FINAL ASSIGNMENT!

(What follows is, with no substantial changes, the final assignment as described in the handout in class.)

Think about one person in our class who said or did something in class that struck you as important and made you think about things we’ve discussed in class in a new way, and whom you’d like to follow up with. (Let’s leave me out of it; I’d prefer you address each other. I will read them all carefully, of course.)

During the next two days—sometime on Thursday, December 17th or Friday, December 18th—write a message to that person, at least 500-600 words in length, and post it here. This message can take whatever form is most appropriate to what you want to say and whom you’re saying it to, but in some way it should

1) describe what that person said or did in as much detail as you can muster,

2) reflect on why it felt important, and how it made you think about things we’ve discussed in class in a new way, and

3) connect this description and reflection to your own thoughts upon the end of this class—what will you take with you? What questions remain? What will you keep thinking about? How, if at all, did our time together affect the way you view and act in the world? If you later encounter this person again, as a carer or a donor, what might you two end up reminiscing about over biscuits and mineral water?

Finally, during the following two days—sometime on Saturday, December 19th or Sunday, December 20th—please comment on at least two other people’s messages. These comments should be a little longer and more involved than your average comment—say, 100-200 words in length—but the form and content is up to you, as long as you engage seriously with the message and have something thoughtful to say about it. You may, of course, want to comment on any messages directly addressed to you, but that is not required; all I require is two comments, to two different people. Try to make sure everyone’s message receives at least one comment!
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Never Let Me Go

When I was reading Never Let Me Go, I felt a couple different things. First, I felt very sad for these poor children; they were being raised for the sole purpose of having their organs harvested! They were never really fully aware of this (they had hints from the guardians and hunches amongst themselves) and so they were excitedly making plans for their futures, as any normal adolescent would do. This feeling was brought up when the boys were talking before their game, waiting for the rain to stop. The fact they wanted to be movie stars and move to America made me sad because I knew this would never happen for them. I think this is part of the reason it made me so sad, but also because they are so young and innocent. They did not do anything to deserve what was coming to them. They were normal children like you and I with dreams and ambitions. What is important here? Well, I think the fact that the author can produce such sadness in me is important. It is important because he succeeded in making me feel empathy for his characters, which we have learned is one of the things that make a good story.
I also felt outraged, appalled and disgusted that human beings could do this to other humans. This feeling was brought up at various stages in the book as the readers are slowly gathering clues and putting them together to figure out what was going on with these children in Hailsham. I know that humans are very cruel to each other (murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery), but this is like taking murder to a new level. People are making these children with the intent to use their bodies and let them die when they are middle-aged, and this makes me so angry that people can be so selfish. I think the reason this is scary to me is because it almost doesn’t seem that far-fetched. Scientists are working on cloning, and we already have donations in hospitals, so it doesn’t seem that unlikely to put these two ideas together. This feeling of disgust is important because I think it means he is getting his message across. Because I feel this anger towards the people/scientists and sorrow for these children, it has made me think about the situation and now I am more likely to do something about it if anything like this should occur in our world.

Blog 10

So far, I think this is my favorite book that we have read so far. Maybe it's because of how the language moves in the book or the involvement of a scientific inquiry, I dont know. (Sorry Ben, but I honestly don't know what it is about it that I like so much) Our discussion last week was extremely interesting and it brought up so many ideas that didn't cross my mind while I was reading. Towards the end of class we were discussing which one of our groups was more necessary towards technilogical progress and this just furthered my inquiry as to why there is no technology in the book. The only thing I can remember is the walkman being introduced and groups of children sitting around in a cirlce passing it along like its a joint. Cloning is such a technological advancement and it just seems so weird to me that it almost doesn't exist in the book. It's almost frustrating.

Cyclops combines numbers nine and ten....

Colleagues,

Thank you all for your well wishes while I worked my way through the Eye Incident of 2009. I am approaching Ishiguro with some trepidation, there are some things I have to say that may not sit well, but say them I must:

In my opinion, the phrase "I don't know how it was where you were" refers to the clone-farm at which you were hatched. I think that one of the most important matters that the "where you were" phrase focuses our attention upon is that Miss Emily and Madame (and thus Hailsham) were, if not the vanguard of a new approach to clone farming, then they were certainly major material contributors to the idea that - if you will - treating your veal nicely before you eat it will produce better veal. Kathy is referring to the conditions at clone-farms around the whole of England when she uses this phrase. The assigned donors have fallen under Kathy's care after having been fatted under many types of conditions.

