Julia Kristeva’s essay is on the concept of abjection. Abjection means where a person or society casts off an entity or set of entities that it wishes to place outside of the self. The individual or society places it “beyond the scope of the possible the tolerable the thinkable (1). the abject has “only one quality of the object that of being opposed to I.” There are various types of abjection. Kristeva says “food loathing is perhaps the most elementary and most archaic form of abjection.” The ego of the individual expels things which are disgusting away from the self.
We are all born unable to distinguish between ourselves and the outside world. We look at ourselves as being one with our mothers. To establish the self, we need to have some way of distinguishing ourselves from our mother. We form our ego by a series of abjections from things in the world. One of the things we need to expel from ourselves is the idea of death. Corpses are thrust aside by the psyche as something repulsive. When you see something dead, you don’t just understand it as a rational thing, but rather it is something you drive out of your psyche. The confrontation with the corpse is a form of abjection. The corpse represents more than just a rational idea of death. It is something that is thrust out of the psyche.
Kristeva holds that when a person expels something from their consciousness, they put in a realm beyond meaning. Abjection functions in a realm where meaning collapses. It is not just that a person doesn’t think about the abject object. They put it into a realm that is beyond symbolic meaning. There are certain concepts in language that are based on subject and object. In abjection, the distinction between subject and object is lost.
In “Never Let Me Go”, Ishiguro paints a picture of a society that creates clones solely for the purpose of using their body parts to fix people as they get older. These clones are called donors because their sole purpose is the harvesting of their body parts. These clones are looked at as being without souls. As the novel says, “and none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you are even middle aged, you will start to donate your vital organs (81). That’s what each of you was created to do.” The clones are looked at as being subhuman. They are the Other. This is a form of abjection for the society at large because the clones have no other purpose than to become donors for the “regular people.”
The clones go to a special school called Hailsham. They are separated from the rest of society. There is a parallel between the clones and how outcast people are looked at in society today. Unfortunate people are not looked at just as people who are less fortunate than the people in regular society. They are looked at as being subhuman. This is in line with Kristeva’s idea that abjection is not just a rational evaluation. It is a type of expelling something from the human ego which is the sense of self.
Both Frankenstein and “Never Let Me Go” have themes of abjection. In Frankenstein, the monster is an outcast because of his grotesque physique. In Never Let Me Go, although the clones are not ostracized because of their physical appearance, they are still considered outcasts because of their position in society. They are only considered to be useful for harvesting their organs. They are not considered to have a soul. Although both were created by man to mimic human beings, they were treated with such animosity and repulsion.
However, Hailsham is not just a storehouse to store clones in. It is a special program that tries to enrich the lives of the clones. The program there tries to locate the humanity in the clones. There is an effort to inspire creativity in the clones. For example, the clones produce art work that is later sold at exhibitions. The art work is inspected to try to see if the clones love some particular person. This was important because the experience of love is a sign of their humanity.
The question is if the society doesn’t value the clones as humans, why does it try to find humanity in the clones? It seems that Ishiguro was trying to portray the ambivalent feelings that the society had about the clones. On the one hand, if society denies the humanity of the clones, then it denies its own humanity. On the other hand, society needs to deny the reality of death and continue to use the clones for body parts. This creates a conflict for the human ego. In psychology, there is a concept called cognitive dissonance. The human mind cannot tolerate contradictions in the way it conceptualizes things. It must adjust its concepts to be harmonious with one another. So, society needed to experiment with whether or not the clones possess humanity, but it came out with the conclusion that they really were not human.
Another question is why the clones accepted their fate so readily that they were going to die from the donations. It is true that they were excited about the possibility of deferral but, for some reason, they didn’t protest their fate to die for organ harvest. It seems to be that Ishiguro uses this story as a metaphor as a way to portray the inevitability of society’s attitude. In other words, in order for society to live, they have to consider the clones to be subhuman otherwise society would fall apart. This is symbolized by the strange acceptance on the part of the clones that they are only valuable for the harvesting of their organs.
