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Kazuo Ishiguro chose to write Never Let Me Go in the form of a novel. It was published in 1995 and was later nominated for the Booker Prize. It was a critically successful novel and was made into a film for which Ishiguro wrote the screenplay.

When analysing form in Never Let Me Go you can refer to:

• the type of text it is
• the style of writing

Evidence and explanation of the form used

Writing Never Let Me Go as a novel gave Kazuo Ishiguro the opportunity to develop his investigation into the important themes that he wished to discuss, such as identity and nostalgia. It also allowed him to look at the moral implications of human cloning and the way society treated the student clones. This meant that Ishiguro could also take his time over the presentation of characters such as Ruth and Tommy, who are quite complex characters.

The narrative voice used in the novel

Never Let Me Go is written in the first person and the story is told entirely from Kathy’s point of view. My name is Kathy H. I’m 31 years old. The action and characters are presented entirely as Kathy herself perceives them, And I realised that for Ruth and the others, whatever the boys chose to do was pretty remote from us... The reader therefore only finds out about events if Kathy herself remembers them and is only allowed to view the events from Kathy’s point of view. Kathy only informs the reader about the events she wants them to know about, so certain key occurrences may be kept hidden, therefore distorting the reader’s knowledge and understanding.

This requires the reader to do a certain amount of perceptive thinking of their own. For example, the reader needs to consider if Kathy can be trusted as a narrator. They need to ask themselves if she narrates events as they really happened or if she retells events in such a way that forces the reader to see them how she wants them to be seen. What reasons would she have for not telling the truth about certain events? This is an important question to ask when considering Kathy’s role as the narrator.

It is also important to look closely at the opening page of the novel. Kathy assumes the reader has a certain amount of prior knowledge about life in the society in which she lives, but of course they do not. This makes the opening quite confusing until certain details become apparent as the novel progresses. For example, the reader is unclear why Kathy does not provide her full surname, what the role of a carer actually entails, I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years, and what being a donor is all about, My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. The reader is also unaware what Kathy means when she says, I’m a Hailsham student – which is enough by itself to get people’s backs up. Kathy’s narration is intriguing, it provides questions but very few answers and therefore the reader is drawn into her narrative in their determination to find out more.