Never Let Me Go Lesson 1-2

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Never Let Me Go

Lesson 1

In Class Today

• Introduction to the theme & assessment
• Introduction to the author
• Introduction to the novel
• Start reading

Introdution to the theme

1. Introduction
2. The Narrator
3. Characterization
4. Mood & Setting
5. Foreshadowing
6. Symbolism
7. Theme
8. Plot
9. Altered Page 

The Assessment

Your goal for this theme is to transform or upcycle a book into a creative work of art that accurately analyses and represents literary components and your understanding of the novel you read with the class.

You will be utilizing a variety of different techniques and media to make your “Altered Book” interesting and eye-catching. 

This is a group assignment

But you will receive an individual assessment

Altered Page

Altered Page

Altered Page

Altered Page

Altered Page

Altered Page

Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world.

Never Let Me Go, was named by Time as the best novel of the year, and was included in the magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

Kazuo Ishiguro

In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded Ishiguro the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer 

"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world". 

Ishiguro was knighted in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Never Let Me Go

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world. But for what reason were they really there? It is only years later that Kathy, now aged 31, finally allows herself to yield to the pull of memory and try to make sense of the past...

Never Let Me Go

Published in 1996, Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. 

Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world

Start Reading

Lesson 2

The Narrator

Narration

Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration encompasses a set of techniques through which the creator of the story presents their story, including:

Narration

• Narrative point of view:the perspective (or type of personal or non-personal "lens") through which a story is communicated.
• Narrative voice: the format through which a story is communicated.
• Narrative tense: the grammatical placement of the story's time-frame in the past, the present, or the future.

Point of view

Narrative perspective is the position and character of the storyteller, in relation to the narrative.

• First-person
• Second-person
• Third person

Narrative in Never Let Me GO

Never Let Me Go is written in the first person and the story is told entirely from Kathy’s point of view. 

"My name is Kathy H. I’m 31 years old." 

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

The action and characters are presented entirely as Kathy herself perceives them, 

"And I realised that for Ruth and the others, whatever the boys chose to do was pretty remote from us..."

Narrative in Never Let Mer Go

 The reader therefore only finds out about events if Kathy herself remembers them and is only allowed to view the events from Kathy’s point of view. 

Kathy only informs the reader about the events she wants them to know about, so certain key occurrences may be kept hidden, therefore distorting the reader’s knowledge and understanding.

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

This requires the reader to do a certain amount of perceptive thinking of their own. For example, you need to consider if Kathy can be trusted as a narrator. You need to ask if she narrates events as they really happened or if she retells events in such a way that forces you to see them how she wants them to be seen. 

First-Person Narration

A first-person point of view reveals the story through a participant narrator. First person creates a close relationship between the narrator and reader, by referring to the viewpoint character with first person pronouns like I.

The narrator openly acknowledges their own existence. . 

First-Person Narration

 A first person narrator is not able to witness or understand all facets of a situation. 

Thus, a narrator with this perspective will not be able to report the circumstances fully and will leave the reader with a subjective record of the plot details. 

Additionally, this narrator's character could be pursuing a hidden agenda or may be struggling with mental or physical challenges that further hamper their ability to tell the reader the whole, accurate truth of events.

The Unreliable Narrator

The unreliable narrative voice involves the use of an untrustworthy narrator. 

This mode may be employed to give the audience a deliberate sense of disbelief in the story or a level of suspicion or mystery as to what information is meant to be true and what is meant to be false. 

Narrative Voice

The narrative voice is essential for storytelling, as this sets up the story for the reader, for example, by viewing a character's thought processes, reading a letter written for someone, or retelling a character's experiences.

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

It is also important to look closely at the opening page of the novel. Kathy assumes the reader has a certain amount of prior knowledge about life in the society in which she lives, but of course they do not. This makes the opening quite confusing until certain details become apparent as the novel progresses. 

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

For example, the reader is unclear why Kathy does not provide her full surname, what the role of a carer actually entails, 

"I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years", 

What being a donor is all about, 

"My donors have always tended to do much better than expected." 

The reader is also unaware what Kathy means when she says,

"I’m a Hailsham student – which is enough by itself to get people’s backs up."

Narrative Tense

Narratives may also vary in the grammatical tense used, typically being in the past, present, or future. 

In narration using the past tense, the events of the plot are depicted as occurring before the time at which the narrative is constructed; this is by far the most common tense in which stories are expressed. 

In narratives using present tense, the events of the plot are depicted as occurring now—at the current moment—in real time.

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

At the opening of the novel Kathy tells us that she is 31 years old but most of her narration involves her memories of the past, when she was a student at Hailsham School or when she was living at The Cottages. 

Therefore, her narration is not straightforward or chronological, as she tends to jump from recalling one incident to another in a very non-linear way.

Read on!

Before class next week:

Read up to and including chapter 6 of the novel

Prepare a one-line-summary of each chapter read.