Never Let Me Go and The Island

In both Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Michael Bay’s movie, The Island, the audience is introduced to a dystopian society where conformity and science play pivotal roles in the plot. Both science fiction stories revolve around the idea of cloning and harvesting organs to prolong human life.

In Ishiguro’s novel, readers are introduced to the narrator, Kathy, and her upbringing in a secluded school for “donors.” Through her perspective, we are able to see the various relationships she shares with the people around her, as well as her environment (Hailsham and the Cottages). Readers soon realize that Kathy, along with her friends, is a clone who is expected to make organ donations when she comes of age. Similarly, the science fiction thriller, the Island begins the story in an isolated compound where its residents reside. These people are told that the outside world has become too contaminated for them to live in with an exception of an island. Believing this to be true, the residents abide by strict rules of the compound to ensure their chances of going to the island. However, the protagonist, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) soon discovers that not only is the island non-existent, but also that residents chosen for the island are clones, killed for their organs.

These two stories share multiple themes and ideas. The idea of cloning or stem cell plays a big part in the narration, acting as the backdrop to both plots. In Ishiguro’s novel, the characters develop into young adults who must come to terms with their fate as donors. For The Island, the residents are brought into the compound for the sole purpose of organ harvesting, maintaining a health body for their opportunity to be on the island. In addition to cloning, the themes of seclusion and conformity are evident in both works through Hailsham/ the Cottages and the compound. Hailsham and the Cottages are two places that are specifically isolated from society in order to separate the clones from the “normal.” When Kathy was at Hailsham, she and the other students were not allowed to leave the vicinity, as seen by the electric fence and rumors surrounding the school about the woods. While at the Cottages, the characters would have to travel a bit to reach Norfolk. The compound within The Island parallels the isolation of Hailsham and the Cottages. The clones are directly told that they are living in a secluded environment, cut off from the outside world. In both works, the separation and detachment from the external world would infer safety for not only the clones, but also the people outside.

Moreover, the characters in both stories conform to their surroundings. For example, Ruth copies the manners of the older students in the Cottages and the residents continue their daily routines in the compound without much question of what happened to the outside world. Ishiguro stresses the issue of conformity, as the students readily accept their fate as donors with a complacent attitude, with the exception of Tommy. Similar to Tommy, Lincoln and his friend, Jordan (Scarlett Johansson) are unable to accept their fate. (Granted that most of the residents do not know the truth.) However, unlike Ishiguro’s characters, Lincoln and Jordan choose to fight back and escape the compound in an attempt to change their fate and live.

Never Let Me Go, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, can be compared to Michael Bay’s The Island in many ways. With similar themes of cloning, seclusion, and conformity, these two works introduce the moral issues that surround cloning and society. Evident through the students of Hailsham and the residents of the compound, the clones were not fully educated about their purpose in life. Kathy and her friends are revealed to be clones that are simply used for their vital organs. She, along with her peers, fail to question the details of the process, signifying their acceptance of the role.  The residents in The Island are deceived from their true identities as clones. Although they are hidden from this secret, they also go along with their roles inside the compound. They do not have any doubts about the things they are told. Furthermore, the ethical issues of killing, despite being a clone, for the harvesting of organs is a very sensitive concept.

If you have yet to watch The Island, I would definitely recommend the movie if you like action films and the actors in it. This movie was the first thing I thought of when I realized Kathy and the students were clones, grown for their organs. It’s a good film just to watch for fun and boredom.

Another Earth and Melancholia

When the another Earth appeared in the sky in Another Earth, the life of people change.  Similar change occurred in Melancholia when the blue planet appeared.

Melancholia is a movie about the end of the World caused by another planet. The movie begins with a foreshadowing of a giant planet threateningly approaching Earth. The introduction ends with the collision of the planets and the film divides into two parts. In part one the young couple Justine and Michael are getting married at a castle-like home of Justin's sister. Even though its suppose to be the happiest day for Justin, she drifts away from the party and becomes sad. She keeps noticing a stat in the sky which is sinning brighter then all the rest. Michael, her husband, assures her that it is nothing but a start and the start disappears later in the film. In part two of the movie Justin becomes depressed and is sent to live with her sister and her family because she is unable to take care of herself. As the movie progresses the massive blue planet, Melancholia, becomes more visible in the sky as it approaches earth. The scientists tried to a assure the public that Earth and Melancholia will pass by each other without colliding, but in the end the two planets collided and life on Earth ended.