To conclude, we see that Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” portrays the concept of abjection throughout his book. The book is about the ambivalence that society feels for the other and the outcast. There are two types of abjection that are contained in Ishiguro’s work. There is the social abjection of the outcast in society and also there is the abjection of death. Society needs to have outcast members to build its ego. Also, the clones are looked at as being something like the walking dead because people are repulsed by them. As Kathy says “Madame never liked us. She’s always been afraid of us. In the way people are afraid of spiders and things” (268).
Discussion Questions
1.Do you think the clones are human?
2.Why did the donors have to die to fulfill their job description? Why couldn’t they donate some of their organs which would allow for their survival?
3.Why is the book called “Never Let Me Go”?
Works Cited
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.
Kristeva, Julia, and Leon S. Roudiez. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Print.
15 replies on “The Power of Abjection”
In my opinion, clones are human, however, they are raised growing up with this daunting fate that they are simply “sheep” waiting to be harvested for the desire of their organs despite their close resemblance to humans.
The donors were cloned in the first place to have an inventory of readily available organs for those who would need them. Thus, donors are required to donate multiple organs, which in result causes their death after losing multiple organs. Donors weren’t cloned for the purpose of donating once and living a life afterward, they were primarily designed to be used as a storage of organs that are readily available whenever desired.
The book title comes from Kathy’s favorite song on a cassette tape which she purchased at an event. The lyrics from the song correspond to the book’s title.
The human body is made up of a system of organs that work together to keep us alive and well every day. I think that the doners had to die in order to fulfill their job description because if each doner were to give the same set of organs that allowed them to live, the human society and “regular people” in need of their organs wouldn’t be successful with human cloning and the doners would not fulfill their purpose. Some of the doners last longer than others depending on how well their operation goes, and most like to “complete” or die by their third donation because at that point they are not healthy and are living in pain. As for these doners, they were brought up in a house and community that gave them life, and sadly the only life they knew. The outside world beyond the Hailsham house was unknown, and therefore the Hailsham house was all they knew. When Ms. Lucy tells them of their fate it sticks with them and some like Ruth and Kathy become intrigued by the job of a carer.
There is a reoccurring question throughout this unit about the humanity of something of something that seems human but has not come from where humans come from traditionally. Whether it is Frankenstein’s creature, the clones in Never Let Me Go, or the Crakers. Is something that was created by humans and that seems human, a human. I believe this ultimately breaks down to the question of a soul. Is the ability of something to be self-aware and capable of reasoning enough to consider one a human or perhaps, regardless of one’s mental abilities, does one need a soul to be considered human. I think regardless of whether we consider these creations to be human or not, we should treat anything can feel emotion or pain with compassion.
The clones were originally made to just be useful for giving organs to real humans. I think that in the beginning, they aren’t looked at as humans by their creators. They are simply created to give away their parts until they are no longer needed, like machines. I think that this is wrong, considering that they have thoughts and feelings like “original” humans. This aspect reminds me of Frankenstein, because the creature was made out of various parts and organs, and wasn’t really considered human by his surroundings. But, we see that the creature actually has thoughts and needs just like humans do. The reason that the clones die after they give their organs is because this is technically all they are needed for. I compare this to medicine. Medicine is made to make us feel better and take care of our illnesses. The medicine finishes its job once we feel better, and therefore is no longer needed afterwards.
Kazuo writes a lot of trivial things in the first part of this book. He creates the sense that the clones do and feel the same thing as “normal people” would do and experience. It would be too hard to say all the clones are human or not, but Kath seems like a normal person to me. Her feelings, emotions, curiosity, and friendship with Ruth are relatable.
The book title comes from Kath’s favorite song. I think it is also something that Kath wants to shout out to the world that the clones are also the children of this world, don’t leave them behind.
