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This essay is in response to the following question:
Compare the ways in which the characters in Things We Didn’t See Coming and Never Let Me Go control their own fates.
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This essay is a response to the following question. Check it out:
Compare the ways in which the characters in Things We Didn’t See Coming and Never Let Me Go control their own fates.
“What I don’t understand is this: we’re all living here by choice, right?” (128)
“You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided.” (Never Let Me Go) p.g 80
Seemingly incapable of influencing futures that are unpalatable, individuals in Never Let Me Go and Things We Didn’t See Coming retreat into the world of memory and fantasy respectively, as forms of compensatory escape. Amsterdam’s post-apocalyptic dystopian text assembles a collection of episodic moments in the life of an unnamed protagonist, who documents his response to the challenges of the post-Y2 millennial fall-out. Characters in Never Let Me Go are also compelled to respond to extremely limiting conditions. Forfeiting their right to exercise freedom over their futures, their identity as clones consigns them to the organ donation program, a future that is spelt out to them by Miss Lucy whose sobering lecture unequivocally dispels the dream of living ordinary lives. Contrary to the experiences of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth, whose lives must be lived in the past, Amsterdam reveals the extent to which the past mortgages the morality of a protagonist whose rejection of moral contemplation as an impediment to survival results in his devolution as a character. A necessary byproduct of survival, the forfeiting of moral agency is, for the unnamed narrator, a decision that he believes, is beyond his control. Acquiescing to the environmental factors that influence his actions, Amsterdam exposes the extent to which individuals can abrogate personal accountability in times of adversity. Also seeking to take control over her life, Kath, instead, narrativizes the past, assembling her ‘old memories in a manner that Ishiguro reveals, affirms her dignity as a human being for whom choice is limited to the ordering and shaping of the story; a story infused with authenticity and truth.
