Never Let Me Go By Kazuo Ishiguro

One common theme between good and bad priests is that the vocation they were called to never seems to completely leave them. This is a common theme in Silence, by Shusaku Endo. In the beginning of the novel, the reader discovers that Ferreiera apostatized, giving up not only his roles as a priest but his faith in God as well. Although Ferreira abandoned the priesthood and gave up shepherding the few Catholics of Japan, he still continues “to be useful to others, [which] was the one wish and the only dream of one who had dedicated himself to the priesthood” . However, once he is reunited with Sebastian, “there flashed into his eyes a servile smile and momentary shame”. Here Ferreiera feels as though he has failed Sebastian because if he had not apostatized, Sebastian, acting as a good priest, would never have gone to Japan to save him.

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

The book Last Man Out by Mike Lupica the boy in the book (Tommy) has many memory moments/flashbacks about his dad, the memory shows us about the conflict he has with his father and having to deal with him being gone.

'Keeper N Me ' by Richard Wagamese, is a novel based on the necessary balance between life and the culture in which one belongs to. This is a necessary aspect in order to maintain a steady relationship with one 's self. In this novel passing on traditions or a certain way of life from generation to generation is one of the most important aspects of guiding someone of the Ojibway culture, as the Ojibway people have very strong beliefs and take their culture very seriously. The people of the Ojibway culture believe that through storytelling and dreams one can realize the importance of tradition and its influence on their identity. Wagamese throughout his novel tries to teach the readers the power of one 's community and traditions as he

Instead, Ishiguro introduced the readers to the creation’s point of view. The novel portrayed them as beings with complex humanness rather than mindless monsters, preventing them from being reduced to simple antagonist. The trio - Kathy, Ruth and Tommy - are students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school for cloned children whom were born and raised solely for the purpose of organ donations. Never Let Me Go whisks the reader into an alternative world of 1990’s England and into the lives of these children, a world filled with much light yet as much darkness. What hides behind this boarding school was deceit and manipulation. While there was art and literature classes, all education was geared towards conditioning the students to fulfill their predetermined responsibility - the sole task of organ donation. The children have no concrete knowledge outside the walls of Hailsham as they were sheltered from the brutal reality of their fate. However at the same time, sheltered from the alienation and fear of their existence. To the outside world, they were nothing more than a disposable vessel carrying replacement organs. Thus, frightening to those who didn’t hold the same fate. But, also not “human enough” to deserve human rights. This results to the perplexity of the trio as they are torn between the identity they established themselves and the identity the world defines them as. Yet no one attempted to question or escape this parasitism relationship. Or is it simply because one acclimates to their environment? But perhaps no amount of pondering or pursuit of another dream could ever change the inevitable outcome. After all, it is society that ultimately decides their fate: creation of life and loss of life. Even the children maintain this

Jamie Fader’s book Falling Back which was published in 2013, is based on ethnographic research over three years, from 2004 to 2007, of black and latino males on the edge of adulthood and that were incarcerated at the Mountain Ridge Academy reform school located in a rural area: “within a dense forest in western Pennsylvania, is Mountian Ridge Academy … ninety-acre campus contains eight dormitories, each of which houses thirty-two young men between ages 14 to 18” (p.1). The criminal thinking approach was intended to help young people identify the patterns that had led them to delinquency and replace it with corrective and prosocial thoughts. These young boys had been involved in drug offenses and violence within their suburban communities and were now in the process of behavioral change in order to help them reflect and be able to make better decisions which would lead them to a better life.

Michael Gow's play, "Away" expresses the idea of going through changes and receiving help from people around you. The key characters of the play experiences change and renewal as a result of their relationships with others ad the summer vacation. Coral and Gwen is two characters that undergo the most changes throughout the trip. Coral manage to moved on from her's son death while Gwen changed from a snobby person to a person who is more understandable. Tom is one of the critical character that help Coral and Gwen realised their issues and surpasses it. The play showed lives of people and their own struggle during the 60s and how they overcome it.