Many comparison can be seen between the two movies through the personality of the characters. Justin is very similar to Rhoda; who is the main character in Melancholia. In the beginning of the movie Justin appears to be happy and everything seems possible. Even though Justin did not go to jail or had something horrible happen to her like Rhoda did, her life still changed changed. In part two of the movie Justin becomes severely depressed. Justin is unable to carry out normal every day activities like taking a bath or even eating, but get better over time. Most of the change that these two characters went through in their life was caused by the appearance of a new planet.

In both movies the planets appeared unexpectedly and they resembled Earth in different ways. The new planets had a huge impact on the peoples life in both movies. After the new planets appeared, people no longer had the same life as they did before. In Melancholia people were afraid that the planes would collide so they did what they thought would be best for them. In Another Earth people were curious to see the other them on Earth two, so they put all their effort into vising the other Earth.

People In Parts

I love distopia novels: novels written about societies designed to be utopias but in execution are seriously flawed. I couldn’t help but notice a strong parallel between my two favorite distopia novels, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishigori. The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margret Atwood, is the story of the overthrow of the US and its fall into a totalitarian government, known as “The Republic”. The book is narrated by Offred, who tells of life as a handmaid, a rare fertile woman pressed into sexual service for important government officials in a world where most women are sterile. Never Let Me Go centers around the experience of the narrator, Kathy, and her experience in growing up at the elite private school, Hailsham, as clone destined to donate organs once physically mature. Both women in these books have limited power of their bodies for a so-called greater good- reproduction and longevity as the case may be- and are dehumanized in the process. Without power over one’s body, an individual cannot live a true life or be respected as a real human with a personality leading to loss of freedom, ability to have relationships, and right to knowledge.

Famously in The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred states, “Waste not, want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?” (7). The reoccurring tragedy in this novel is in the view of sexulaity for women by the Republic. In the society where few women retain their ability to procreate, handmaids become such an important commodity that they become overshadowed by their sexuality. Handmaids have uniforms, specific duties and set limitations on any activity or interaction that may jeopardize their enslavement or ability to bear children, including interaction with any person, reading, and relationships. There is a tragic loss of identity that occurs with being so highly valued for something so banal. Offred is still a person within her prized body, but it is significant to no one other than herself.

Kathy and Offred share the same inability to take control of their lives. Although Offred lives in a very defined and strict world, Kathy has the same limitations but in a quieter way. Kathy, like Offred, is separated from the world in isolation at Hailsham, where information about the outside world is strictly monitored and escape is simply inconceivable because of lack of knowledge.  There is no one keeping them in Hailsham by force but they simply couldn’t survive outside because they lack practical abilities like confidence around outside people, even for something as simple as small purchases at shops. They are allowed to read, but have censored material. These milder restrictions, kinder and gentler, still bind them to their identity as subhuman. Most significantly there is a similar sexual restriction on both women. Towards the end of the novel, Kathy graduates from the school and is reunited with her best friend Tommy by becoming his “carer” (almost like a baby sitter) while he is going through the donation process and they are able to have a short relationship ending with Tommy saying, “ ‘It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives, But in the end, we can’t stay together’” (282).  Although the two are allowed to have a relationship as clones, their entire lives are influenced by the fact that they will die long before they reach middle age and their time together will be tainted by obligations from not being in control of their physical bodies with donations and medical problems. Their inability to physically take control of their bodies hampers their mental freedom and their way of looking at their relationship. This block of freedom is just as tangible as Offred’s blatant rule forbidding dating. The free will of the clones is undermined by the simple fact that their bodies are not their own, and society owns them from conception until they die.

It’s interesting to think that despite being valued for different things physically and in entirely different societies, Offred and Kathy have the basic same restrictions on their life. It’s ironic: they are both extremely valued by their societies, so being dehumanized superficially seems odd. However, be it carrying vessel for children or “Organ sack” (as one of my classmates put it)… when a person is valued as piece or a part they stop being human to society even when they are still individuals with the same universal need to be free.

 I would recommend everyone to read A Handmaid’s Tale along with 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World if you liked Never Let Me Go!

