Center of Consciousness: A Study of Narrative Strategy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Abstract

This thesis explores the center of consciousness, a study of narrative technique in Never Let Me Go, a novel written by Kazuo Ishiguro. It portrays the complexity that exists in the life of human clones. One of the major characters, Kathy is presented as focalizer, the center of consciousness through whose perspective the events, thoughts and feelings are brought into focus. She narrates those events to the readers which she has experienced herself. Therefore, the characters and events are presented as they are perceived or understood by her. All theinformation that is presented in the narrative reflects the subjective perception of Kathy. So, there is the lack of omniscient voice. The narrative is expressed through the perspective of the fixed internal focalizer. The narrator accepts the fact of human cloning which contradicts to the author so he uses unreliable narrator in the text. It reflects the gap between author’s intention and narrator’s perception.This paper has studiedthe novel in the light of Genettean notion of focalization, a perspective through which a narrative is presented to the audiences. Similarly the concepts of focalization by Rimmon Kenan,Mieke Bal and Seymour Chatman are applied in the text. The study also reveals that the readers should be self conscious to understand the actualtruth becausethere is the distance between author and narrator.The author does not glorify human cloning as the narrator does. So heuses unreliable narrator in the text to presentthe narrative ironically.