A Study Of Trauma In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro,the Japanese British writer,won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017.He claims that he is an international writer whose writing shows the great enthusiasm to the dilemmas that human beings are confronted with.Never Let Me Go waspublished in 2005,which sets in an imagined world where the clones are legitimate.These clones will be taken out all their important organs in order to satisfy human beings’ greed that they desire to have their all diseases cured to prolong their life spans.Trauma is an obvious experience in the work not only for the clone heroes but also for Ishiguro himself.The thesis applies trauma theory to analyze the connection between the writer’s trauma and the clone heroes’ traumas so as to prove that writing is a means of self-treatment for the writer.In this science fiction,trauma is the main theme running through in the whole novel.The traumatic symptoms mainly demonstrate in two aspects.One isindividual trauma that focuses on three heroes,whose traumas respectively present as loneliness and numbness,panic and depression,hysteria and despair.The other iscollective trauma that focuses on the trauma of the clones’ group who is seen as the Other by human society and the trauma of the human guardians as well which comes from their guilt and fear to the clones’ group because of their cruel treatments.This novel could be regarded as an autobiography of the writer,to some extent.The writer cries out his dissatisfaction and bewilderment via the clones’ voices.For Kazuo Ishiguro,his immigrant experience is the root of his own trauma which leads to the dilemma of his identity.Although the background of the story sets in England,the shadow of the ethnicity could be found in it.What is more,the clones’ group is endowed withmarginal status.Therefore,toreveal the situation of the clones could beseen as the epitome of Asian immigrants in the white society,which discloses the dilemma of Asian identity in the white society.Different from other immigrant writers,Ishiguro does not only write down the trauma,but also has found some methods to solve the problem.Through his writing,he could release his agonyto some extent and he takes literary creation as a method of self-treatment.