The Connection Between The Novels Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and 1984 by George Orwell

How does 1984 reflect on Never Let me go? These two literary masterpieces have in common, and reflect on each other in many different points of view, but how?

There is a social stratification, from the most powerful to the weakest. Above the pyramid is the Big Brother, whose function is to act as a crosshairs for everything. The members of the Inner Party (upper class), then the members of the Outer Party (middle class) and finally the Proles (lower class). We can observe one more group, but isolated from this classification, which are the mass of slaves, from the equatorial lands, which constantly pass to the victor. The sacred principles of Ingsoc: Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure forever? In this society there is no religious alienation, since religious practice was prohibited.

The offspring are not aware of the strength they possess and the members of the party are blinded by their dominant ideology.

There is an inequality of classes in relation to the goods they own, we can see that the offspring barely have food, while the members of the Inner Party enjoyed all the privileges that the other classes did not possess.

There are also inequalities about social status, because of belonging to a certain sector of the Party (internal or external) or because they do not belong to it as the offspring.

The only difference that is not found in this society is political differentiation, since there is only one party, there are no discrepancies.

Nor is there social mobility, the horizontal one that encompasses migrations, it cannot be given because the three powers, reflected in the book, are in a state of permanent war. The vertical, if possible, because it does not depend on the assets that one owns, but depends on an examination (which was done at age 16), based on this, we can deduce that there is no transgenerational descent or descent, because Membership of these three groups is not hereditary.

The power is exercised by the Inner Party, the Big Brother being an image that is projected so that the people focus their attention, their devotion and their fear. The only faculty that the outside party has is to comply with the orders that arrive from above.

There is a total management of the population inducing them to think and remember what the Big Brother says, a society that lives in fear and terror, who has no mental capacity to discuss, confront and if they had it, they were killed. A totally alienated society, to which they have stolen their ability to decide.

A sad, disconcerting and hard story that analyzes from an almost cruel perspective the memory, family ties and invisible pains that sustain the possibility of the future. For Ishiguro, the future is a recombination of small terrors and hopes in a much broader perception of the ethical and moral identity of culture. Above all, the novel raises all kinds of questions about what we consider ethical, moral and the invisible sufferings of transgression. The result is a deformed mirror in which the notion about the individual and contemporary loneliness is reflected from a dark point of view. There is neither simple nor pleasant in this great image about a society divided and fragmented from the invisible horror. And much less, about the conception of identity as a control tool.

The plot progresses with good footing, full of secrets that are unveiled slowly and with a good pulse and a notion about the enigma that gives great solidity to the entire speech of the novel. The pessimism that is guessed between the lines? - Ishiguro does not hide the pain and fear behind the small anecdotes he tells? - It works as a catalyst for deeply heartbreaking existentialist dilemmas. It is not a question of classical Science Fiction - although its core is based on speculation - but of a philosophical and elementary view of good and evil under a complex symbolic substrate. The unease of mortality, the transience of life and even such subtle issues as loss and uprooting are analyzed under a progressive, sensitive and moving aspect that turns history into something more than a look towards a tragic future.

Although paranoia and distrust of technology are elements present in the novel, it is the least important in an intimate, deeply felt and intuitive narrative. The great questions of the human being overlap each other until creating layers of meaning that the writer uses with enormous elegance. It is also a point of view devoid of all religiosity: the perception of existence does not need to be sustained on the possibility of the divine or the mysterious. And that is perhaps his greatest plot triumph.

Because Ishiguro seems very interested in exposing the reverse of formal ideas about goodness, evil and ethical motivations that hold the world as an ideal. And it does so, with a basic conclusion about human identity: our mind aspires to a superior idea that is not necessarily magical or divine. From there, Ishiguro conditions the tragedy of his characters as a mixture of analysis and conclusions about the context around them. But in the end I managed it, and the instant I saw her again, at that recovery centre in Dover, all our differences — while they didn't exactly vanish — seemed not nearly as important as all the other things: like the fact that we'd grown up together at Hailsham, the fact that we knew and remembered things no one else did. With impeccable stylistic precision, Ishiguro builds a stage of pain and sadness that seems more interested in what he suggests? In that slow succession of small tragedies and seemingly simple discoveries? Than in what he shows. I can see now, too, how the Exchanges had a more subtle effect on us all. If you think about it, being dependent on each other to produce the stuff that might become your private treasures — that's bound to do things to your relationships.

The characters seem trapped in the midst of a terror that is announced and that understanding of the invisible as a form of bucolic suffering and devoid of all stridency. The writer dares to show the penumbra hidden in the history of pieces, with all the elementary intention of sustaining a terrifying premise that is made almost unbearable by its clear approach. Ishiguro does not hide the cynicism that underlies the story and that double discourse? The obvious and the symbolic? Which gives his novels his most complex and painful moments.

This is how they resemble each other, by sharing the main idea of dystopian society, revolution, anger, hate, love, and the urge to make a change.