scholarly journals Never let me go: science fiction and legal reality

Literator ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.H. De Villiers ◽  
M. Slabbert
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Organ Donations ◽  
The Right ◽  
Medicolegal Issues

This article offers a law and literary perspective on Kazuo Ishiguro‟s novel „never let me go‟. The article engages with the existentialist themes of the novel and examines various medicolegal issues pertaining to cloning and organ transplants. By examining the contemporary social and legal framework, the article exposes the inadequacies of the current (legal) approach to organ donations, and advances an alternative approach that balances personal autonomy, free choice and the right to self determination.

scholarly journals We’re All Wonders by R. Palacio

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Borle
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Small Children ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Old Friends

Palacio, R.J.  We’re All Wonders. Alfred A. Knopf, 2017This is one of several picture books which R.J. Palacio has spun off her bestselling novel, Wonder, which introduced Auggie, a boy missing his left eye. There are few picture books about children with facial deformities, so this is a welcome addition. In condensing the novel into a picture book, however, much of the positive content has been lost. This is a sad story. Auggie is not accepted by other children. When he feels sad he puts helmets on his dog and himself to isolate himself from people’s stares. However, a child and dog with helmets are likely to attract as many stares. Auggie’s other coping mechanisms include: an imaginary trip to Pluto, where his “old friends” are one-eyed creatures that look a bit like sheep with tentacles, and wishing that “other people can change the way they see”. Given that there is a long science fiction history of scary one-eyed space aliens and monsters, it seems strange that Palacio would associate her character with them.  Wishing that the world was different does not make it different. We do not see the positive things that were in the novel such as people sticking up for Auggie or his intelligence and achievements.Palacio’s artwork is bright and easily accessible to small children. Strangely, though, the final image shows only the right half of Auggie’s face, with the earth replacing his eye, while the left half, that is the focus of the whole story, is missing.This book would be good for classrooms where there are children with physical differences, but it would be important for teachers to add a positive spin to the story. Recommended:  3 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sean BorleSean Borle is a University of Alberta undergraduate student who is an advocate for child health and safety. 

scholarly journals The suffering of existence in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-17
Author(s):  
Martin Šemelák
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Normal People ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Alternate Reality ◽  
General Experience ◽  
Metaphorical Expression

AbstractThis paper deals with the British dystopian novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, in which human clones are forced to donate their organs in an alternate reality set in 1990s England. Through the characters of the novel, various manifestations of suffering are examined from the viewpoint of existentialism. The whole concept of donation might be understood as a metaphorical expression for human life, as well as the omnipresent consciousness of its finitude. Ishiguro has prepared the ground for disturbing discussion where two ostensibly different groups of people – clones, whose only purpose is to donate their vital organs, and “normal people” as the recipients – suddenly appear to be indistinguishable in terms of mortality and the general experience of human existence. This paper focuses on the concept of existential anguish in the context of the novel’s story. Using an unobtrusive science fiction narrative, Never Let Me Go encourages readers to contemplate the essence, meaning and purpose of human life, and it quietly points to topics that are usually treated as highly sensitive: the inevitability of death and apparent absurdity of human existence.

scholarly journals La vorágine: Impunity, Memory and Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Duplat ◽  
Andrés Molina Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Narrative Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Right

Facing state institutions that neglected the prosecution of crimes against humanity, narrative fiction in Colombia is a privileged source to acknowledge those crimes. A notable example of this connection between impunity and narrative fiction is Rivera’s La vorágine (1924). The novel is not just a master narrative to denounce crimes against humanity but a fictional archive to fight against impunity. La vorágine fulfills a social function that echoes the human rights legal framework known as the right to the truth. This article bridges this type of narrative, which we call fictions of distrust and the right to the truth.

scholarly journals NEVER LET ME GO: UNDERSTANDING THE LANGUAGE USED

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-343
Author(s):  
Biman Mondal ◽  
Aju Aravind
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Colloquial Language ◽  
Singular Form ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Japanese Writer

Purpose of the study: The study aims at analysing Never Let Me Go in terms of the language used in his novel by Nobel prize winner, Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese writer. The language used in the novel which is a science fiction novel, with the futuristic vision which is quite difficult to understand in one reading, and hence this paper can create interest and inquisitiveness in the reader. Methodology: For the literary analysis of the words in the study, Motifs and Symbolism are used as a technique to analyse the words and language used in Never Let Me Go. Literary analysis of chosen words and language is used as a research method in the novel. Main Findings: It is indicated in this study that the novel is narrated in first person singular form. Kathy’s voice in Never Let Me Go seems consistent. A reader feels a clear sense of Kathy`s character through her discipline of speaking. Applications of this study: It is shown in this study of Never Let Me Go in terms of the language used, can be useful to the students studying in graduates/post graduates of Literature studies. The in-depth analysis of the language, words, etc used in the novel makes it interesting to the students. Novelty/Originality of this study: The language using style in Never Let Me Go is realistic and reflects on the period of the novel set i.e., the 1990s and colloquial language used by the author. Certain words like a euphemism, possible, donor, carer, unzipping, gifted, othering used by the narrator has an inner meaning which is being analysed in this paper. This could help the reader to understand the narration and take pleasure in reading the novel.

