Unreliable Physical Places and Memories as Posthuman Narration in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Authors

  • Megan E. Cannella University of Nevada

Keywords:

posthuman, panopticon, urbanization, unstable place, diasporic memory

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is best understood through analysis of its unstable places and the narrator’s unstable memory.  Through these devices, Ishiguro constructs a panoptic state of surveillance, transforming an otherwise non-urban space into a pseudo-cityscape.  It is through the narrator’s interactions and memories of her interactions with these urbanized and controlled spaces that the reader can truly understand and engage with this posthuman narrative. Without fully understanding the ways in which rural places function as cityscapes for the clone characters of this novel, the reader is unable to meaningfully understand the experiences of the clones. This paper employs theories of Edward W. Soja in order to advance discussion of this novel beyond its application of the panoptic mechanism. It also looks closely at the ways the memories of the displaced are used to manipulate the concept of place and its function throughout the novel.

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Author Biography

Megan E. Cannella, University of Nevada

Megan E. Cannella is a doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research primarily focuses on 21st century understandings of place and identity, as well as how these understandings have changed the narrative structure of 21st century novels.

Her published essays include “The Pain and Prison of Post-9/11 Parenting in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom” in the edited collection Representing 9/11:  Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in Literature, Film, and Television (2015) and “The Quiet Zoo: The Role of Quiet in Suburban Domesticity in Franzen’s Freedom and The Corrections” in the edited collection An Introvert in an Extrovert World: Essays on the Quiet Ones (2015). 

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Published

2017-12-01

How to Cite

Cannella, M. E. . (2017). Unreliable Physical Places and Memories as Posthuman Narration in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 3(2), 92–126. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/217