Never Let Me Go Timeline Project - Spring 2025
Created by Amy Gates on Tue, 04/08/2025 - 13:11
Part of Group:
Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go takes place in an alternative "England, late 1990s". While some elements of setting are richly imagined, there is little connection to the places and events of the "real world." This timeline invites us to explore historical events that might have informed Ishiguro's writing or our interpretation of Never Let Me Go.
Timeline
Chronological table
| Date | Event | Created by | Associated Places | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| circa. 1942 |
To Be or Not To Be? Camus’ Existential Dilemma In 1942, French-Algerian philosopher and writer Albert Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, a landmark essay that helped ignite the existentialist movement. The work grapples with the absurdity of human life and asks whether, in a meaningless world, we should even bother continuing to live. Camus concludes that the struggle to live with meaning, even without clear answers, is what gives life dignity. His ideas became central to 20th century existentialism, influencing literature, art, and ethics for decades. I have been working closely and familiarizing myself with this concept for another project, and I think the reflection of how individuals must act and create meaning in a universe that gives them none is perfectly cotangent with Never Let Me Go. The clones’ quiet acceptance of their fate echoes Camus’s idea of the absurd: they know death is inevitable, and yet they still form relationships, remember joy, and try to love. Kathy’s reflections closely mirror an existential debate that life can be meaningful even without freedom or escape. While reading a little about what influences Ishiguro’s work, I noticed that he often writes about memory, and people living within quiet, heartbreaking realizations. It's an unfortunate perspective, but it blends naturally with existentialist ideas, making Never Let Me Go feel less like a dystopia and more like a meditation on what it means to live meaningfully, even when the ending is already written. This interpretation helps readers shift focus away from the science-fiction elements of the novel and instead see it as a deeply human story about navigating their mere existence with quiet dignity. A story of endurance. Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. 1942. |
Michaela Kitchen | ||
| The start of the month Summer 1948 |
The Rise of the Dystopian GenreGeorge Orwell's 1984 is arguably the start of the dystopian novel trend. It is considered a dystopian social science fiction novel, which is a very similar style to Never Let Me Go. George Orwell's novel explores the dnagers of totalitarianism. It focuses on the life of Winston Smith who rebels again the oppressive leader "Big Brother." It warns against an unchecked govenment, and these ideas are still embedded into todays society and culture. This novel had a great impact on literature, language, politics, and society norms. It paved the way for future dystopian novels.
It could be argued that George Orwell's never let me go had a great influence on Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go mostly in the dystopian novel sense. After 1984 novels questioning control and power were on the rise. While George Orwell's novel and Kazuo Ishiguro's novel aren't directly related, 1984 set up society where Never Let Me Go could thrive as people were accepting the dystopian genre. There is no way of knowing is Kazuo Ishiguro read 1984 but we may be able to assume because of it's popularity he might've, or atleast he might've known the basic premise or idea. Research: Nineteen Eighty-four | Summary, Characters, Analysis, & Facts | Britannica Historical Context (Never Let Me Go) | Revision World Image: |
Kaitlyn Wilfong | ||
| circa. 1950 to circa. 1991 |
The Cold War The Cold War was a period of tension between Communist countries and Western countries taking place after World War II. Although there was no physical fighting, the constant race to develop the best weapons and armies pushed each country to new scientific discoveries. In Western countries, Communists in the Soviet Union and China became labeled as "enemies." This dehumanization surrounded many Western countries. Because Ishiguro lived through the Cold War, he would have understood firsthand what that dehumanization would have meant. There is traces of this type of treatment in Never Let Me Go. Since they were little, the characters have the idea that they have this "otherness " about them. The division between them and the rest of the world only increases, especially as they figure out that people don't believe that clones have a soul. This dehumanization serves as an underlying presence throughout the book, and was verly likely influenced by Ishiguro's personal experiences. Cold War: Summary, Combatants, Start & End | HISTORY Cold War | Summary, Causes, History, Years, Timeline, & Facts | Britannica "Cold War alliances mid-1975" by Vorziblix is marked with CC0 1.0. |
