SPECULATIVE FICTION, MEMORY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S “NEVER LET ME GO”

Tia Byer

Abstract


This article analyses the narrative structure of Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian novel Never Let Me Go. In investigating the use and narrative depiction of memory, this article demonstrates how Kathy's lapse in memory and unreliability communicates the denied humanity and sense of agency that she and her fellow “carers” experience within the biopolitical regime in which they are subject to. As clones raised to harvest vital organs, Ishiguro’s characters are involved in a complex mediation and reflection upon the limits of genetic engineering. I argue that Ishiguro’s narrative configuration embodies and critiques the ethics of the genetic modifications his characters undergo by revealing and questioning their humanity in a world that deprives them of free-will.  

 

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memory, speculative fiction, narrative structure, uncanny

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References


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