In "Never Let Me Go", The novel begins by capturing the life of Hailsham, a mysterious boarding school designed to raise "special" students by dooming them to a determined fate of relinquishing their internal organs. As they grow older, the students are sent to complete their given tasks which are aided by specific "training" and eventually relocation to different hospitals in order to becoming a donor or "carer" for the donor before becoming one himself. Ishiguro focuses more on the emotional side of his characters by developing very sensitive relationships between the "clones", as they reflect upon their childhoods and set out to find answers to many secrets about the isolated gates of Hailsham. As a result, numerous themes are used freedom and free will, language and commumication, fate, power, class distinction. Also various techniques are used as narration style, symbolism,settings and the importance of the title.

The novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro highlights the confinement of the clones from the outside world, which restricts them from greater knowledge about the world past Hailsham. Ishiguro focuses on the theme freedom, confinement, and fate several times in his novel. For the duration of the novel, the clones of Hailsham make no effort to escape as they have learned to accept their fate. They are restricted from this thought because they have subjected to fulfill their purpose, their lack of knowledge about the society past Hailsham world and they are overwhelmed by the idea of the outside world.

Let the Water Hold Me Down by Michel Spurgeon is written in a very unique and skillful way of the realities of being of human, and dealing with loss and grief, guilt and longing, loyalty and love. These psychopathologies affect the readers and present a different way of seeing the text. By applying critical theory to this novel, not only the reader but the main character, Hank Singer, gets a different perspective, a new lens after making several changes in his life. Critical theory helps individuals observe from an unusual angle and learn things in new ways, different from his or her typical way of viewing things. It opens up new lenses, and through this new lens, it can lead to new understanding or unfortunately, make things harder to understand. "Knowledge is what constitutes our relationship to our world, for it is the lens through which we view our world"Tyson states if the lens is changed, the view and the viewer may be changed as well.

Holding Onto the Air an autobiography by Suzanne Farrell takes the reader backstage in the dramatic life of the world-renowned Balanchine ballerina. From her childhood in Cincinnati to her retirement from ballet in 1989, Farrell's story is truly a remarkable one. The book describes at length her time with the New York City Ballet as well as her complex relationship with the legendary Balanchine. Although Mrs. Farrell goes a bit too far into the ballet descriptions, her beautiful imagery allows reader to experience the joy of performing on stage.

The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.

Literature has a crucial role in configuring the nature and limits of the human (Bennett and Royle. 2009 p. 252) and what it means to be human. Both texts, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, challenge the traditional definition of the human. According to Oxford Dictionaries Online (p. 1), ‘Human’ relates to or characteristics of human kind for example, the human body and the complex nature of the human mind. It also states being susceptible to weakness. The characters, Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein and the students in Never Let Me Go, both texts fit into some categories of the human however differ slightly from the actual human by challenging the traditional definition.

Ishiguro’s critique of empathetic engagement in relation to a humanising education modulates into questioning the concept of empathy itself. In Never Let Me Go, the aporia presented in the clones’ understanding of their role in the world in comparison to the authorities ultimately frustrates opportunities for empathy. Madame’s witnessing of the young Kathy dancing with a pillow to the Judy Bridgewater song, Never Let Me Go, has been interpreted by Marvin Mirsky as providing a ‘replica’ of a baby, which is both a compensation for her own motherless state and her future infertility (2006, pp. 628-30). Madame’s empathy for Kathy is seen in Kathy’s realisation that Madame is watching the scene “...and the odd thing was she was crying. It might have even been one of her sobs that had come through the

Teju Cole’s phenomenally written original novel majorly takes place in New York City. Cole character was easy to relate to because of his Nigerian American decent being that I am a Ghanaian American. Cole is a Nigerian American. He was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria and came to the United States in 1992 at the age of seventeen. Cole is also well educated and is a graduate student at Columbia University. I found it insightful how in the novel Cole met several various types of people, including other immigrants. He met and shared stories with a Haitian shoe shiner, at work in Penn Station; a Liberian, imprisoned for over two years in a dentition center in Queens; and a Moroccan student working at an Internet café. I enjoyed the fact that the narrator was well stocked minded. He touched on the topics of art, music, and interesting books. He had a very eclectic set of interest.