Clearly, Madame and Miss Emily participated in the 'softening' of the farming techniques of their time. We are never given the reasons for the temporary softening of the farming methods, but we are definitely given a historical summary that pre-dates the time of our narrative, "After the war, in the early fifties, when the great breakthroughs in science followed one after the other so rapidly, there wasn't time to take stock, to ask the sensible questions. ... And for a long time, people preferred to believe these organs appeared from nowhere, or at most that they grew in a kind of vacuum" (262); an entire range of conditions under which a clone might be produced and brought to harvesting time existed in this story, Hailsham, apparently, represents the apex of what was then possible.

When Ben and I last met, he mentioned that the absences of the story garnered a lot of attention from our class, and I would like to touch on that for a moment. To me, Never Let Me Go is a memorial to the fictional history of cloning. Kathy provides us with first person, eyewitness testimony to what most of us would (I hope) call an atrocity. Much like the Shoa, the crime against humanity which is the history of cloning defies description. Ishiguro has written what a victim of this Shoa might have said, had the history been true. Modern attempts to describe things like the concentration camps of the Holocaust and A-Bomb attacks have produced texts which are full of absences.

Ask yourselves, how would you design a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust? You only have two choices: literal and figurative. A literal memorial to the six million dead Jews of Europe would mean six million statues, some ovens and gas chambers perhaps. A literal memorial to the scores of thousands of victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, vaporized in an instant - how would you propose a literal memorial to these people be designed and constructed? All that remains in the face of our inability to construct literal memorials are figurative memorials, memorials which exist today and which leave the interpretation to the viewer's/visitor's discretion. Today we must memorialize ideas and ideologies, entire races missing, because the evil done in the name of an ideology is too immeasurable to encompass with a statue of a guy on a horse holding a sword.

The absences in this book are representative of the inability to come right out and say that, in the story, science found a way to address many of the worst health problems of the day; that the way science addressed those problems included cloning; that the clones were, for all intents and purposes, humans; that the clones were farmed and mass produced, raised to maturity, and then harvested like beef; that this was acceptable to a majority of "humans" of the day and that the ideology of the time allowed for this idea.

Ishiguro has done an amazing job of providing us with enough absence in this book to allow for the reader to reach a conclusion about this fictional possibility. Had he given us literal descriptions of inhumane clone-farms, behind concertina wire and machine-gun towers, places where the clones were only allowed to eat, drink, and (occasionally) fuck, we would have had the interpretation fed to us. Instead, we are given the story of one woman's life who was raised at the best and most humane farm (which still gives me shivers), and who was given a lot of extra time to avoid her slaughter. An example of absolute irony is the fact that Kathy's human behavior and empathy are the very traits which delayed her slaughter.

I will close with this weakness in Ishiguro's premise: there is no way that the ethics of physicians and biomedical researchers would have been able to be swayed so much, in such a short period of time. Whatever you do or do not believe about the Hippocratic Oath, or the dogma to 'do no harm' adhered to by most in the medical sciences, no person of good conscience could have allowed for this in their ethics - or could they? Let's talk about the mysteriousness of the idea that humans can be farmed and harvested, and that we can benefit from the harvest. Let's talk about why the clones might not have just run away and blended into the culture of the time. Why didn't they arm themselves and rise up against their guardians? Where was their free will and their survival instinct?

Blog 10

Well, this book brings a lot of thoughts into my head and so did last weeks conversation. One thing I don't think that we sufficiently hashed out was - should the guardians have told the students, or was it better that they were left in the dark? I would like to see a vote taken on this, I think everyone probably has their own personal opinions on the matter. I also want to know if the author was/is in fact saying something about biomedical research? I also wonder what the thoughts are in the class about the subject?