Never Let Me Go and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Never Let Me Go and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Never Let Me Go, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, is a very unique story that makes the readers think and comprehend on how the characters are feeling and what they see around them; how the information they are given is very limited, making the author in full control of what to tell the readers. The readers saw that the students knew what was expected of them but did not really comprehend exactly that their life was all planned out from the very beginning. This was due to the students trusting the guardians’ words and their authority. It wasn’t until Part III where the readers see that Kathy begins to seriously question the Gallery and their intentions. When reading this novel, I was reminded of a movie that I recently watched called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a boy who is the son of a Nazi captain that was recently promoted into a higher position in the army. Due to this new promotion, the family has to move to the countryside where the Nazi captain can work more at “peace”. The little boy, known as Bruno, is quite an adventurous character and so he loves to find new things to do. Due to growing up in an environment where Nazi policies are strongly implemented into them, he saw the changes in his sister where she went from loving her dolls to praising their leader of their country. Being a boy of eight years old, Bruno still has an innocent view of the world, much like the students of Hailsham where they were protected and sheltered from the harsh realities of life. Growing bored with the mundane things to do around his new house, Bruno begins to explore the backyard and eventually finds himself at a wired-fence and sees a boy his age on the other side. Believing that the boy, known as Shmuel, is playing a game due to the appearance of the “striped pajamas”, Bruno questions why he wasn’t allowed on the other side and to play with him. Almost at the end of the movie, he realizes that Shmuel is a Jewish prisoner and resides in the “happy camp” that his father runs.

At first, Bruno was hesitant in forming a friendship with Shmuel due to the horrible things his father and tutor said about Jews; they said that they were “violent” and “vile” creatures that deserved to die. But Bruno soon realized that wasn’t true and began to see his secret friend behind his family’s back. This eventually made Bruno realize that what everybody told him about Jews (their personality and the camps that they were living in) was false. This movie takes the audience on Bruno's journey in finding the truth about what his father really does “for his country” and of the realities that were shielded from him.

The ending of the movie, although expecting it, still surprised me and made me cry. If you haven’t seen this movie, I will recommend it! We all know the history about the Nazis and the Jews, but this new perspective of a child’s, gives these events a whole new meaning behind it. It made me realize the similarities between these two plots. Never Let Me Go  had a theme of concealing the harsh reality from the students or clones. In the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Bruno is sheltered by his family from the Nazis’ true goal and of the horrible treatment of the Jews in the concentration camps.

In the book, Kathy knew what exactly her life entailed: donating her organs and “completing” her 

task. Bruno ‘knew’ that the Jews were living in camps and that his father was an important figure in the “war”. It wasn’t until at the end of the book did Kathy really know why she and her friends were made to be creative; to prove that clones were people too and to show that “they had souls”. So not only were they created to donate their organs but to prove to society that they each had a soul as well. For Bruno it was to continue the legacy of Nazism, honoring his father, and eliminating the Jews. Bruno, after many trials that he encounters involving Nazism, finds out that he does not want to follow that path and makes his own choice in who he can be friends with. Each character believed in something that “they were told but not really told”. Even though both had different plots, it still held similar aspects.

It makes me wonder what we believe to be true might not be the entire truth. It might be a whole different story.

“Honey Pie” and Once Upon a Time in High School: Spirit of Jeet Kune Do

Honey Pie | Haruku Murakami's short story,"Honey Pie"

• copyright alija craycroft

“Honey Pie” and Once Upon a Time in High School: Spirit of Jeet Kune Do

As we all may know from experience, best friends share many things. Oddly enough, sometimes even the same love interest is shared. Although Once Upon a Time in High School: Spirit of Jeet Kune Do (let us refer to this lengthy title as Spirit of Jeet Kune Do) focuses more on the coming of age thematic, both Haruki Murakami’s short story “Honey Pie” and Spirit of Jeet Kune Do tell stories of deep friendship, and young  and unrequited love. 

Spirit of Jeet Kune Do is a 2004 South Korean film set in the 1970s that primarily focuses on the life of young Hyun-soo. Hyun-soo, much like Junpei from “Honey Pie”, is a soft-spoken introvert. Because Hyun-soo’s father was a master at Tae Kwon Do and often resorted to violence to discipline his son, Hyun-soo did not care too much about physical strength; he enjoyed watching martial arts in Bruce Lee films, but he preferred writing expressive poetry and listening to romantic music over perfecting his Tae Kwon Do skills. His shyness put him in a tough position when he transferred to a new high school where physical violence was practiced regularly among the school gangs and authoritarian teachers. For one reason or another, Hyun-soo was approached by Woo-sik, a strong, athletic fighter, after he was bullied by a gang leader. Woo-sik advised Hyun-soo to use martial arts to protect himself. The two quickly form a tight bond realizing their shared admiration for Bruce Lee (hence the “Jeet Kune Do” part of the movie’s title). The two of them later meet Eun-ju who attends a neighboring girls’ high school. Both friends befriend and eventually fall in love with Eun-ju, which ultimately tests their friendship.