Analytical Study of Violence Theme in Victoria Schwab’s This Savage Song

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Study ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Vicious Cycle ◽  
Aggressive Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
The Right

This research article focuses on the theme of violence and its representation by the characters of the novel “This Savage Song” by Victoria Schwab. How violence is transmitted through genes to next generations and to what extent socio- psycho factors are involved in it, has also been discussed. Similarly, in what manner violent events and deeds by the parents affect the psychology of children and how it inculcates aggressive behaviour in their minds has been studied. What role is played by the parents in grooming the personality of children and ultimately their decisions to choose the right or wrong way has been argued. In the light of the theory of Judith Harris, this research paper highlights all the phenomena involved: How the social hierarchy controls the behaviour. In addition, the aggressive approach of the people in their lives has been analyzed in the light of the study of second theorist Thomas W Blume. As the novel is a unique representation of supernatural characters, the monsters, which are the products of some cruel deeds, this research paper brings out different dimensions of human sufferings with respect to these supernatural beings. Moreover, the researcher also discusses that, in what manner the curse of violence creates an inevitable vicious cycle of cruel monsters that makes the life of the characters turbulent and miserable.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aristocratic Culture ◽  
Modern Form

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

Our Bodies, Whose Property?

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
Human Organs ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

No one wants to be treated like an object, regarded as an item of property, or put up for sale. Yet many people frame personal autonomy in terms of self-ownership, representing themselves as property owners with the right to do as they wish with their bodies. Others do not use the language of property, but are similarly insistent on the rights of free individuals to decide for themselves whether to engage in commercial transactions for sex, reproduction, or organ sales. Drawing on analyses of rape, surrogacy, and markets in human organs, this book challenges notions of freedom based on ownership of our bodies and argues against the normalization of markets in bodily services and parts. The book explores the risks associated with metaphors of property and the reasons why the commodification of the body remains problematic. The book asks what is wrong with thinking of oneself as the owner of one's body? What is wrong with making our bodies available for rent or sale? What, if anything, is the difference between markets in sex, reproduction, or human body parts, and the other markets we commonly applaud? The book contends that body markets occupy the outer edges of a continuum that is, in some way, a feature of all labor markets. But it also emphasizes that we all have bodies, and considers the implications of this otherwise banal fact for equality. Bodies remind us of shared vulnerability, alerting us to the common experience of living as embodied beings in the same world. Examining the complex issue of body exceptionalism, the book demonstrates that treating the body as property makes human equality harder to comprehend.

Homosexuality in K. Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams: Demythologising the Imaginings and Universalising the Reality

Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adetunji Kazeem Adebiyi-Adelabu
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Black African ◽  
Sex Preference ◽  
National Allegory ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Sex Orientation ◽  
The Right

Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams offers an extensive treatment of homosexuality, a preoccupation which, until recently, is rare in black African fiction. On this account, as well as its depth and openness, the work has attracted some critical attention. It has been read from a masculinity perspective, as a coming-out novel, as a national allegory, as a work that challenges the notion of fixed sexuality, as a work that normalises same-sex sexuality, and so forth. Unlike these studies, this article examines the representation and disquisition around same-sex preference in the novel, with a view to demonstrating how some myths about homosexuality are exploded in the groundbreaking work, and showing that the narrative could also be apprehended as intellectual advocacy for the right to same-sex orientation.

A Compact Embodiment of Pluralities and Denial of Origins: Atwood’s The Year of The Flood

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Rana Sağıroğlu
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Why Questions ◽  
Near Future

Margaret Atwood, one of the most spectacular authors of postmodern movement, achieved to unite debatable and in demand critical points of 21st century such as science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism in the novel The Year of The Flood written in 2009. The novel could be regarded as an ecocritical manifesto and a dystopic mirror against today’s degenerated world, tending to a superficial base to keep the already order in use, by moving away from the fundamental solution of all humanity: nature. Although Atwood does not want her works to be called science fiction, it is obvious that science fiction plays an introductory role and gives the novel a ground explaining all ‘why’ questions of the novel. However, Atwood is not unjust while claiming that her works are not science fiction because of the inevitable rapid change of 21st century world becoming addicted to technology, especially Internet. It is easily observed by the reader that what she fictionalises throughout the novel is quite close to possibility, and the world may witness in the near future what she creates in the novel as science fiction. Additionally, postmodernism serves to the novel as the answerer of ‘how’ questions: How the world embraces pluralities, how heterogeneous social order is needed, and how impossible to run the world by dichotomies of patriarchal social order anymore. And lastly, ecocriticism gives the answers of ‘why’ questions of the novel: Why humanity is in chaos, why humanity has organized the world according to its own needs as if there were no living creatures apart from humanity. Therefore, The Year of The Flood meets the reader as a compact embodiment of science fiction, postmodernism and ecocriticism not only with its theme, but also with its narrative techniques.

Der Spielraum bei der Vermarktung von Waldleistungen ist eingeschränkt (Essay) | The scope for the commercialization of forest services is limited (essay)

2009 ◽  
Vol 160 (8) ◽  
pp. 228-231
Author(s):  
Hansruedi Walther
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Forest Owner ◽  
Free Access ◽  
School Class ◽  
Market Niche ◽  
The Right ◽  
Exclusive Right

A forest owner can only commercialize non-wood products and services within a tightly restricted market niche. On account of free access being permitted to the forest it is impossible to deny to third parties the consumption of many non-wood products and services: everybody has the right to be in the forest for recreation. As a result many non-wood services cannot be commercialized by the forest owner, or not exclusively. What would seem unthinkable elsewhere on private property seems to be taken for granted in the forest: third parties may take products from the forest and even sell them without being the forest owners. For certain nonwood services or products, such as the installation of rope parks or for burial in the forest, the organizer must conclude an agreement with the forest owner or draw up a contract for servitude or benefit. In addition, for these activities a permit from the Forestry Department is necessary. On the other hand, for an itinerant school class or for the production of forest honey neither a binding regulation with the forest owner nor a permit from the Forestry service is necessary, provided that no constructions are erected in the forest. The only exclusive right which remains to the forest owner, besides the sale of his property, is the exploitation of his trees within the legal framework.

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