Additionally, I'm wondering if people liked this book or not? And how they felt while reading it? We touched on this a bit but I think there is a wider range of feelings than just "compassionate".

blog 10

my biggest concern is about the donors behavior, i still don't really understand why wont they stop donating organs even though they know they will end up losing their life. and secondly, why doesn't Kath stop being a carer after she separated with Tommy, is that all she can do? those were the biggest concern i have for the book and the questions we did not go through in class. Also I'm not sure if we went through about the significance of the boat completely, i remember people one of our classmate talk about her guess, she said its something about escaping their world. But why would that be important in the book? was the author just wanted to use a excuse to let them go on a road trip and let Ruth said what she wanted to say? I have a feeling about the boat being a big meaning, however i have no clue what it truly stands for.

Blog 10

One question that I have after last week’s discussion is whether or not Ishiguro is trying to make an argument about the ethics revolving biomedical research such as cloning or stem cell research. Is he trying to argue whether or not it’s wrong to harvest clones of their organs or stem cells of embryos? I think that it could be a possibility that he is arguing that it’s unethical through this story of potential lives clones may lead if we ever advance technologies enough to create human clones.

I think we might have already discussed this next topic a little bit, but was still wondering if ignorance really is a bliss. Were some of the guardians right about having the students more informed about the lives that are laid out before them? What can we make of Miss Lucy’s speech on page 81 explaining why the students can’t go to America to become famous and what we make of the students response, “Well so what? We already knew all that.”

blog 10

For one I was slightly confused for most of the book. Second I really felt for Tommy with as much as he was picked on really got me feeling sorry for him. I guess in a sense I emphasized with him much like Calvin in the "Wrinkle in Time". He was good at everything but still felt like an outcast. The difference is that he was taken in by pity from Kathy. She was more concerned about how much he loved his shirt rather than the way the kids treated him. I guess what I am trying to get at is the whole target audience is what is really getting to me. I haven't figured all out yet but I think Ishiguro is wanting us to revisit our past and why that is I am not sure yet. Also why would Tommy be so worried about his shirt than what the other kids are doing to him? It confuses me so much in that why would both of them be concerned about his shirt getting dirty?

it's just a book, it's just a book, it's just a book, it's just a book

I read the assignment for this weeks blog and thought, wow that's easy. Just plop down what I thought at the end of class and I'm done. Then I remembered that the story has been lingering with me for quite some time and I don't know where to begin with this. Why not where I left off on my last blog. The phrase "I don't know how it is where you were"

After thinking about it I remembered poetics one of our first readings. There was a lot of talk about pity and how it makes for a good story. The above mentioned phrase is supposed to stop Kathy H's audience from feeling pity. I'm talking about her direct audience here, the donor in her care, not us, Ishiguro's readers. Kathy H. is setting a tone. She is acknowledging that it is most likely her life was much better than the life of her patient. Several people in class talked about the participants in the donor programme not knowing any better. Kathy does. She knows that her life could have been worse had it not been for Hailsham.

She is telling her story in the complete and full understanding that everything she describes is better than what her audience has experienced. She is not asking for pity and that is what makes the story even more difficult to stomach. She isn't invoking any fear either. She did in me, but if I had been lying in bed recovering from whatever stage in the donation programme everything she said would seem comforting. A few people in class were deeply moved and almost choked up about this story I don't think they felt comforted by anything she said or described. Ishiguro has managed to take something truly horrific and frame it in a way that makes it seem like a happy childhood memory.

When I criticised L'engle for demonizing the personified evil like her man with the red eyes, Ishiguro has done the opposite. He has taken the guardians and made them human and fallible. The greater evil is recognized as such. "It" is the nebulous sickening thought that everybody is ok with the donor programme, the feeding of technological advance with bio mass, nameless, faceless, soulless. We come away from the book, not angry at the guardians or the doctors who perform the donation procedures but with us, the people who stand idly by. My feelings of frustration with the donors themselves are hard to place. If I identified with the donors, I could only do so knowing I wouldn't go down without a fight otherwise I think this book would be too much for me.

blog 10

At the end of class last week I was thinking about cures to diseases and the lengths to which we are will to go to get them. While there are certainly costs to obtain cures (other than just financial), I wonder if there is an acceptable limit. To me, it’s like the question of whether or not you could kill someone if you knew it would save 1000, 10,000 or even 100,000 lives.