Many comparisons can be seen between these two works through the personality of each character. Woo-sik is a lot like Takatsuki; he is a handsome extrovert with self-confidence. Woo-sik had enough self-confidence and initiative to profess his love for Eun-ju. Hyun-soo of course, just like the dutiful friend Junpei, voiced no objection to their relationship. Eun-ju, in comparison with Sayoko, always had a deeper connection with Hyun-soo. They both liked reading the same genre of novels, and spent hours listening to romantic songs on the radio together. In “Honey Pie”, Junpei and Sayoko had an actual interest in English Literature, whereas Takatsuki only studied English because it was the only test he could pass. Junpei and Sayoko would trade novels to read and later had deep, intellectual conversations about them.

Not only are comparisons drawn from each character’s personality, but comparisons may also be drawn from their behavior towards the paramount issue at hand: the love triangle. Both Junpei and Hyun-soo continue living their lives benignly accepting that things are out of their hands, yet they feel hurt when things progress apart from them. Junpei and Hyun-soo do not make an effort to tell Sayoko/Eun-ju that they love her, but after their two best friends begin a romantic relationship, they both fall into a depression. During Hyun-soo’s period of seclusion, his behavior is almost identical to that of Junpei’s; he goes through a depression in which he gets drunk (even though he’s underage…) and loses weight due to his lack of eating. He pulls out of his depression after a kiss between him and Eun-ju occurs when she visits him (I swear these stories are practically the same). Eun-ju, similar to Sayoko, accepted Woo-sik’s love because he approached her first aside from the deeper connection between her and Hyun-soo. She visits him to tell him that the friendship among her, Woo-sik, and Hyun-soo should continue. Woo-sik also wished to continue their friendship, thus Hyun-soo continues his life as a third-wheel in placid paralysis dating other girls, but not seriously committing due to his unrequited love for Eun-ju.

Although the endings to Spirit of Jeet Kune Do and “Honey Pie” differ, both works contain strikingly similar characters in the same situation. In Spirit of Jeet Kune Do, there is a sort of physical man-battling-man for her affection type of ending. Ultimately, the three friends part ways forever after Hyun-soo overcomes his broken heart when Eun-ju and Woo-sik run away together. Even though Eun-ju and Woo-sik break up, their friendship is lost forever. They remain as acquaintances, respectful and polite acquaintances, but acquaintances nonetheless. “Honey Pie’s” Junpei differs from Hyun-soo in that he doesn’t battle for Sayoko’s love. In fact, he simply lets fate decide whether or not she will end up with him. Nevertheless, readers and viewers can make parallels with Hyun-soo/ Junpei, Woo-sik/ Takatsuki, and Eun-ju/ Sayoko.  

Super Frog Saves Tokyo - Tekkon Kinkreet

Subconscious battles for sanity

                During our discussion of Murakami’s works in class, I had a sudden realization that Frog from Super Frog Saves Tokyo could be a part of Katagiri’s unconscious beliefs or emotions, and the movie of similar topic that instantly popped into my head was Fight Club, with the split personality twist and everything (especially the part where Frog helps him with the one really difficult case at work). I was soon to find that, alas, the most recent post on this blog had already eloquently compared Fight Club to Sula. So I had to find another work with a kind of similar theme. I picked Tekkon Kinkreet, a manga-turned-anime that was used as an example of supernatural elements and psychological distress caused by a “catastrophe” in another class I took recently (JPN 109).

                Tekkon Kinkreet is a story about two orphaned kids, a violent teenage punk named Kuro (Black), who thinks he “owns” a part of Treasure Town (his hometown and where he lives), and his friend Shiro (White), an absentminded and innocent little kid. The two of them live on the streets and fight off other gangs, Yakuza, and even aliens as they try to protect the block they think they own from being taken over and torn down for the construction of a new amusement park paid for by some foreign investor (who’s depicted as very extraterrestrial-ish). Kuro slowly slips deeper and deeper into the darkness that is his own mind due to his violence, but the innocent Shiro is always there to pull him back to reality. Eventually, Shiro gets injured by someone looking for revenge on Kuro, and Kuro decides it would be safer for Shiro if he was left in the care of the police while Kuro protected the block himself. Without Shiro around, though, Kuro’s decent into insanity soon leads to Kuro meeting The Minotaur, a violent being much like Kuro himself. The Minotaur turns out to be Kuro’s own dark side, created because Kuro was struggling with his conflicting desires to fight and to run, and the movie culminates with Kuro fighting his own darkness, in the form of the Minotaur, to try and keep his sanity. The internal struggle between reality and emotion is similar to the fight between Frog and the Worm in Super Frog Saves Tokyo.

