An Interpretation Of Never Let Me Go From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

As the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature,Kazuo Ishiguro,the Japanese-born British writer is of great reputation in today's British literary circle.Among his works so far,Never Let Me Go is the only science fiction created on the theme of cloning.It narrates a tragic story about a group of clones who are regarded as organ donors for normal human beings and has attracted broad attention since its publication in 2005.This essay probes into this novel from the perspective of ethical literary criticism and takes a further step to analyze clones' ethical identity,ethical consciousness,ethical predicament and ethical choice on the basis of seniors' research.Firstly,clones' ethical identity is interpreted,including their personal ethical identity as well as social ethical identity.Such analysis focuses on a key question "Are clones human or not?".Clones are first brought up in the boarding school called Hailsham,then they're transferred to the Cottages where they receive training courses and eventually they complete after several donations in the recovery center.These three different places are symbols of three different ethical situations.While shifting from one ethical environment to another,clones' ethical consciousness also goes through a developing process from awakening to outburst.After gradually realizing that it's their mission to provide their healthy vital organs for ailing human beings in need,clones suffer from the ethical predicament in which they have to decide whether to obey or to revolt.It's unexpected yet somehow inevitable that clones make the ethical choice to sacrifice themselves and complete several donations before final death in the prime of their lives.Never Let Me Go is much more than an excellent science fiction,it also possesses the function of moral instruction.Further research about this novel on the theoretical basis of ethical literary criticism will inspire both readers' and researchers' profound thinking about the reasonable use of cloning technology and the marginalized groups' survival status in contemporary society.