Although I don’t know that I could make that decision, I do find it hard to believe that after finding a cure to a fatal disease, and thus finding the potential to save many lives, we would be able to go back to living without that cure. In terms of the book, I think it brings up an interesting ethical dilemma. While I think Ishiguro is definitely trying to get us to consider whether or not we should be killing to save, I think the debate is also about who/what is acceptable to kill in order to save. I think that this is a big issue for many people who consider some animals worthy of medical experiments, but humans not. I’d like to talk about this more in class to see what other people think.

The Guardians

After doing the interpretation presentation the role of the guardians stood out to me. I wondered why anyone would choose to be a guardian. What motivates the guardians to be a part of Hailsham. Do they believe in this mission? They must believe in it if they spend so much time there. I was also interested in how money affects this society. The students were able to buy things once they were living in the cottage, so they must have had some money. I also wondered how much the guardians were paid or if they were paid at all. They lived at Hailsham and were responsible for all these students. I wonder if they were heavily compensated for taking care of future donors.

Another topic I would like to discuss is the cover of the book. On my book cover there is a picture of a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. There is no descriptions of anyone not physically so why this picture. Why did the publishers of this book think this was a good book cover?

# 10

We touched on this idea during our class discussion on Never Let Me Go but never looked at it in-depth. The idea of discussing the three different phases in this book. The first part, when the children were at Hailsham, was compared to Heaven or childhood. The second phase was when they were living their life, which was compared to earth or college life. The final phase was when they were donors and carers, which was compared to Hell or getting old/retirement. I thought this was an interesting way to break down the book and made me view the story a differently. I looked at each phase as a separate story and then made comparisons. When I read the book I viewed the children’s life at Hailsham as being trapped and forced into a specific, pre-destined life. But after making the comparisons to Heaven it made me focus on the fact that the children were living a great life. They did not have to make any major decisions and had their future decided and figured out.

I also enjoyed the discussion towards the end of class discussing the relationship and reliability of each other between humans and the donors. It was interesting to look at what life would be like with other one or the other.

A few of the questions that we listed at the beginning of class but didn’t discuss were:

How are the models chosen? And also discuss the lack of emotion of loved ones dying

What is human?

Never Let Me Go introduced a lot of issues that, although fictional, seem to strike home with me as being important in determining where our own world is heading and how we see the world around us. To some, it may seem far-fetched to imagine generations of human clones but in reality modern science is only a few steps away from being capable of actually creating human clones. In fact, the science is probably already in place. There is a moral divide on whether this actually acceptable. The ethics of cloning in general, especially humans, is something I certainly think Kazuo Ishiguro was targeting when he wrote this book. More specifically, and what I would like to continue discussing next week, is how do we as a society view things as “human” and “non-human” and how does that effect “us,” “them,” and “it.”

As I read the book I was disturbed to see how the “humans” in the story were treating the “clones.” I felt bothered by this because to me the clones within this story were still very much human. Just because they were not procreated does not mean that they are not human (at least in my opinion). Therefore, it is murder and absolutely inexcusable to raise “human clones” to slaughter for the benefits of previously living humans. The clones were capable of learning, socializing, and loving. The clones could do anything, with the exception of reproducing, that anyone else can do. To me, this one of “us” killing another of “us.” I feel like that is the ultimate moral question for issues such as cloning and abortion in our world. When is a clone a human? If it is unacceptable to clone humans, then why animals? When is a fetus a human? If the clones are not “human” as they are treated within the book, why are they treated so humanely (i.e going to school)? I think these are all questions we have to think about before we make judgment calls on issues like this in real world situations.