Chloe Ingle | ||
| circa. 1980 to circa. 1990 |
Lounge MusicIn the late 1980’s, Lounge Music was making a revival that only really came into full swing in the 1990’s, when the novel was first being written. This was largely a global phenomenon, but there was a large constituent of the movement taking place in the United Kingdom, where Ishiguro lived. Lounge movement is described as having a very tranquil feeling, like you’re meant to be in the place that you’re in, which describes the ultimate fate of the characters very succinctly. They try to escape their situation, but fail, and don’t try to struggle any longer. They accept their place in the world, the cards they are dealt, and in a way, Lounge. This philosophy ythat the novel embeds within itself was prevalent from the very beginning, as well, because the novel started out as a piece centering around people who were Lounge Singers in the 1950’s, before being revised and reformed into the novel we know today. Freeman, John. “Never Let Me Go: A Profile of Kazuo Ishiguro.” Poets & Writers, 23 Feb. 2018, www.pw.org/content/never_let_me_go_a_profile_of_kazuo_ishiguro. “Lounge Music.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Feb. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lounge_music. |
Katherine Frazier | ||
| 1988 to 1990 |
Young British Artists (1988-1990's)
The Young British Artists were a group of artists who performed exhibits together, starting in 1988 and lasting through the 1990s. Some notable members were Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, and Michael Landy. Damien Hirst first organized an exhibition called Freeze in 1988, which featured art from students at Goldsmiths College of Art. The Young British Artists oftened used unconventional or unique items within their art. As an example, Damien Hirst used preserved dead animals for his pieces. This relates to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go because all of the children attend what appears to be a private school that values the arts. The Young British Artists were unconventional artists, and had their own exhibitions or "galleries" that the children are often taught about in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. As he lives in The United Kingdom, it would be unsurprising for Ishiguro to have heard of the Young British Artists as they were a popular group of artists from the 1990s who went far beyond tradition in order to create. There may have been a value in unconventional art, and because of this, perhaps with time, the children at Hailsham will grow into creating unconventional art. Sources:
Puffin11uk. "Myth, Damien Hirst." Flickr, 2 Oct, 2011, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nigelhomer/6214572655/in/photostream/. Accessed 12 April, 2025. "Young British Artists (YBAS)" Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/y/young-british-artists-ybas. |
M Deremo | ||
| circa. 1990 to circa. 2000 |
Organ Donation Controversy of the 90's During the 1990's (and part of the 80's), Organ donation was an important topic on the british public debate. On those years there were plenty of advances, like the liver transplant to kids Matthew Whittaker and Ben Hardwick (respectively 1984 and 1985), or the creation of the National Organ Donor Database on 1994. However there was also plenty of controversy around those years, with many people criticising the relationship between media and medicine on those years, arguing that many journalists became "recruitment officials for organ donors". However, the most controversial aspect was the existence of an organ trade between Britain and poorer nations, exemplified on a report of 1994, that exposed people from Madras and Bombay selling their organds to British patients for 200 GBP, while the middlemen of the deal was getting up to 12,000 GBP. Considering that one of the main aspects of the novel, is that the protagonists are clones created for eventually donate their organs to other people (specially from high social classes), its easy to notice that this controversy had some influence on the novel. Ishiguro may not have based on a specific case, but the fact that by the time he published his novel, organ donation was a constant on public debate for almost 20 years and the controversies related with it were particularly scandalous, it should be safe to say that there were some influence, and that the aspect of organ harvesting (basically the function of the clones on the story), was some sort of critic to this phenomena and particularly to the controversy of the organ trade with poorer countries.
