The Potential of Art as a Means to Keep Inner Freedom in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

概要

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This paper explores the potential of art in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as a way of keeping inner freedom used by clones that are grown to harvest vital organs. In a facility called Hailsham, they are taught the importance of art. One of the teachers tells them that art shows the inside of their souls. However, the fact is different from what they are told. The works of art by students do not tell the details of their souls but just prove that they have a soul. These facts seem to indicate that art is not a direct medium to reveal the creator's inner life. According to Walter Benjamin's discussion, there are two different functions of language: the communication and the symbolic functions. He firstly points to the function of language as a medium to convey what a person has in his or her mind. He supposes that another function of language is to represent what is indescribable directly. Benjamin initially names this "the language of sculpture or painting." Therefore, if we consider the function of art in Never, we can define that it can represent what language fundamentally cannot tell. In other words, one can indirectly express the inner truth of him/herself without being known directly by others. In this sense, this novel shows a possibility that art works as a means to keep one's inner truth hidden from others.
英米文化学会の論文
2012-03-31