numero 1o

- Actually, I am still really thinking hard about what I brought up at the end of class on Wednesday.. about how much it seems like we (humans, right now, in today's time) are so very similar to the students of Hailsham (from the story). It seems as though their point in the world is: try and live it to the happiest they can and then they die.. what is our point in the world? For me, it is trying to live my life as best and happiest as is possible for me, and then eventually die (to put it blantently). It is so strange how so many different characters from the stories we read, who seem like they are from different worlds and completely insane in the way they do things, is so uncanningly similar to us. Especially in this story.. these "donors" or students from Hailsham are going through their cases of friendships, enemies, cliques, boy and girl troubles, teachers, etc... everything that we did and are still going through!! I just want to go over this subject in class next week to see how everyone else feels about this theory//statement I am making. I think some certain points that we did not reach in class last week, that maybe we should next week, is talking about ALL the books we have read through out this semester in the ways in which they are similar and different. It would be nice to reflect on the class as a whole and see where everyone stands at then end :(

Similarities and Differences of the Donors' Lives and a "Normal" Life

A question a feel like we haven’t really discussed fully in class yet is how restricted the donors’ lives really were? What similarities and differences are their between their lives and “normal” lives?

During the presentation at the end of class, I was in the “donors” group. As we went through the three questions on the board, I really began to think of to what extent the donors’ lives really are restricted and cut off from “normal” lives that we are accustomed to here in the United States and other free countries. The most noticeable difference from living a “normal” life is the fact the donors never had an actual, real family because they are clones. You could consider their friends and the guardians as their family but I’m talking about biological parents, siblings, and etc. Being a clone is also not considered a “normal” life. People (at least that I’m aware of) are not raised for the sole purpose to donate their organs and be killed. “Normal” people live their life on their own accord for the most part and aren’t raised to sacrifice their lives for others.
Even though it is obvious the donors do not live “normal” lives, some aspects of their lives can be related to a “normal” life in some parts of the world. We know the donors lived restricted lives, just like some people in the real world do. An example would people who live in North Korea. The donors are brainwashed at their school to believe that being raised to donate their organs is perfectly alright and an acceptable way to live a life. People in North Korea and citizens of other countries are sometimes brainwashed. In a society like North Korea, choice is very limited. The donors, as my group and I discussed, lacked a lot of choice in their life. They could not freely leave the school until they were sent off to the cottages. They didn’t have a choice when it came to if they wanted to donate their organs or not. When my group and I were answering the question, “Where do you see yourself 10 years from now,” (or something like that) we didn’t really have much of a choice but to say either being a carer for donors or donating organs ourselves, and not living a complete life.
I think it’s easy to say that the donors did not live “normal” lives but at the same time, some parts of their lives were “normal”.

blog #10

one last point i would like to touch on in the next class meeting is about the donors... this question was written on the board.. "confused by the behavior of the donors - why do they keep donating their organs, even though they know that they are going to die?" these donators were raised in an academy where the teachers tried to raise them the same as normal people. what makes the normal people so important that the donors have to give up their lives for them? this question seems very biased on my part because last week in class i was in the group known as being the "normal people", at the same time i can see where the donors, "they" would be very upset with giving their lives for the normal people, "us". i was also wondering another question.. Did the donors have another purpose besides just giving the normal people their organs?? were they supposed to calm the normal people or make peace with them?
i felt this book was very similar to the movie THE ISLAND, as someone else mentioned that last week. in the movie, everyone in the world was cloned so that if something happened to the normal person then the clone would give up their body parts to keep that person alive or without a limb. i would also like to talk about the quesion also mentioned... will our society ever get to this same point mentioned in the book? although our society is very close and is already cloning things, but i think it would be very interesting to talk about the future and see if there is a potential for this to happen.

blog 10

When we took part in the interpretation presentation near the end, I began to think very deeply about the book. My group was assigned the role of the guardians. When we were asked to defend why we were the most important to society (or whatever the statement was…something along those lines), we had difficulties supporting our side. Someone in my group said “without us, the donor’s lives would essentially be pointless.” Then someone else said, “well what does it matter if the donor’s lives are pointless, they are going to die either way?” I, and a few others I believe, instantly realized that this can relate to us in the exact same way. We’re living, we’re all going to die, so all we can do is try to make the best out of the time we have. Christina raised this point to the class at the end and running out of time, I obviously still wanted to talk about it a lot more. I feel like going off of this, we could get a bit into religion. Without being too controversial, I think this book could say a lot about why people have religion.