Sources: HRW. (1994). China: Organ Procurement and Judicuial Execution in China. Human Rights Watch. Vol.6, no.9. Recovered from: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/china1/china_948.htm NHS History. Organ Donation, A Cultural History. People History of the NHS. Website: Organ Donation, a cultural history – People's History of the NHS Picture by DailyMail. |
Moreno Hernandez | ||
| circa. 1990 to circa. 2000 |
Spare Parts in High Demand: The UK’s Organ Crisis During the 1990s, the United Kingdom's National Health Service experienced a severe shortage of organ donors. With demand far outweighing supply and refusal rates escalating, public concern and ethical debates about how to increase donation rates became widespread. Government and medical professionals began exploring alternative options, including xenotransplantation, the transplanting of living substances from one species to another, as well as expanding donor registration. This shortage emphasized both the desperation for life-saving transplants and the ethical limits of how far science should go to meet that demand. Although, why incentivize donations when you can manufacture compliance? It’s reasonable for readers to ponder exactly how Kathy's society “solved” the organ shortage, and envision that scenario in reality. A market with no supply? Never Let Me Go gives us a bold solution: grow your own! Creating human clones as involuntary donors seems as real as any slightly-unhinged fiction. Yet, understanding that a place like the UK was grappling profusely with real organ shortages add’s historical, and theoretical, weight to Kazou Ishiguro’s kind-of speculative world. The novel becomes a haunting "what if?" scenario. Because seriously, what if? Nevertheless, acquainting ourselves with this history allows us to dwell in the thought that this novel isn't just fiction, it subtly poses as a quiet warning, a story grounded in real-world fears about the future of medicine, the cost of convenience, and the cost of humanity. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10101926/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1459557/ https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1997-05-20/debates/4f5637f2-dac3-4... "<div class='fn'> Kidney donor cards, England, 1971-1981</div>" is licensed under CC BY 4.0. |
Michaela Kitchen | ||
| 30 Nov 1990 |
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill of 1990: The Legality of Existence
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill of 1990 was set in place to regulate the creation, care, and the use of human embryos “outside of the body of the mother” (Embryo Project Encyclopedia). The bill was established so scientists could use human embryos outside of the mothers body for research for a limit of 14 days. The bill was heavily influenced by the 1984 Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology, which focused on the social and ethical impacts of infertility treatment, namely IVF, or in vitro fertilization, which was not regulated up to that point. In a parliamentary debate in 1990, the secretary of State for Health stated “the fact is there is no law on the subject. Researchers may legally undertake any research they wish on human embryos to create hybrids between humans and animals or attempt to clone individuals legally,” he goes on to say, it is only the researchers and scientists' integrity to adhere to the loosely defined regulations before 1990 that have prevented any attempts to clone a human or make some kind of hybrid. That was, of course, a big concern for them--this scientific advancement made it feel more possible than ever. A legal precedent such as The Warnock Report that debates the ethics, moral, and social implications of embryonic research ushered in the emergence of the field of bioethics; offering a sterile and legislative framework which opened up the moral debate over what is moral and ethical when it comes to embryonic research and regulations—it was no longer how, but when it happens, what will we do? And as science advances, how will the slow process of legislation keep up? Although we do not get any of legislative or scientific insight in Never Let Me Go, it would be interesting to know how the world of the novel navigated these boundaries, considering they went on to create actual human clones for medical purposes. The novels focus is not on any scientific specifics, much like Frankenstein, but it does evoke an empathetic response by readers for the clones (students) (at least it did with me), who many people in their world do not consider to be human at all. Hailsham students, and other students we don’t learn about, were brought into existence solely to serve others, to heal others, and their lives were entirely predetermined. The novel portrays the potential real-world implications, and mirrors what real-world people would have been feeling, what they were anxious about, their motivation for wanting to keep the students invisible, and surely influenced concepts like Never Let Me Go, and other dystopian sci-fi. The bill did not introduce cloning, but it normalized the debate, and created an open space to justify utility for research over individual human rights. In the novel, cloned students are bred solely for organ donation, justified by systems that view them as a commodity, not as people with thier own unique lived experiences, desires, and needs.
