In his novel Kazuo Ishiguro has chosen to examine many issues, the most important one being identity. However, throughout Never Let Me Go he also explores the themes of nostalgia and friendship. These three themes are all evident when looking closely at the lives of Kathy H, Ruth and Tommy from the time they are at Hailsham School to the time they become carers and eventually, donors. The three main themes are:
Never Let Me Go is a novel which shows what happens when a society is allowed to use scientific experimentation freely and without considering the moral implications. It’s a novel about friendship and about longing for the past, as well as a novel which allows the reader to question the ethics of human cloning. more...
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Open-Plan Office
The open-plan office appears three times in the novel, and symbolizes the students’ gradually diminishing sense of possibility for the future. Ruth and Kathy first see the office in a magazine, where it inspires what Ruth refers to as her “dream future.” At this point, none of the students have begun donating organs. They are in a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, and still able to hold onto the dream of an alternate future. The open-plan office reappears in Norfolk, where the students search for Ruth’s “possible.” Here, the office signals the closing off of possibility. The woman in the office turns out to not be Ruth’s possible, solidifying the impossibility of Ruth’s dream future. The office itself has floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which emphasize the students’ relation to the “dream future” that it represents: they can observe it from the outside, but cannot actually participating in it. more...
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Copies
The motif of copies and copying begins with the students themselves, who are clones copied from models in the outside world. Kathy later notices that the students at the Cottages copy their gestures and mannerisms from what they watch on television, and sees Ruth copy her idea of a perfect future from a magazine ad. These observations confirm for Kathy that the students are living in imitation of the real world. Copies reappear in Norfolk, where Kathy finds a copy of her lost tape after a disappointing search for Ruth’s “possible.” Yet although the students are copies, the novel ultimately speaks to their originality and individuality. For instance, Tommy’s imaginary animals are a counterpoint to the gestures of copying that Kathy observes at the Cottages. His drawings are intricate and surprising creations, difficult to interpret and highly compelling. In this way, Tommy’s drawings parallel the novel itself: Kathy’s more...