I also want to talk more about if the donors are necessary. When we discussed it a little bit, it made me think about animal testing. I once heard someone say “If a distorted animal saves my family from cancer, so be it.” I don’t know a lot about animal testing, but this statement sounded so cruel…until I thought about it more. For this reason, I’d like to talk more about how to donors are necessary, in a personal context. I want to consider one of my family members needing a donation, and how concerned I would be with where it came from. I don’t know how I feel about it, so I would like to get more of other people’s opinions on that.

Morningdale Scandal

The one thing that I instantly wrote down after class last Wednesday was the dialogue near the end of the book in which Ms. Emily describes the Morningdale scandal in more detail and we begin to find out what it was that even Ms. Emily didn't agree with. I found this section particularly disturbing because of the fact that Ms. Emily and, from how she says it, most of the population of England were afraid of a super-generation of kids, but completely okay with the killing of people for the donor programme. Its on page 264, and for some context, the quote ends like this: "It's one thing to create students, such as yourselves, for the donation programme. But a generation of created children who'd take their place in society? Children demonstrably superior to the rest of us? Oh no. That frightened people. They recoiled from it."

For me, this is ridiculously, plainly wrong. It's saying that they are completely fine with killing off "donors" for organs, but they would never have wanted a group of children that would live, but be better than the them, not to mention live in the same society and same "group". It seems incredibly perverse, but this novel has yet to show me some sane way of thinking. Maybe I am interpreting it wrong, but that's something I just thought was extremely disturbing, especially in the calm and remote manner in which Ms. Emily describes it, like it was no big deal, something completely offhand.

This part also explains more in depth that the reason Hailsham shut down was because of this scandal, because people were afraid to see the "donors" as people. The public at large didn't want to think about the programme anymore, and wanted it swept under the rug like it always used to be. This entire excerpt, for me, was something I wanted to hear everyone's opinions about, or maybe it was just me that found it particularly horrifying amidst the rest of the novel.

Never Let Me Go (Week 2)

From last week: Michelle...I'm pretty sure it was Michelle but I could be wrong...mentioned something I'd like to discuss further. She (a "Normal") was addressing the "Donor" group and said something along the lines of "we don't actually need you." Ouch. Since the Normals are already "harvesting" Donor organs, why don't they skin them at the same time and make decorative rugs?! I mean, they might as well be made into rugs, since the Normals treat them like game animals anyway, and why not walk on them (or does that make the power imbalance too painfully obvious)?

So what do we (meaning the people in this class, who live comfortably enough to afford college) actually need? Or I guess the real questions are: to what extent do we need comfort and luxury? and to what extent do we need to exploit others to get what we need? Also, why is it so damn difficult to be educated and responsible consumers? To what extent is this survival and growth of this country dependent on exploitation?

So yeah, that's what I'd like to talk about on Wednesday.

BLOG TEN? that's a lota blogs.

Because, I didn't have any real signifigant thoughts on what we were talking about at the end of class ie. what I thought the Guardians views on minimum wage would be, I am going to write about some thoughts I had about "Never Let Me Go" before class--thoughts we put on the board, but did not get around to talking about.

One main thought that I had through out the third part of the book--'the hell part' was whether or not Kathy was truly happy being a carer for so long. I know that we spoke briefly on the fact that she was not able to decide when to become a donor--but, I read it that she was for some reason (probably because they were able to decide when to start being a carer) and kept thinking she had a choice.

The reason I thought about this so much was because outside of the feeling of helplessness that I got from their situations in general, I felt an extra sense of hopelessness in Kath's life. While some might say she got longer to live, I saw her life as becoming a completely lonely place before her friends had even completed. There was such a sense of Us/Them/It in their roles. We touched on this in class, but they were ever evolving. Kath, Tommy, and Ruth were a definite Us when they were younger and as they grew up and Tommy and Ruth became donors and Kath remained a carer--things shifted. Both Ruth and Tommy made remarks about Kath not understanding things because she wasn't a donor.

This probably hit home with me because, being alone is a much scary concept than death to me. I, myself, would have hated to be facing being a donor alone with out the comfort of those I loved the most around me and as the book ended I just felt such a sense of hopelessness for Kath, she had gone through the steps vicariously with her friends and now she was left alone to do it herself.