Cultural Trauma And Healing In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro(1954-),a Japanese-British novelist,is the winner of Nobel Prize for literature.The experience of immigration gave him a unique cross-cultural background and special memory.As a cross-cultural novelist,his exotic growing experience helps him fouse on identity,get rid of the interference of complex identity and think seriously about his social responsibility.In his writing career,he wrote novels more based on real events.Nevertheless,the novel Never Let Me Go in 2005 was a science fiction which makes people feel his concern about “cloning technology” in the post-human world.Never Let Me Go was nominated for the Booker Prize and American National Book Critics Association Award.In the novel,Ishiguro describes a group of clones who live somewhere in the world.They are given the task of donating organs to humans who are sick.They have the same emotions as human beings but without real human rights.Although they have a desire for survival,they have to complete their mission until the last moment of life.Trauma is a common theme in Kazuo Ishiguro's novels.At present,many scholars study the trauma theme of the novel from different perspectives,but there are few studies done from the cultural trauma theory.Based on the cultural trauma theory of Jeffrey Alexander,this paper explores how cultural trauma is represented in the novel and how cultural trauma is healed.The present author analyzes this novel by the theory of cultural trauma,so that readers can understand the suffering of human clones through another perspective which will expand research scopes on Kazuo Ishiguro's works.This paper is divided into three parts: introduction,the main body and conclusion.The introduction gives a general introduction to the writer and his works.Then,the thesis makes a literature review of Never Let Me Go.By summarizing and comparing the views of domestic and foreign critics and scholars,it puts forward the feasibility of analyzing Never Let Me Go from the perspective of cultural trauma.Finally,the research structure is introduced.The second part is the main body which includes three chapters.The first chapter introduces the theoretical concept of trauma and cultural trauma,which provides theoretical basis for the analysis.The second chapter analyzes the representation of the cultural trauma in the novel.In the first section,it starts with personal traumas of the three protagonists and their different trauma symptoms.In the second section,it points out the collective trauma of the clones and analyzes the causes.As cultural trauma is the cultural embodiment of collective trauma,in the third section,it analyzes the cultural trauma in the novel by using Alexander's cultural trauma thesis of the three elements and the four key representations.The third chapter discusses the ways of cultural trauma healing from two aspects: self-redemption and social responsibility attribution.Self-redemption will be discussed from three parts: safety establishment,review and mourning,and relevancy reconstruction.Social responsibility attribution will be analyzed from three aspects: rational use of technology,learning to resist as well as moral and law constraints.The last part is conclusion.It summarizes the points,revealing the roots of the cultural trauma and calls on the human beings to take responsibility in the cultural trauma.An interpretation of the novel from the angle of cultural trauma is helpful for us to understand the author's intention and its social significance.Clone technology is a double-edged sword.Through his novel Never Let Me Go,Kazuo Ishiguro shows his contemplation of human nature loss in the course of technology development and calls for people to protect and respect the vulnerable groups.At the same time,through the depiction of human cloning,the author makes us reflect on the meaning of life.