Analyzing The Main Characters' Fate In Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro is known as one of the “Three Great Immigrant Authors in Britain”.The other two are V.S.Naipaul and Salman Rushdie.Though not very prolific,Kazuo has received four Man Booker Prize nominations and won the award in 1989.Being born in Japan and growing up in Britain,Kazuo Ishiguro is influenced by two cultures.However,his works do not only focus on Japanese or English culture,but also reveal his concern about humanity and some universal problems.As the new winner of Nobel Prize for Literature,he was praised by the Swedish Academy as a writer “who,in novels of great emotional force,has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.Most researchers have paid great attention to his The Remains of the Day,and studies on Never Let Me Go is relatively sparse.Actually,besides being nominated for Booker Prize,Never Let Me Go was named by Time as the best novel of 2005 and was included in the list of Time 100 best English-Language novels from 1923 to 2005.Based on previous studies,this thesis discusses the tragic ending of the major characters in Never Let Me Go.The first chapter briefly introduces Kazuo Ishiguro and his book Never Let Me Go,then based on the summary of the previous studies of this book both abroad and at home,the author puts forward the question of the main characters' tragic death.By using Lacan's theories,the following three chapters give answers to the question from different perspectives.The second chapter starts from the theory of Mirror stage,arguing that the identity those clones identify is not the real one in their society.Because the identity they identify is the illusory identity in the mirror.As a result,they fail to form real identity.By means of Need,Demand and Desire theory,the third chapter proposes that during the growing process,the characters' psychological need and demand are not satisfied,and the desire they express is what Lacan called “desire other's desire”.Therefore,unsatisfied need,unfulfilled demand and “false desire” constitute another cause of the tragedy.Besides,by using Three Orders theory and the Law of Farther,the fourth chapter,proposes that unfairness is the root cause of their tragic ending,since inequality exists at every period of their short life.The last chapter is the conclusion of the thesis,which interprets the growing processes of the main characters' pursuit of self-identity,and reveals the main causes of these clones' pathetic ending.Those causes give rise to the obedience of these clones and obedience lead them to the donation of their vital organs and pathetical death.Through analyzing the causes of this sad ending,Kazuo Ishiguro's concern about humanity,appeal for an equal society and more attention to juveniles are disclosed.