What does art have to do with exposing
the soul? I felt that this was the biggest question for me when reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Never Let Me Go. I thought that this was
an interesting concept to focus on within a dystopic sci-fi story because it is
a rare occurrence for this theme of art, creativity, and expressing oneself to
be imposed onto the unwanted dystopic figures within the society. I understood
that in the end it becomes clear as to why these needs for creativity were
necessary in a matter of gaining rights for these cloned students, but I still
found it interesting that this sort of expressive activity was implemented onto
the students. It is so interesting because usually within dystopic societies
creativity and art are usually stunted and forbidden especially for those that
are part of the ostracized communities within these dystopic worlds.
During class we discussed how art is
commonly interpreted and used as a way of expressing one’s inner- feelings and
is in a way a window into the artists soul. Then someone brought up how the
students that are creating these pieces of art are not really expressing
themselves, but are generating things that they have been exposed to within
their classes at Halisham. This comment made me wonder about the uses of art
and creativity even more within the novel and how well it was utilized. The art
that was being described within the book seemed to be generic and seemed that
the content of the art was irrelevant, but the fact of obtaining the physical
object was what mattered, the idea of possessions was more important to these
students. I have contemplated why the idea of art was so important in order to
provide that evidence of the soul because art in itself is reliant on the
emotions from the artist, as well as the viewer. If the artist is not
emotionally invested into the content of the art how would this express the
soul and be a good measure for the soul, plus the audience for these pieces of
art have already preconceived notions of these pieces of art. As Miss Emily
says:
“So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people
did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince
themselves you weren’t really like us. That you were less than human, so it
didn’t matter…while that remained the case, there would always be a barrier
against seeing you as properly human” (Ishiguro, 263).
These people were probably rejecting these pieces of art due
to the fear they have regarding these clone students as anything but donors. That
is why this notion that art was used as the determinate to consider the idea of
these students having souls was weird because it was to me anyway, not a good
enough piece of evidence.
I do understand that this form of
factoring emotions within genetically produced beings is creative and definitely
original and an unused story plot, but I do not think it really worked due to
the fact that this dystopia seemed to force the idea that genetically creating
clones in order for organ harvesting is only an issue for a selected group and
that group was not even the (clone) students, but the teachers. This being said
I felt it was also a problem that the idea of “love” was not a bigger part
within this project to determine whether these beings had a soul. Ishiguro even
makes a story line where the clones hear a rumor about if they can prove their
love with another student that they can get a deferral from starting their
duties as donors. I felt that showing human emotions would be more of an
indicator whether something has a soul.
The teachers within Halisham never
restricted the students from forming relationships with each other, except students
regarding homosexual relationships as unspoken. The idea that love and emotions
were not seen as a more sensible way of measuring the ability for one to be
able to have a soul is different to what I have seen before, but think this
goes back to this plot line being original or not. The idea that being able to
love is what determines whether a being, A.I or genetically engineered, has a
soul and can be considered human is perhaps overdone, but I think that story
plot is maybe less of a stretch when finding out if something has a soul. Also,
while I was reading, I had the story going in a completely different direction.
I thought that Tommy’s anger tantrums were going to play in a part in showing
his separation from the other students and the fact that he is not creative was
also going to be a sign of him not being able to follow/copy the things he is
shown in class, expressing true human emotions of resistance, and forming his
own human qualities.
I just felt that I got caught up in
the creative art bit of the story and I could not figure out how those pieces were
signs of a soul within the clones. I felt that showing human emotions would be
more of an indicator whether something has a soul. This was a problem for me,
but also while going through these ideas and trying to figure out how things
could end up I found greater disappointment. Either way, no matter what
indicators were used to determine whether these clones could have a soul or in
any way be human was out of question because they would never be seen as human
because they must always stay in that shadow of “not human life forms” to not
compromise human morality and backtrack medical advancements.
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