United Kingdom, Parliament, House of Commons. “Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.” Hansard, 23 Apr. 1990. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1990-04-23/debates/b6c69db6-663a-4a6c-8bb8-e7adc5883f0b/HumanFertilisationAndEmbryologyBill Zoloth, Laurie. “Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.” Embryo Project Encyclopedia, Arizona State University, 6 July 2008. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/human-fertilisation-and-embryology-act-1990 Anscombe Bioethics Centre. “A Briefing on the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) Consultation: Modernising the Regulation of Fertility Treatment and Research Involving Human Embryos.” Anscombe Bioethics Centre, 2023. https://www.bioethics.org.uk/research/all-research-papers/a-briefing-on-the-human-fertilisation-embryology-authority-hfea-consultation-modernising-the-regulation-of-fertility-treatment-and-research-involving-human-embryos/ |
Alexis Brown | ||
| 1993 to 1994 |
Britpop (1990s)
Britpop was the most popular genre of music throughout the 1990s. This genre takes inspiration from rock bands such as The Beatles from the 1960s and The Smiths who were popular throughout the 1980s. Britpop singers sung to melodic choruses, and the lyrics were direct and honest, which makes way for the audience to connect to the songs. While Suede debuted in 1993 as the first Britpop band, 1994 was when many Britpop bands began to get their starts. Some of these bands were Blur, Oasis, Elastica, and there were many more that could be considered "Britpop." In Never Let Me Go, Kathy is impacted by a tape called "Songs After Dark" by Judy Bridgewater. The album and the artist are both made up for the story, and the song by Judy Bridgewater that Kathy loves the most is even titled "Never Let Me Go." In fact, she dances to this song imagining a pillow case is her baby. Because Kathy is shown to have a love for the music she was exposed to, it felt necessary to write about what music was popular at the time in which Kathy was alive. As stated beforehand, she was only exposed to one tape, and this music is older as Kathy had only found it at a sale. Britpop is the current style of music that is popular in the United Kingdom at the time she is alive, even if she cannot know of its' existence. Sources: Levine, Alan. This Old Guitar. 2010. Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/4270950372. "The Story of Britpop." The Music Origins Project, 10th April, 2020. https://musicorigins.org/the-story-of-britpop/. |
M Deremo | ||
| The start of the month Summer 1993 |
Jurrasic Park
An American Science Fiction Film directed by Steven Spielberg: Jurrassic Park. Released in 1993 it took cinima by storm, now considered a classic, at the time it raised fears of cloning an entirely different, monstorious species: The Dinosour. In the movie, scientist found a way to clone these dinousours using a mosquito, they then put the dinousours in a theme park, and allowed civilians to wander it. The popular attraction took a turn when the dinosours escape due to a power outage and they start attacking the island the attraction is located on. The movie goes into detail about the cloning of the creatures and the dangers that come of it. This helps us get a sense into the novel and is another popular example of cloning in 1990's literature because it helps us connect to peoples fear of the advancing technologies, and the potential of cloning. Jurassic Park (1993) - About the Movie | Amblin https://www.bing.com/newtabredir?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nowverybad.com%2F... |
Kaitlyn Wilfong | ||
| 5 Jul 1996 to 14 Feb 2003 |
Dolly, the cloned-sheep Dolly On July of 1996, "Dolly", a Finn-Dorset sheep, was born. What made this so important is that she was the first mammal clonned from an adult somatic cell (at least publicly known). After this scientific achievement came to be, during the rest of the decade of the 1990's, and beginnings of the 2000's, the topics of cloning, bioenginering and stem cells became very popular, cointroversial and, overall, extensively discussed among scientists, academics, the mass media and general public. On that context, in 2001, at the time Ishiguro was writing "Never Let Me Go", he decided to drop his original idea of having the nuclear element as the center of his story and turning into cloning. On an interview made by the media, "Literary Hub", Ishiguro himself mentions that Dolly and the cultural phenomena that came from her birth, was an inspiration to include this element on the novel he was writing at the time. He even mention that around that time he heard a radio debate about biotechnology, as the thing that convinced him of using cloning as a central element of his novel. This give us a different perspective of the novel, as it help us to understand how it was defined by a scientific and cultural phenomena of the time in which it was being written, and that even the moral implications that came from it are present on the novel when analyzed.
Sources: Niemann, H: Tian, X: King, W: & Lee, R. (2008). Epigenetic reprogramming in embryonic and foetal development upon somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning. Reproduction. 135 (2): 151-163. Sexton, D. (2023). Simple, Sparse and Profound: David Sexton on Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. Literary Hub. Website: Simple, Sparse and Profound: David Sexton on Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go ‹ Literary Hub Picture by: Toni Barros (2009). Hello, Dolly! Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 License. |
Moreno Hernandez | ||
| 1997 to 2003 |
The Cloning of Dolly the Sheep
