Never Let Me Go Context Flashcards
when was Dolly the Sheep cloned?
1997
Who clones Dolly the Sheep?
the Roslin Institute in Scotland
why was the cloning of Dolly the Sheep significant?
This was the first cloning of a mammal and raised concerns about how far science would go with the technology.
when were human embryonic stem cells cloned?
1998
how were human embryonic stem cells cloned?
In 1998, the detailed study of mouse stem cells led to the discovery of a method to obtain stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in a lab
why was the cloning of human embryonic stem cells significant?
This caused a great deal of concern amongst certain groups who were worried about what this might lead to in terms of human cloning, use of DNA, and the ethics of cloning.
when did Richard Seed state his intention to clone a human before any laws could be passed?
1998
what did Richard Seed aim to do?
in 1998, Richard Seed (American physicist) stated his intention to clone a human before any laws could be passed.
what was there a shortage of in the early 21st century?
organ donors
when was NLMG published?
2005
when did the UN call for a ban on human cloning?
2005
why did the UN call for a ban on human cloning?
called it ‘contrary to human dignity.’
where did Ishiguro move from?
Japan to England
how old was Ishiguro when he moved to England?
5
how did Ishiguro’s move to England from Japan affect him?
Ishiguro has talked on a number of occasions about the isolating experience of attending a school where he was the only non-white person.
where did Ishiguro work before becoming a writer?
he worked for a homeless charity, as well as being a social worker.
where did Ishiguro claim that Kathy is narrating the story to another clone?
In a BBC Radio 4 interview in 2021
what did Ishiguro say he was interested in, in contrast to traditional dystopian texts?
Ishiguro has stated in an interview that, unlike many other dystopian texts, he was not interested in the plight of the ‘brave slave’ but rather how easily people accept their fate and do not try to ‘escape’
where did Ishiguro’s parents grow up?
in WWII Japan
why is it significant that Ishiguro’s parents grew up in WWII Japan?
they lived in a society that went along with fascist views after the country allied itself with the Nazis.
what is Social Bonding Theory?
- Developed in the 1960s by Albert Bandura
- States that individuals develop who they are through environmental factors, namely the imitations of role models
who developed Social Bonding Theory?
Albert Bandura
when did Social Bonding Theory develop?
1960s
what does Ishiguro say about Kathy and the tape, and the fact that the clones cannot have children?
- uses it to emphasise the clones’ innocence
- “I wanted Kathy to mention this as something that doesn’t greatly move her one way or the other.[…] This is one of a number of truths that the children in NLMG assimilate incrementally over years, rather than as a revelation, as they drift through a hinterland of ‘knowing and not knowing’. I wanted that for Kathy and her friends infertility would never become a huge matter at the fore of their minds. They never consciously anguish about it, never mind protest publicly. And yet I wanted the sense that it would steadily, stealthily, come to have a massive impact on their lives – on their attitudes, their decisions, even their feelings for one another. Cut off from the basic cycle of reproduction, this is another weapon denied to them in the face of mortality. “
which novel influenced Ishiguro as he was writing NLMG?
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (dysopian) written in 2004
what did Ishiguro want to convey via Miss Lucy’s outburst?
“here’s another huge truth about their fate – perhaps the most fundamental one – which the children receive not with horror, but almost like it’s another piece of routine educational knowledge imparted in class. This may echo, I felt, the way many of us first ‘heard about’ mortality; how we assimilated the news that all of us – our parents, even we as young children – were on an inescapable journey to ageing, decline and death. […] By creating a world in which young people face the reckonings of people usually much older – who go through the average lifespan in around thirty years instead of seventy, eighty or ninety - I thought readers might glimpse with fresh intensity something which had become so familiar as to be almost invisible.”
Why may Ishiguro’s life experience have led him to present to Cottages in the way he did?
- Much like the people Ishiguro would work with as a social worker, the clones experience neglect
- Ishiguro had experience working with people ostracised and neglected by society, with a similar sense of lack of belonging
what did Ishiguro want to convey through the possibles?
“Cut off in one direction by the inability to have children, our characters appear also to have the path behind them shut off by not having parents, let alone ancestors. But unlike with infertility, Kathy and her peers do give conscious thought to their ‘parents’. I felt that the emotional need for the sense of a parent would exist independently of missing comfort and support on a day-by-day basis: the idea of what one might have inherited; the sense of one’s identity. Shame or pride could derive from confronting one’s parent, and so the idea of actively searching for one’s ‘possible’ is as frightening as it is tempting.’
how is the idea of social bonding theory represented in NLMG?
- the clones imitate each other and create their own norms; the exclusion of Tommy, Miss Geraldine’s protectors, Ruth and the veterans
- The clones imitate TV shows at the cottages
- the clones imitate and learn from the guardians at Hailsham instead of becoming replicas of the people they are based on
- HOWEVER, the characterisation of Tommy and Kathy’s defense of him do not fit this
