Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro can be compared to Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor as both pieces share a similar theme of differences being dehumanizing. In addition, both pieces also illustrate this theme by showing how the power of words play a huge role in emphasizing people’s differences which causes judgment and discrimination. In Illness as Metaphor readers are shown the two kingdoms that exist in society; the land of the ill and the land of the healthy. When describing the land of the ill, Sontag reveals how depending on the illness you had and what association people made with the illness, your treatment from others could be very different. We are shown how specifically, metaphors are primarily used to assess the illnesses of others and how these assumptions play a negative role in how people perceive the illnesses of others. These metaphors lead us to subconsciously discriminate against these individuals. Despite there not being any actual stigmas or thoughts against the ill, there is prejudice that is cultivated by these metaphors and that have detrimental effects on those who are suffering. These metaphors that Sontag discusses have the same effect on a sick individual as the words Ishiguro uses in Never Let Me Go, such as “donor” and “caregiver” as all the terms are dehumanizing and isolating. In Never Let Me Go, words such as “donor” and “carer” indicated that the person was a clone. These clones are only regarded as a medical advancement, not as a real person with a soul. It can even be said that the students’ condition has been labeled with the metaphor of an incubator as the kids are seen as nothing but organ holders who don’t have emotions, desires, and dreams. People don’t even acknowledge the kids as for where they get organs from. The kids are nothing but medical solutions. Labeling the students are “donors” and “carers” takes away their sense of individuality and humanity. The words and metaphors used to describe the kids separate them from the rest of society and creates the idea that these kids were only brought into the world for donations and cannot take part in anything that would prove them to be anything move. Another word that acts as a metaphor and strips the students of their human traits is “clone”. As “clones” they are separated and are said to not have souls. Society prefers to think that their organs come from a non-human source as it makes them feel that what they are doing is humane. The lack of humanity that society places on the clones hurts them emotionally, proving they do have souls and are just as human as those discriminating against them. In both pieces of literature, words and comparisons are used to dehumanize those in society who are different. Whether it be an illness that sets them apart, or their creation and overall purpose, certain words make the treatment of these people far worse than if there were just seen and interacted with as any other person.

Ishiguro’s novel has dramatically changed my view and thoughts about clinical work, patients, medical culture and the nature of care. For clinical work, the novel has made me realize how emotionally draining dealing with patients can be. For a healthcare worker such as a nurse or “carer”, you want the best for your patients and therefore you must be there to allow half of yourself to whither underneath the patient’s illness and also to give calm level-headed advice and conversation. This task is not only mentally laboring but places you in a situation where you must sacrifice a portion of your emotions in order to make your patients recovery or eventual passing even easier. As for patients, I can now see them as normal people. From this novel, I can see that patients yearn to just be treated as if they weren’t sick because they want to go back and continue to contribute to society. Initially, I felt as patients wanted to be babied, nurtured, and taken care of but in reality, they just want to either get better and become more independent or pass peacefully. Next is medical culture and the nature of care. These two categories have been clumped together because they both scare me. Never Let Me Go has had such a strong impact on me in regard to what I should expect from medicine the future. Reading a book about being able to solve diseases like cancer by creating a species of human that will have the sole purpose of supplying regular humans with organs is scary as practically, we would be able to many lives by curing a disease thought to be invincible, but ethically we would be farming a new species of humans. This divide between advancement and morality is a thin line that I feel will be tested in the near future. As a result of this question between ethics and practicality, the nature of how we care for patients and maybe donors in the future will be put up for debate. How will health care providers go about discussing unethical treatments with patients and how will this affect how patients look at the health care system. In addition, for our donors, how will we go about treating them? Will we treat them uniformly and procedurally, putting them through what can be considered an assembly line? Or will we treat them as humans and provide them with the best possible care until their last breath? These questions not only scare me but also confuse me. When you’re in a position where you want medicine to advance, and you want to be able to treat people to the best of your abilities, where would you stand in this debate if you also wanted to keep medicine as humane and organic as possible? As I grow as an individual and as a doctor, I hope I will be able to answer this question but for now, I can allow the questions to marinate in my head along with all the ideas provided to me in Never Let Me Go.

Last and foremost, the thing that is most challenging about this book is getting past the calm and collected tone that the story is narrated in. Kathy is nonchalantly telling us a horrifying tale of being an organ donor in a world where her humanity isn’t even acknowledged. It is hard to actually grasp the severity of her and her friends’ experience as the words on the pages roll off the tip of your tongue and fly off into the Netherlands. Reflecting after each chapter left me horrified after realizing what I had actually witnessed in the novel. I would definitely like to reread this novel at my own pace and eternalize every nook and cranny to create an even clearer picture of what happened. This novel is truly wonderful but is so easy to get lost in and misunderstand. It can be concluded that this novel can steer you in a totally different direction if one is not paying attention.