Abstract
Kazuo Ishiguro’s (2005) dystopian novel Never Let Me Go is set in 1990s
Britain, in a boarding school called Hailsham. Through the adult voice of
one of the children remembering her time growing up there, the reader
gradually learns that Kathy and her friends have been raised as
artificially-generated clones, manufactured to provide body parts for
‘normals’ in the world. The narrative deploys flashback and hindsight in
order to interrogate the essentialism of biological origins, raising
complex questions concerning the relationship between memory, copying,
creativity and selfhood. These topics are discussed through a psychoanalytic
reading of Ishiguro’s novel where I draw on Apter’s (2011) ideas
about textual translation, Laplanche’s (1999) notion of ‘afterwardsness’
and clinical material to explore the various ways in which memory and
identification are implicated in the development of personal identity.
© 2014, BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an author produced version of a paper published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy, uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self- archiving policy. The final published version (version of record) is available online at the link below. Some minor differences between this version and the final published version may remain. We suggest you refer to the final published version should you wish to cite from it.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 517-532 |
| Journal | British Journal of Psychotherapy. |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |