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War of the Worlds/Never Let Me Go, Never Let Me Go, War of the Worlds -…
War of the Worlds/Never Let Me Go
arrogance
of youth in NLMG
of knowledge in WOTW
being able to 'poke' at the martians without consequences, no winner in the battle - martians killed off by bacteria
chapter 1: 'no one would've believed... narrowly as a man with a microscope... their assurance of their empire over matter'
British imperialism vs extraterrestrial imperialism - domination is based on arrogance
imperialism relied on the coloniser 'othering' the colonised - contemporary readers would've struggled to see themselves as the Martians because they were not the 'othered', seems obvious in a post colonialist reading
chapter 8: 'the most extraordinary thing to my mind... was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong'
seems sarcastic and hyperbolic to a modern reader, martians vs the fall of social order, which is more extraordinary?
foreshadowing of later events
creates suspense - gets the person to keep reading, establishing early on that we're not going to agree with the narrator throughout
challenges the reader to be better than the narrator, suggests that the want to continue the social order is silly (both with a martian invasion and imperialism
people are ignorant, disbelief, cannot even fathom that this is going to happen
'our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events... it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence... the commonweal of mankind'
decadence = self indulgence or immorality caused by indulgence
the ending undermines the notion that only certain people deserve protection (views of the artilleryman)
of those in power in NLMG/WOTW
evolution
the bacteria killing the martians
the army finally being able to kill the tripods
Kathy and co. growing up
Kathy learning more about her origins etc.
the threat of the clones becoming more powerful than humans
the martians having more developed technology and strategies than the humans
value of human life
invention of clones to keep humans alive forever
humans assume they can overpower/defeat martians as they are the 'superior' race on earth
people are selfish in their fight for survival - ruining other people's chances (taking the wagon) or not helping other people (contrasted by the narrator's efforts in the river)
communication/dissemination of information
lack of language
narrator doesn't have the vocabulary to describe martian accurately because it's not something which has been encountered before - biproduct of a special situation
Kathy has issues talking about her feelings (emotional and sexual) because the clones are restricted in what they are taught on how to express themselves in order to repress them - intentionally inflicted
false information
the clones are taught about getting jobs etc. even though they will never be able to
rumour of 'deferrals'
the humans do not communicate properly and therefore only fragments of information are passed throughout the country
the newspaper spreads false information, particularly during the first few days
Formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the pit into which they have fallen, and, indeed, seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the earth’s gravitational energy
spreading of the truth
Miss Lucy?? tells the clones the truth about who/what they are - still isn't clear what she is saying (vague etc.)
we want to rely on the Narrator's narrative however it's hard to know if it's real or not - told in hindsight, suffers a traumatic event, not sane? (kills someone)
the other
clones referred to as animals 'swarming'
clones segregated from the rest of society
the martians literally being aliens - invasion by foreign beings
people who think differently to the narrator (such as the curate) are alienated/treated aa the other through his narration
the unknown
curiosity surrounding the martians/clones
pushing boundaries of what is acceptable
reader struggles to tell if treatment of clones is acceptable because there is no rule book on how to treat clones currently
reader struggles to come to a conclusion about the narrator's behaviour, for example, because there is no foundation to judge how to react to an alien invasion
morality
ethics
ethics of cloning and how we treat clones - to what extent are they human?
unravelling of the mystery of what the clones are - contributes to what the reader feels about the treatment of clones, what the characters know and what they don't know
moral quandary (like train tracks thing)
asks us to form an opinion on something there isn't a right answer to
defamiliarisation, donations, baby scene, porn magazines, norfolk
walls, 'swarming', forest
chapter 5: 'all we could see really was a dark fringe of trees... feel their presence day and night'
not wanting to leave because they are too scared to - therefore they feel things - animal testing/cloning (don't feel as much as we do)
the pull towards Kathy and Tommy's relationship feels like Ishiguro's sway towards condemnation of cloning
instead of a big rebellion showing the immorality of cloning, it's the little, more nuanced moments of humanity and love which show the reader this is immoral - Tommy and Kathy in the donation centre
ethics of killing someone else for your own survival
moral compass
is it really Kathy who is being wronged or is it just her narration which convinces us of this?
similarly, is the narrator the hero of the book or is that how he wants to be viewed by his own narration?
hierarchy
clones lower than citizens
Martians stronger, smarter etc. than humans
social hierarchy seems to fall apart during the invasion
the women in the carriage
perhaps if the clones were mad equal to humans, the social order would fall apart
clones kept in order by teachers but not oppressed by them
hierarchy of clones - carers, donors, students
fear
fear of the unknown
the society in NLMG is fearful of the clones as they do not interact with them and therefore do not know what they're capable of
fear of the Martians because people are unsure why they have come to the planet or what they want from the humans/how far the destruction is going to go/how to stop them
imperialist links - British fear of other cultures etc. because they are 'foreign' and the people look different to what they look like
fear of the other
again, the Martians do not look like the humans - literally aliens, symbols of imperialist fears of invasion - threat of superiority (cannot be stopped by military weapons)
fear of the clones as they are different to humans - threat of superiority
hope
rumour of deferrals
Norfolk (place of lost things)
potentials
porn magazines
the boat going to France
the army destroying one of the tripods
the narrator finding his wife at the end of the book
Kathy and Tommy's relationship
Never Let Me Go
identity
nostalgia/memory
friendship
scientific development
inevitability
loss
passing of time
maturation
growing up
societal expectations
wilful ignorance
free will
playing God
War of the Worlds
religion
survival
future
change
war and conflict
destruction of civilisation/subversion of societal norms (collapse of society)
strength of nature
imperialism
scientific development