Biotechnology as a cause of dystopian society In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let me Go

 

In an effort to create a perfect world where everyone is happy and live a long life, human have created a different class of people called the clones. 

In this article I will analyze the novel “Never Let me GO” by Kazuo Ishiguro with focus on biotechnology as a major cause for a dystopian society. We are concerned about all the positive impacts of biotechnology but the novel is an eye opener about the dark sides of biotechnology and the dire consequences that it may bring upon us.

 There was a time when the average life of a human would be 40 years. But with development of science and medicine, the life expectancy of human is ever increasing. But we are not satisfied with our present life expectancy. We are always in effort to increase our life. Everyone wants to live longer.  What Ishiguro displays in Never Let Me Go is this hunger in us humans that gives us the drive to use everything at hand to our benefit, most of the time completely ignoring the consequences while doing so. This is exactly why Kathy H, a clone made for human use, is the narrator. The book stands as a warning to people, giving the message that some outcomes matter, even though they have no effects whatsoever on our daily lives. In a way the book offers a way of soul-searching and preventing possible future problems, since being a human means realizing facts when it is too late to turn the tables.

 

 

Human beings often imagine about a perfect world where there is no poverty, hunger, disease and everyone lives a happy long life. Plato imagined an enlightened republic ruled by philosopher kings. Many religions promise blissful afterlife. And throughout history various groups have tried to build paradise on Earth. Thomas More’s 1516 book “Utopia” gave this concept a name, Greek for no place. Though the name suggests impossibility, modern scientific and political progress raised hopes of these dreams finally becoming reality. But time and time again they instead turned into nightmare of war, famine and oppression. And as artists began to question utopian thinking, the genre of dystopia, the not good place, was born. While lots of dystopian works are fictional, the best known dystopias were not imaginary at all. As Europe suffered unprecedented industrial warfare, new political movements took power. Hitler’s idea of a pure world led to World War II. Some promised to erase all social distinctions, while others sought to unite people around a mythical heritage. The results were real-world dystopias, where life passed under the watchful eye of the state and death came with ruthless efficiency to any who didn’t belong. In his novel, “Never Let me Go”, Ishiguro describes of a futuristic world (although it is set in 1990’s) which is a nightmare, a dystopia. This novel tries to tell us that in attempt to achieve utopia, we may lead the world to dystopia. Prolonging life unnaturally is like going against the nature and one has to bear the consequences when he goes against the nature.

 

Only humans question and challenge the rules of nature. We do not see animals or plants expand their horizons, dress up, or go for more than they need. Only humans have the capacity to want more, and we go all the way to get what we want in every possible field. In Ishiguro's novel, which is set in past times unlike most dystopian novels, there has been a breakthrough in medicine as we are informed at the beginning of the novel. The average life span of humans is in 100s, because clones are there to donate vital organs to people who need them in order to live longer and healthier lives. We are not told how many clones a person is assigned or if everybody gets them, so there are some elements that are open to interpretation. I believe, since the clones think they are modeled on "trash", everybody gets clones, which means the cloning process was not developed in order to have the beautiful minds live longer and be more productive, but as a gift to humanity from biotechnology.

 

Biotechnology is considered most important for its implications in health and medicine. From King Gilgamesh of Sumerian City of Uruk to Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, from Egyptian Pharaohs to Rakshyas of Hindu mythology, all seem to seek for a long or if possible never ending life. And now with the development of biotechnology, this seems possible. But at what cost? Human beings have always been selfish. They have exploited natural resources for their selfish desires. In present world we mass produce animals in order to consume them. They are not allowed to live their natural life. They have a purpose to serve human and their whole life is under control of human beings. The animals don’t know the purpose of their existence. They are tortured and killed gruesomely. They never get to live the life that their wild counterpart enjoy. Something similar is shown in Ishigiuro’s novel “Never Let me Go”. The clones are considered as the ‘others’, i.e, they are inferior to humans. They exist only for the purpose of prolonging human life. Human totally ignore the fact that the clones also have same feeling, needs, wants and desires as any human. Unlike animals, the clones are totally conscious and as capable as a real human. But they never get to live a life like a real human. The clones have to life a restricted and controlled life as if they were some animals produced in a farm.

 

Development of biotechnology in Ishigiro’s “Never Let me Go” proves that science can be a boon as well as a curse. In an effort to create a perfect world where everyone is happy and live a long life, human have created a different class of people called the clones. The real humans may be glad to enjoy the prolonged life but they have neglected the very existence of the clones. They consider the clones nothing but a medium to prolong human life which is not true. The clones are treated inhumanely. Hailsham was the last place where the clones were treated in a little humane way. This shows that the world would be harsher for the clones in future because the human consider them as other and ignore their freewill. There was a time in human history when the white people considered the black people as second class citizens. They exploited the black people and considered it as their right to do so. Here in the novel too, the real human don’t consider the clones to be their equal. Instead they think it is totally right to use the clones for their good despite danger to the latter’s life. Such a world is nothing but a dystopian world.