Never Let Me Go Section 2: Attitude/Perspective

                The fact that the main characters in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go are very unique is very obvious for a number of reasons. For example, the students have been “modeled” after other human beings and raised in a society all their own which is isolated from the rest of the world for the sole purpose of growing up and ultimately dying to donate their vital organs to others; in other words, they are clones raised to be slaughtered for the benefit of the rest of humanity. Despite the many intriguing aspects of these individuals which arise from their incredibly unique existence, the aspect of their personalities which I find to be the most intriguing is their attitude towards their fate. While Miss Lucy was right in her analysis that the students and Hailsham had been “told and not told” (Ishiguro, 82) of their purpose in life, the students certainly did have a reasonably good understanding of their ultimate destinies: to live brief lives which would ultimately result in their own deaths as well as the deaths of their dearest friends all for the sake of donating vital organs to others. Certainly this treatment must have seemed unjustifiably cruel and inexplicably unjust to them; however, the students at Hailsham never seemed to protest their fates. However, when told by Miss Lucy that they would never be able to follow their whimsical dreams of becoming movie stars or celebrities because of their duty in life, they did not protest or even question her; rather, they simply accepted this unfair reality as truth. Furthermore, if a topic was introduced for discussion that made the students consider their futures, they would often opt to leave the matter alone than express their feelings or curiosities. For example, the students at Hailsham had a mutual understanding that nobody would ever ask the guardians about their inability to have babies, the idea of discovering their “possibles” one day, or why Madame took so much interest into creating a gallery out of their artwork. Rather than gain a better understanding as to why they were so different from the rest of society, the students simply seemed to contentedly accept their uniqueness and ultimate duties in life. Perhaps this acceptance of their lifestyle originated in their ignorance for any other way of life than that which they learned to live at Hailsham; nevertheless, I found the students’ passivity towards their unjust lifestyles to be incredibly shocking. This was particularly surprising to when Kathy noted that, at The Cottages, “Another thing I noticed… was the big hush that would descend around certain veterans when they went off on “courses”—which even we knew had to do with becoming carers. They could be gone for four or five days, but were hardly mentioned in that time; and when they came back, no one really asked them anything” (Ishiguro, 132). Perhaps this general consensus that delicate topics related to their futures were too overwhelming to discuss was a coping mechanism for the young adults. Regardless, I still find the attitudes of these individuals, or clones, to be surprisingly accepting of their cruel existences. As the novel progresses, I believe it will be interesting to see if Kathy, Ruth, or Tommy decide to challenge their fates and attempt to live a more normal lifestyle or fight for the equality of all clones.