Picture: In the movie adaptation of Never Let Me Go, characters Kathy and Tommy outside of Hailsham.
Here is a timeline highlighting the broader theme in Never Let Me Go, where individuals in institutional settings face unique challenges and restrictions:
Reflection:
Personally, the process of creating this timeline was very difficult for me. There were so many components that I had a hard time navigating and something as simple as the website crashing on me or glitching to the point where reading my own work was difficult. All that being said, creating the timeline for Never Let Me Go was a valuable learning experience that better deepened my understanding of the novel’s themes and helped me engage critically with outside historical contexts related to institutional control, and learning more about UNOS’s history. Constructing the timeline allowed me to approach the novel from a different perspective, and using different timeline events outside from the book was very interesting when relating it back to the theme of the book I chose which was the broader narrative in Never Let Me Go, where individuals in institutional settings face unique challenges and restrictions. Through analyzing how different events in real-world history parallel the more dystopian world Ishiguro constructs. By selecting three events being the establishment of Indian boarding schools, Canadian residential schools, and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), I was able to trace a different narrative of institutional influence on personal identity. This process helped me connect the novel’s themes with real-world issues, showing how institutions can shape and sometimes limit individuals’ lives.
One of the major learning moments for me came through the process of integrating diverse multimedia sources to provide context for each historical event. I had a very hard time with my original media sources being from articles and the link would never show, but after switching to youtube videos, not only were outside viewers able to see the media, but I also had three new videos teach me more about the subject at hand. Visual elements, such as photographs and youtube videos from real life people affected by these events brought each event to life in a way that words alone could not from an article. This multimedia approach helped me draw myself into the narrative, allowing myself to better visualize the physical and emotional impact of these institutions on individuals. This approach to digital scholarship encouraged me to think about how images, timelines, and texts work together to tell a fuller, more engaging story.
One more aspect from reading this novel that I tried to incorporate in my learning was integrating the author’s meaning behind the book in my work. We watched the short interview video of Ishiguro’s meaning of the novel which honestly changed my initial outside perspective on the novel at hand. In the video Ishiguro states that “the novel was intended to write a story about how love and friendship fit into people’s lives, particularly as they started to realize that time was short and that mortality was a fact.” He then went on about the overall theme of this being a metaphor for human existence being limited, and the story was more so intended to be about love and friendship in the face of mortality. I think after creating my timeline with this in the back of my head, I tried to incorporate events that affect generations to come. Viewing this novel through the theme of love and friendship makes you connect to the characters more so, making it easier for me to connect the novel to real-world historical events.