Belonging in the Hyperreal : A Postmodern Reading of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Sammanfattning:

The focus of this essay is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. My central claim is that a theme of belonging underpins the novel and is recurrent in a number of different ways. In my reading, I utilise Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern critical concepts to produce this interpretation. I argue that the theme of belonging can be interpreted using Baudrillard’s loss of the real and hyperreal concepts. The usefulness of these concepts is primarily based on the element of clones and cloning in the narrative. Baudrillard’s theories deal with signs and images that do not correspond with the realities that they are meant to represent, mirroring the predicament of the Hailsham students in Never Let Me Go. My essay presents three main areas of discussion in relation to the theme of belonging. Firstly, Hailsham and the students are examined using the loss of the real/hyperreal concepts. The second area deals with belongings as a recurrent motif. In my reading, the dual meaning of the word belonging is an important factor in identifying the theme. This particular discussion deals also with ownership. The final area of discussion revolves around the issue of genre, or rather genres. The novel’s mixture of character drama and science-fiction dystopia is discussed in relation to the loss of the real/hyperreal.