In order to determine whether something is human, we must first consider what a “human” actually is. If a human can be defined as the sum of trillions of cells organized in a particular pattern that perform certain functions and act in a certain way, then yes the clones are human. However, once the prerequisite of a so called “soul” is brought up (a characteristic that we claim defines us), it becomes difficult to give this same characterization to the clones. In particular, since there is no way to identify what exactly a soul is we cannot identify whether the clones are or are not human. This further brings up the question of whether it matters if they are human or not and if we should instead consider them as beings abused by an ignorant society that selfishly manufactures them for personal use
And as soon as we start bringing up the “soul,” we have to ask who gets to define what a soul is and who has one. Such intangibles become a way to excuse the existing order of the world without questioning who benefits from that order, and at whose expense — much as the clones have been raised to normalize and internalize the logic of their own oppression.
The people who inhabit this alternate world can rationalize it however they want, but they are human. Sperm containing human stuff + egg containing human stuff. Poof! Human. I don’t think there are any other boxes to check since we don’t know whether or not we are bodies that have souls or we are souls that have bodies. What they are doing is like going to the Netherlands, kidnapping a bunch of people and harvesting them for organs. The only difference is the clones have been conditioned to accept it. Of course, they have to dehumanize them in order to accept what they are doing the same way soldiers are trained to.
In my opinion, the clones are human. They are exactly like humans physically, mentally, and emotionally. Even though the clones do not live normal lives and are made to stay on the Hailsham grounds, they still have lives and experience feelings of happiness, sadness, love, sorrow, etc. They even express their humanity through the artwork they create. The clones are raised for the sole purpose to be used for their organs. Humans try to keep the clones sheltered from the real world and are brought up not to love. However, this cannot be controlled because the clones are humans with their own hopes and desires. In many ways the clones actually seem to have more humanity and empathy than the inhumane humans who run the clone experiment and exploit the clones for their organs.
And yet the clones are, in many ways, controlled. They never rebel. Tommy screams into the void on learning that the rumor of a love-deferral was nothing more than a rumor — and then he returns to the center to “complete.” Even when he and Kathy seemed to be dreaming the impossible, their greatest hope was to defer — not avoid — being killed for their organs. Why do you think that is? How do the non-clone humans maintain so much control over the clones? And do you think it might actually be related to the emotional awareness cultivated at Hailsham?
i Believe non clone humans have used the same old brainwashing strategies that are used today everyday. Depending on where you are from or what you believe in, we believe humans are on top of the food chain and our lives take precedence over everybody else or every other being.
Definitely has everything to do with the emotional awareness cultivated at Hailsham
I think the clones die and are not allowed to survive because they only exist so people can harvest their organs. They were not meant to live like ordinary humans and are not treated like ordinary humans. They are essentially human livestock. Like cows or chickens, they are raised until we can take their insides for our use. Instead of killing them and taking their meat for food, we take the clone’s organs. In the novel, I don’t think people see them as human. They are there for economic reasons, as organs are a valuable commodity. Just as most people don’t think about where their food comes from, people in this book likely don’t think about where their new organs come from.
i think clones should also be treated the same way as humans. They should not be treated as some sheep who will be killed later on. People believe that clones do not deserve the human rights because they are not naturally created. Also the book shows how clones were not shown as humans, people just needed them for their personal needs, which only means they only cared about clones until they were good enough to give their organs to others. After that they were killed which is so heartbreaking because even though they are clones, they have the same structure as humans so they should also have same rights and emotions like humans.
In my opinion I think that the clones should be treated the same as any other living being. I don’t think that they should be treated as if the only reason they are living is to serve one and only purpose which in this case is to use their organs in the future. I think that the clones should be considered human because they have all the same traits as a normal human such as emotions and all the other normal human functions.
I think the clones are human and that they should be treated like humans. They are human because they have emotions, thoughts and feelings. Also, if the clones are based on humans – then aren’t the clones human too? If so, the clones should have the same human rights as their originals/possibles and the freedom to make their own decisions.
In the book, the clones were treated as humans only at a particular school, Halisham. Halisham was school opened to try and prove to the world these clones/kids were human. This was the whole purpose of the Madam’s art gallery – to collect art to show the public that these kids had souls.