Introspecting social alienation in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Abstract

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. His nine works of fiction acclaimed various honours around the world specifically Booker prize and Nobel Prize in Literature. His works has been translated into over fifty languages. The publication of award-winning novel, “The Remains of the Day” made him the most famous European novelist at the age of thirty-five. His sixth novel, “Never Let Me Go” deals with three individuals who were brought up as clones in an elite place called Hailsham.

This current paper will reflect on how each characters perceive the world and how isolated they feel amidst countless people around the world. Ishiguro’s novels are filled with memories, their potential to forget, to silent, to digress and distort and above all to haunt. “Never Let Me Go” is a novel written through the vision of Kathy who is now thirty-one years old and has been a carer for more than eleven years. She reminisces about her relationship with Tommy and Ruth. Tommy is continuously bullied by fellow students for his lack of creativity and is prone to uncontrollable rage but otherwise he is kind and sweet. On the other hand, Ruth is controlling and always pretend to be a special person than she was.