gey quickly realized that Henrietta’s cells were not like other cells that he had grown in his laboratory; they had the ability to grow exponentially in a cell culture, known as HeLa, and soon became seen as immortal cells. Not only that, the cells soon became one of the most prolific resources in medical research, having a major impact in the development of polio vaccines, cloning, gene mapping, and much more. HeLa became a medical controversy, not only because it helped the science world achieve so much, but also because of the ethical quandaries that it developed.
... then they’ll complete” (282). Kathy finally tries to validate her being a carer by saying, “Of course it’s important. A good carer makes a big difference to what donor’s life’s actually like” (282). In saying this, Kathy believes that she is needed for another reason other than donating her organs. Kathy is challenging her fate as a clone by staying alive under the pretense that she is needed as a carer.
Often in the darkest time it is good to seek relief in the good of every situation. With the death of a Mother, Daughter, and contributing member in society, it may be hard to try and find any positivity to draw from. With the unfortunate and untimely death of Henrietta, came the opportunity of life to millions of others in society then, now, and for many years to come. The goal of medical research is to put society as a whole in a better place than it was at the day before. The use of HeLa cells in every developed country on the globe has made this objective much more achievable. The Lacks family led the way for the consent form being required for patients undergoing a medical procedure Although, there was no direct benefit to the family, raising many ethical considerations that must be
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.
In most cultures, motherhood intensifies social pressure to conform to what the culture says or what the tradition orders, this seems to be driven by levels of modernity or urbanization than by the status accorded to norms of society and community. Through the concept of “One Life,” it motivates Meridian in her quest toward physical and spiritual health, the societal evils which lower one class to another, one race to another, one sex to another, and eventually terrorize life. Meridian is built on the tension between ones’ beliefs against the societal forces that inhibit the growth of living toward their natural state of freedom.
In Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, people are cloned and the clones are sent to live at Hailsham, a boarding school for clones. When the clones reach the age of about twenty-five, they are taken to donate their organs. When all of their organs have been removed or they die, they have completed. Two of the children at Hailsham - Tommy and Katie - fall in love; they finally realize that they are meant to be when Tommy is almost completed.
The book talks about how upcoming trends in gene and cell therapy is meant for those who look for the valuable thread that runs through the arena of gene therapy, cell therapy, and tissue engineering, yet found other sources too specialized to undertake it. This book focuses on arming basic clinicians and scientists with this valuable thread so that they are better situated to tackle the weakening diseases currently plaguing mankind. The authors argue that gene and cell therapies are promising policies for managing acquired and genetic illnesses. Currently, various ethical issues and biological barriers have restricted their clinical interpretation.
In “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro we see cloned human beings that are raised in a boarding school so that they can grow up and become organ donors. The main purpose of these kids was growing up and donating their organs one by one till they finally die at an early age. These kids were not treated as human beings. They were created in a test tube just to be a donor. The main character who was also a donor is the narrator of this story. Life should be controlled by the person that owns it and that person should make decisions how to live and where to live, clones are still human beings with soul and flesh there for they deserve human right. If they cannot get the right they deserve then cloning should be illegal unless there is understandable reason. These kids are raised in a place called hailsham, where they are taken care of so that they can stay healthy but they were not allowed to leave the school and socialize with the world till they turn eighteen and graduate.
Butler, Octavia ." Bloodchild." The Prentice Hall Anthology Sscience Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Garyn Roberts. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 1035-1048.