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Essay / The Theme of Despair in Never Let Me Go
In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Kathy's discovery of her world occurs simultaneously with that of the readers. Except for the beginning, readers go through the same journey of discovery, excitement, and then steady erosion of hope as the Hailsham students learn their fate. Interestingly, their journey involves questions about the future, just as readers learn about a potential future they might encounter. Thus, Ishiguro pushes readers to sympathize, and not just sympathize, with the characters presented in the novel in the hope of a normal life, love, and freedom. In this way, he challenges not only the use of clones as organ donors, but also the conflicting role of hope. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayOne of the elements of the science fiction nature of the novel that gives the reader hope is the accessibility of the world. The story begins with a date, "late 1990s", while the book itself was published in 2005. Thus, it presents a world that readers are familiar with, but then adds organ donors for the future. Additionally, early in the novel, readers are unaware that the characters are clones, and Hailsham is depicted as a nice place just as it was for Kathy and Tommy. Thus, Ishiguro isolated a potential problem from future scientific innovation and forced readers to experience the potential consequences for themselves. Perhaps a larger problem that Ishiguro confronts readers and characters with is how to respond and face the unknowns with a focus on hope. In primary school, the children of today's society and of Hailsham are blissfully ignorant of adulthood. Many of them dream of becoming an NBA star, an actress or an astronaut. However, unlike the Hailsham children, the children of the readers' society are unlikely to die at an early age with no chance of doing anything other than becoming organ donors. Therefore, Ishiguro presents contrasting views on how to deal with the clones, one of them being the protected environment of Hailsham. Miss Lucy, however, is of a different opinion and reacts after hearing some of the children talk about their dreams: "None of you will go to America, none of you will be a movie star. And none of you will be 'of you won't work in supermarkets like I heard some of you are planning the other day Your life is all mapped out for you' (81). Kathy felt relieved and believed that her classmates felt the same way. For the readers, this is the first time they explicitly learn of the fate of the Hailsham children, and perhaps it was too. from the other children in the novel. As the Hailsham children grow into adulthood, they react differently to their impending fate. At the beginning of the period at the cottage, Kathy describes living in a "comfortable state of suspension in which we could think. to our lives without the usual limits” while some people like Ruth spoke of their “dream future” (142). So they were able to find comfort in the hopes and dreams of a future that was still relatively far away from them. Similarly, Kathy and Ruth enjoyed searching for a “possible” or real person from whom they had been cloned. However, when Ruth's hope becomes too great, she examines her "possible" further to discover if her dream is a reality. This is a painful moment for both Ruth and the readers, because her little.