In 1997, a marvel of genetic engineering was made with the cloning of Dolly the sheep. She was the product of the first successful attempt made at mammalian cloning from a single somatic cell, which is a type of cell which isn’t a gamete or of any other such massive relevance to the genetic makeup. This was probably something that was close to Ishiguro during the time the novel was being written, considering this was achieved by a research institute in Scottland. The novel itself deals with the issues of cloning, and so it would stand to reason that this would have been a moment of serendipity, allowing the novel to blend itself in the cultural consciousness at the time and give the novel a realer feeling. If cloning a sheep is possible, what about people? And other such thoughts. Dolly also died during the time the novel was being written, the circumstances of which being somewhat similar to the conditions the characters face in the novel. “Dolly (Sheep).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_(sheep). Toni Barros from São Paulo, Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Katherine Frazier | ||
| 1999 to 30 Jan 2001 |
1999–2001: Alder Hey Organ Retention Scandal is Exposed
Between 1988 and 1995, pathologist Dr. Dick van Velzen systematically removed and retained thousands of organs from deceased children at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool—often without any consent from families. The scandal, exposed in 1999 and formally investigated by Michael Redfern, QC in the 2001 Redfern Report, revealed over 2,000 preserved organs, including hearts and brains, many of which had been taken without medical necessity or ethical oversight. Van Velzen falsified records, failed to conduct meaningful research, and destroyed documentation to conceal his actions. The coroner, hospital management, and the university affiliated with Dr. Velzen were included in the report due to their mismanagement and lack of care for the children and their bereaved family members. Every person responsible for oversight, which exists to prevent something this horrific, failed in their positions at the children’s hospital to protect the ethical boundaries of medicine, the children, and their families. The Redfern report notes the guilty parties' paternalistic and fragrant response to outrage from parents and the public. Though he was removed from the UK medical register in 2005, he was never criminally prosecuted. The scandal triggered the passing of the Human Tissue Act of 2004, this was a reformed version of the Human Tissue Act of 1961, which was unclear and outdated (Dr. Velzen completely ignored the parameters already written into law), established in detail: informed consent as a legal requirement for the removal, storage, and use of human tissue in the UK. The Alder Hay scandal uncovers the same sterile, utilitarian logic in Never Let Me Go; the idea that bodies—especially those of vulnerable people (especially children, in these cases)—can be used without consideration for their humanity in the name of medicine or science. Just as the Hailsham students are reduced to “donors,” the children at Alder Hey were treated not as individual children, but as repositories of biological material, solely for medical advancement. Both the novel and the scandal expose the consequences of institutional detachment, where ethics are buried, or ignored beneath procedure, and lives are quietly dismantled in service of others. Although the Morningdale scandal from the novel was most likely not inspired by the Alder Hey scandal, it is difficult not to see the similarities: a talented scientist seeks a secluded environment to experiment on children for medical advancement, "far beyond legal boundaries," as Miss Emily notes on page 264. However, Dr. Velzen’s intentions weren’t as clear as trying to create a superior race of children. I believe this real life scientific horror would have certainly influenced the novel. Just as in Never Let Me Go, the children (or “students”) were only as valuable as their disembodied parts. The horrific events that took place at Alder Hay are further evidence that Ishiguro’s world is not simply speculative, but it reflects how real systems have failed to protect the sanctity of humanity and how bureaucratic institutions do not holistically care about what makes us human, and reduce individual autonomy to a roadblock in their progress. Redfern, Michael. The Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry Report. Department of Health, 2001. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74a0b5e5274a410efd121e/0012_ii.pdf Bauchner, Howard, and Robert Vinci. “What Have We Learnt from the Alder Hey Affair?” BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 322, no. 7281, 10 Feb. 2001, pp. 309–310. National Center for Biotechnology Information, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119560/. “Alder Hey Pathologist ‘Stockpiled Children’s Organs’.” The Guardian, 6 June 2005. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/06/alderhey Kennedy, Ian. “Learning from Bristol: The Report of the Public Inquiry into Children’s Heart Surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary 1984–1995.” The Lancet, vol. 364, no. 9431, 6 Nov. 2004, pp. 1920–1922. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(04)17637-X/fulltext. |
Alexis Brown | ||
| The start of the month Autumn 2000 |
Designer Babies Designer Babies Designer Babies, or genetically modified babies, were first introduced as a concept in the 1970's. It wasn't until the 90's that the research was picked back up. In 2000, a girl was born with a rare genetic disorder called Fanconi anaemia, and she needed bone marrow from genetics that were almost the same as hers. The doctors used a scientific process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to make what some referred to as the "test tube baby." This was never repeated because of the ethical concerns surrounding the process. The designer baby controvery would have picked up right before Ishiguro released Never Let Me Go, and there are traces of it's presence in the novel. The reader infers that because the characters were created as clones, they had to be scientifically manufactured in some way. Many readers will see this cloning process similar to the Designer Baby process. The author creates this image in the head of readers to warn them amount the controversies and ethics regarding genetically modifying people. BBC News | HEALTH | Baby created to save older sister Designer Babies - Engineering the Perfect Baby
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Chloe Ingle |
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