Never Let Me Go Dystopia Essay

---ILLUSION OF A UTOPIA

Dystopias may be illusions of a utopia, either for the readers or, more frequently, the society depicted in the book. The government uses censorship, propaganda and other forms of manipulation in order to make people believe that they are living in a perfect society. This illusion can be also maintained through corporate or mass-media control, new technologies like robots or scientific methods, religious ideology etc. Sometimes the readers may think that they are reading utopian fiction because the author intentionally did not reveal dystopian elements of the society early in the book. However, eventually a hidden truth behind the seemingly perfect society is uncovered to shock the reader how easily he or she was manipulated by the narrative. It may be in a form of gradually disclosing the costs of creating a utopian world (e.g. restriction of freedom, full surveillance, removal the

In fact, I did not know what genre the novel is before reading it, so for some time I was convinced it is a slice of life story, maybe even utopian; we see an elite school Hailsham with a variety of classes, good teachers, friendly students etc. Only after revelations halfway through the book do we realize clones’ real fate and the truth behind seemingly utopian society. In the book humans do not want to discuss the role of clones in their society, they do not want to think of them as humans – society’s flaws are just not considered as flaws by these people. In “Never Let Me Go” utopia justifies the means - the costs of a world without many serious diseases thanks to organ transplants are clones’ lives. Clones are sacrifices for the “greater good” – well-being of the majority is more important than well-being of an individual. The scariest thing is that in the illusion of a utopian world believe not only people, but even