Never Let Me Go's Portrayal of Childhood
We humans have the longest childhood
experience in years compared to any of our animal relations. Our years of growth and development outlast
all other species. Ishiguro, in Never Let Me Go, portrays childhood
well, according to most readers. The
ways he can access the mind of a young person without making them sound less
intellectual as an adult but as immature as they ought to be, shows his deep
understanding of childhood and word-smithing.
Also this shows his deep, premeditated characters that he knows well
enough to be able to convey himself as through their younger minds.
When first introduced to Kathy, she
seems unable to properly get herself through to readers because her mind is so
active. She scrambles through thoughts
as though her fingers can barely keep up with her. However, this leads to a little inconsistency
and getting very off topic. Even she
notices it sometimes. Readers seem to
connect this style with Ishiguro’s method of portraying a younger person and by
having them narrate, he makes them more believable as being an adolescent
rather than a miniature adult.
Ishiguro’s overall portrayal of
adolescence is extremely actuate because he reacts just as any other adolescent
would in the situations he puts Kathy through at Hailsham. In one instance where the girls are talking
about sex, Kathy portrays it as any other girl would: curious, a hint of
dangerous excitement, and wonder. But,
in the end, she really does wonder “where we had all this sex” (97) which shows
the mind of an adolescent in its simplest form, always questioning what others
say and deem as the ‘norm’ or ‘cool’. Also
how she believes that sometimes “there was no way people would understand my
reasons for doing such a thing” (134) as we all feel sometimes at an age, connects
to how our prefrontal cortexes are not properly developed yet, therefore making
us self conscious and unpredictable.
What is most realistic about his portrayal
of the children is in the passage of time where they begin to be told more, as
the readers are as well. Ishiguro
bridges the gap between the innocence of the children and the innocence of the
reader. To the children, their eyes are
slowly opened to the world around them and for the readers; our eyes are opened
to the plot of the novel. The minor plot
points of Never Let Me Go relate to
the character development and serve as a test for the readers. Then as more is revealed and about how Kathy
is really a clone in some sickened world, the readers can relate to what it
feels like to be a child once again, when the world hits you in bits and
pieces, most of them not making sense until a bigger piece is added.
This technique of adding a little
breadcrumb of plot as the novel continues is parallel to what the true meaning
of growing out of adolescence is and with the talks of sex and seeing Kathy’s
“possible”, it only shows the stronger connection. These child clones offer up their organs and
body parts to humanity or their ‘original’ as children in our reality would
offer up pieces of their innocence to a darker yet more ‘real’ world. Perhaps this is Ishiguro’s true intension but
even incorrectly, this metaphor still might serves as evidence to bridge our
adolescent reality with the portrayal of adolescence in Ishiguro’s mind.
The portrayal of children and the
mind of a child in Never Let Me Go
flaunts it accuracy in the ways Ishiguro places Kathy in more mature situations
and plays off of how her mind does not see the way an adults’ would, thus
guiding her actions to be slightly immature or awkward. Also how he alludes to a connection between
our reality and the novel in the growth of each child to what he reveals in the
plot per chapter depicts a deeper connection, which reflects the gradual growth
of a child into an adult, not forgetting the occasional tangents and side-plot.
Works
Cited
Ishiguro,
Kazuo. Never Let Me Go.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 1-155. Print.
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