Examples Of Euphemism In Never Let Me Go

As a repressive government is tyrannically allowed to take over the minds of benighted masses, forced sacrifice becomes a tradition that is scarred into the working class, feeling helpless as the dying only find out their sole purpose moments before their undeserving death. “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro is a dreadful example that clearly indicates what can happen when society distinguishes two classes in complete contrast, specifically the exploited working class and the higher respected guardians who act as the bourgeoisie.

The novel is set in during the mid 1990’s in Britain and gruesomely portrays a world in which “humans” are completely stripped of their identity, remaining as a mere number, a duplicate, a nobody, and then left
But we didn’t really know what that meant” (page 69). The only purpose of these students is to serve the “human”. Regarded as non human bodies that are raised to a certain age in order to donate their vital organs and “complete”; a common euphemism for death that is used throughout the novel. Such an exceedingly cruel and barbaric system is almost hard to digest, which is built upon these entities to benefit the working class. Ruth himself lets his emotions get the best of him when he says “We all know it. We’re modeled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. Convicts, maybe, just so long as they aren’t psychos. That’s what we come from. We all know it, so why don’t we say it?”(page 166). Later on, Kathy also seems to question reality, question her value, and question herself, when she says, “Why did we do all of that work in the first place? Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we’re just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons? Why all those books and discussions?”(page 259). This torture and doubt going through the minds of these clones clearly show the lack of sympathy that the guardians have for them while they go to through the stress of a human, without actually being