                In Super Frog Saves Tokyo, I think Frog and Worm are a manifestation of Katagiri’s own frustration in the belief that he’s doing a thankless job and no one will ever appreciate him for it. He gets no respect because he’s just the one that cleans up everyone else’s messes. The tragedy of the Kobe quake has the topic of earthquakes on his mind, and also has him thinking about what his life means. If he were to die in a freak accident like an earthquake, would anyone miss his existence? Would he be satisfied with his life? Frog and his quest to save Tokyo from the massive earthquake worm is about to start is a metaphor for Katagiri’s own fight with his conscious over whether or not his life has any worth. Worm is the insanity, the beast within him that is frustrated with how little he gets recognized for the efficiency and efficacy with which he does his job. Worm, who doesn't have any senses except feeling and doesn't have any emotions except rage is a good metaphor for that frustration in Katagiri's subconscious. It’s been slowly building up, much like Worm’s rage slowly building up from the small vibrations all over Tokyo. Frog is the good, sane part of Katagiri, who accepts that the job is thankless, but he has the capacity to do it, and for the sake of the rest of the people of Tokyo, it must be done. Even though no one realizes his worth, he does it because someone needs him to do it, and there isn’t anyone else that can take his place.  Depending on who wins the battle, one side of Katagiri’s emotions or the other will take over. Katagiri doesn’t actually fight the battle, but both sides of the confrontation are manifestations of his subconscious.

                 In both Tekkon Kinkreet and Super Frog Saves Tokyo, the main character goes through a mental battle with their own emotions. The attempted hostile takeover of Kuro’s homeland and the Kobe earthquake are the two events that start the characters down the path which will eventually culminate in a mental battle of emotions and beliefs. 

Sula and Fight Club

     During my initial reading of Sula, I began to wonder about what kind of things I should try to find connections to. At first, I kept thinking about events in the story and what they reminded me of. The childhood friendship between Nel and Sula that seemingly fell apart when their conservative and liberal upbringings collided reminded me of the story of Forrest Gump. The community-wide distain for Sula and the resulting rumors reminded me of Mean Girls. However, I began to realize the importance of themes in the class discussion. The strong imagery of Nel and Sula being two parts of the same person reminded me of the movie Fight Club. It was an unlikely match, but as I thought about it more, the more it made sense. Fight Club had two distinctive characters who mirrored Nel and Sula.

     In Fight Club, the unnamed narrator is a corporate employee of an automobile manufacturer. He leads an orthodox life and is wrapped up in his consumerism and set of Ikea furniture. His monotonous life coupled with insomnia makes his life seem like a blur. One day, the narrator finds his apartment and all of his material possessions destroyed by a fire. He calls Tyler Durden, a person who sat next to him on an airplane, and asks for help. They subsequently start to live and go out together. Later, they start a fight on friendly terms outside a bar. This single fight between two people grows into an underground boxing club. Then, Tyler starts turning the fight club into an anti-corporation rebel group called Project Mayhem. Tyler leads the organization into more ambitious tasks, culminating in the destruction of financial buildings with explosives. The narrator stands by and just watches. The big twist in this movie is that after someone greets the narrator as Tyler, he realizes that they are the same person, and Tyler is a projection of his disassociated identity disorder.

     I saw a connection of personalities between Nel and the narrator and  between Sula and Tyler. Nel believes in the traditional values of family and marriage, and the narrator blindly follows consumerism and his corporate job. Sula decides to ignore the obligation of marriage and having children, similar to Tyler's rebellion against mainstream values. Nel and the narrator spend their lives trying to achieve society's goals, but they never complete their family or Ikea furniture set. Sula and Tyler define their own happiness and live their lives without regrets, regardless of their impact on other people's lives.

     Certain events in the book reminded me of scenes from the movie as well. The part where the two girls mimic each others actions and combine their two smaller holes into a single larger one illustrates that they are very much alike each other. Analogously, the narrator and Tyler suffer from the same lip wounds after they fight, as pictured above. Furthermore, they are constantly drinking the same type of beverage. In this post fight scene, they share a beer and throw the bottle away at the same time. The second scene connection I saw was when Sula indirectly kills Chicken Little. Nel lacks remorse since she doesn't feel like she played a part in it. After Eva calls her by Sula's name, she realizes she is as much to blame for his death. The same goes for the narrator's lack of involvement with Project Mayhem; he realizes that he was the leader of the whole operation after a man calls him Tyler.

     Although the two plots are vastly different, I thought the characterization of Nel, Sula, the narrator, and Tyler were incredibly comparable. Both stories left me with the conclusion that if you let society determine your life goals, you will never be satisfied, but if you ignore mainstream values and follow your desires, your life will be your own to control.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, and Happy Chinese New Year!