Black claimed that the narration of Kathy was “casual，informal and boring, hovering beside the edge of being a human”(2009: 788). Kathy’s indifference to the massacres and deaths that took place around her reflected that she was lack of certainty, which was a measure that differentiated her from humankind (McDonald, 2007: 76).To a further extent, Liu Dan believed that Kathy’s tone was banal and ordinary (2014: 6). There was even sharper voice claiming that the readers could infer from Kathy’s narration that her “Lacking vocabulary, simple sentences, and incompetence to reaction to complex feelings imply Kathy’s emptiness in mind” (Deborah, 2006: 309).
For many critics, the language seemed to be a failure of the novel, and it was also the writer’s wrong choice. Kathy, the heroin seemed not be adored by many critics. However, some different point of views cannot be ignored.
Some commentators analyzed the language style of the book from the aspect of trauma. Kathy’s actions and words were all suitable for her. The author’s choice of language fitted the linguistic style and the identity of Kathy, a traumatized marginalized clone (Li Danling, 2013: 114).
Dreary, monotonous, boring, and even extremely lacking of vocabulary were symptoms of Kathy’s trauma--she suffered a certain degree of psychic aphasia under violent, painful conditions. And the language style was the effort she had made in order to break through the aphasia and to reveal the violence again (Huang Ying, 2013).
1.3 The Significance and Structure of This Paper
Part love story, part mystery, Never Let Me Go was a uniquely beautiful and troubling novel, with a profound emotional depth in it.Actually, the novel was not only a science fiction, but a memoir of Kathy. It revealed the evil things which humans did to the clones from Kathy’s memories and words. The readers could also gain some reflection of the meaning of existence from analyzing this novel.
So this article mainly helps readers to understand the characteristics and central idea of Never Let Me Go through the way in which the writer shaped Kathy. By analyzing the relationship between the characterization and the theme, the readers will know more about the characterization and can have a better understanding of this masterpiece of Kazuo Ishiguro.
This thesis will be pided into five parts. The first part is a brief introduction of Kazuo Ishiguro and Never Let Me Go. It includes two subtitles: researches at home and abroad, the significance and structure of this paper. The second part is about the characterization of Kathy. In this part, the author will analyze Kathy’s characteristics especially on the basis of the text and combine them with the methods of characterization. Part three mainly elaborates two themes of Never Let Me Go. The fourth part mainly deals with the relationship between characterization and the themes in this book. And there are two subtitles. The first one is first person perspective, sense of reality and sentimentality, and the second one is euphemism, forming a sharp contrast of human being and the clones. In the last part, there will be a brief conclusion of this paper.
2. The Characterization of Kathy
2.1 A Brief Introduction about Characterization
Characterization is the representation of persons, or other beings or creatures, in narrative and dramatic works of art. This representation may include direct methods like the attribution of qualities in description or commentary, and indirect methods inviting readers to infer qualities from characters’ actions, dialogue, or appearance. Such a personage is called a character.
2.2 Characterization Adopted in Never Let Me Go
The audience must infer by themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech, for example: the choice of words and manner of speaking, physical appearance, mannerisms and interaction with other characters, including other characters’ reactions to that particular person, which is the indirect characterization. Evidently, indirect way was widely used in Never Let Me Go. 论《别让我走》中角色塑造对小说主题的影响(3):http://www.chuibin.com/yingyu/lunwen_205924.html