Posthuman Anxiety Over Identity In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro,a Japanese-British novelist known as the “Three Heroes of British Literary Immigrants” along with Naipaul and Rushdie,is one of the greatest British writers of the 20 th century.The Nobel Prize in Literature(2017)is the best evidence of his literary achievements.Never Let Me Go was hailed as one of the best novels in 2005 by the American magazine Time because of its profound themes such as genetic technology,human nature meditation,and identity anxiety.The mainstream studies of the book involve such perspectives as memory studies,ethics of care and dystopia,etc.However,there is a lack of exploration of memory ethics.In view of the fact that a single study of memory or ethics is difficult to reveal the complex dilemmas faced by people in the posthuman era in Never Let Me Go,this study organically combines memory and ethics to explore the manifestations and profound implications of both clones’ and non-clones’ anxiety over identity from the perspective of memory ethics in Never Let Me Go.In terms of theoretical deduction,since the famous Egyptian-American literary theorist Ihab Hassan proposed the concept of posthumanism in 1976,relevant theoretical research has gradually become the focus of the academic circle.N.K.Hayles,a professor at the University of California in the United States,advocated the harmonious combination of human beings and the environment.American philosopher Donna Haraway’s concept of “cyborg” provides a theoretical goal for the postmodern “hybridity” research on humans and machines.Avishai Margalit,a famous contemporary Western ethicist,is devoted to the exploration of the ethics of memory,involving major issues such as the nature of obligations,functions,qualified subjects,and the collective consciousness of memory and forgetting in different communities.Among them,the ethics of memory is closely related to the identity anxiety of clones and non-clones in the posthuman era in Never Let Me Go,which constitutes a solid theoretical basis and logical foundation for this article.This thesis is divided into three chapters and discussed in a logical sequence,involving manifestations,reasons,and strategies.Chapter one explores the manifestations of clones’ and non-clones’ anxiety over identity.As biotechnological productions,clones demonstrate anxiety over their identity through their passivity in terms of their mysterious origin,doomed future,and incapability to have children.Non-clones,as posthuman bodies,show anxiety when they face clones with fear and refusal.Chapter two elaborates on the reasons for anxiety over identity.The shortage of thick relationships undermines the basis of the ethics of memory.The absence of a moral witness prevents the comprehensive and just understanding of this posthuman relationship between clones and their models.Therefore,the deficiency in these two aspects is the main cause of clones’ and non-clones’ anxiety over identity.Chapter three focuses on clones’ and non-clones’ strategies to tackle their anxiety over identity.Kathy chooses to cling to her memory of Hailsham after struggles.Non-clones build insurmountable spatial as well as cognitive barriers between clones and the outside world to erase the existence of clones.These barriers are proved to prevent originals from facing the true nature of human beings and reflect people’s limitations and desperation to find their identity in the posthuman world.The study found that Kathy’s memory narrative is full of alienated and distorted ethics of memory.Clones cannot exist as victims,which violates the requirements of the ethics of memory.Under the obliteration,forgetting,and control of non-clones,Kathy has to construct her identity by catering to the working standards of the external society.The identity of clones being victims is not admitted by both clones or non-clones and this prevents people from facing the essence of the issue with courage and practice.In an age when technological development has brought great changes to the traditional definitions of human conditions,Kazuo Ishiguro expresses his great concern over the issue of posthuman identity through memory writing in Never Let Me Go and warned the importance of memory ethics in the posthuman era,thus endowing the novel with practical significance for the exploration of memory narrative ethics.