2024-03-29T10:58:45Z
https://teapot.lib.ocha.ac.jp/oai
oai:teapot.lib.ocha.ac.jp:02000539
2022-12-12T06:14:28Z
347:349:1658456554203
Contrastive Views of Life and Death in Never Let Me Go
小林, 葵
KOBAYASHI, Aoi
Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go
disability studies
views of life and death
memory
Kazuo Ishiguro’s sixth novel, Never Let Me Go (2005), depicts a world where non-clone humans exploit
clone humans for health and longevity. As Ishiguro states, clone humans symbolize human beings in the actual
world today. However, non-clone humans also represent ourselves who benefit from life-extending medical
care. In this paper, I will focus on views of life and death for both clone and non-clone humans. First, I consider
how non-clone humans cling to their life by analyzing how their bodies are conditioned. Referring to
arguments in disability studies and thanatology, I will show the materialism of their existence which owes to
advanced medical science. The second section examines clone humans’ lives which are doomed to premature
deaths, focusing on the process in which their human relationships as well as their bodies become severed.
However, Kathy’s narrative shows that clone humans’ memories help them to resist material loss in their lives
and take on their life and death. Never Let Me Go confronts us with the difficulty to face our life and death in
the age of advanced medical science. At the same time, it also indicates how our memories can resist material
views of human life and death, and give irreplaceable meanings to our lives.
departmental bulletin paper
お茶の水女子大学英文学会
2022
application/pdf
お茶の水女子大学英文学会 研究報告
11
5
17
Journal of the Ochanomizu University English Society
https://teapot.lib.ocha.ac.jp/record/2000539/files/eibun_11_03_kobayashi.pdf
eng
open access