The Interplay between the Consumer and the Consumed: Analyzing Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go through Donna Haraway’s Lens

Abstract

Today’s culture is predominantly motivated by the urge to produce and consume. Consumption is becoming a defining characteristic in contemporary life. Kazuo Ishiguro is a well-known literary figure whose works explore memory, knowledge, and complex human relationship. This study examines the consumption of genetic engineering in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005). Donna Haraway's influential theory A Cyborg Manifesto (1985) is employed in the study as its conceptual framework. The study explores the landscape of Ishiguro's dystopian world, where human clones try to understand their existence as both subjects and objects of consumption. In Never Let Me Go, clones are made to donate their organs, stripping them of their humanity. This is consistent with Haraway's criticism of how technology objectifies people. This study aims to elucidate how Haraway's theory can be utilized to inform and enrich the understanding of the characters' experiences in Never Let Me Go.  The theoretical framework draws extensively from Haraway's work on the cyborg as a hybrid entity, blurring the boundaries between human and machine. The scope of the research extends beyond literary analysis to encompass broader cultural and philosophical implications of cyborg consumption. This study concludes that the human escalating need for more products results in the grave pain and inhuman treatment of the characters in the novel. The only way to treat people equally is to prioritize humanism over consumption. The study, is then, significant to writers, readers, and academics who grapple with the complex relationship between humanity and human production.