What if love can save us… A study of romantic love in the dystopian fiction Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Autores/as

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47295/mgren.v12i2.543

Palabras clave:

Distopia, Heterotopia, Corpo, Amor romântico

Resumen

This article was developed through a bibliographic study based on the concept of romantic love among clones in the dystopian society portrayed in “Never Let Me Go” (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro. The discussion on society and clones’ position is based on the theories of utopia (Trousson, 1990), dystopia (Vieira, 2010), and heterotopia (Foucault, 2009). The clones were regarded as a group of entities who were seen as less human or even non-human entities created to be consumed as organ repositories and discarded by the so-called real humans. The work debates how the construction of romantic love (Johnson, 1987) is depicted in this fiction, especially among the clones. The narrative exposes how the bodies are depersonalized, controlled, and subordinated by coercive strategies in that dystopian space. Romantic love arises as a way of surviving and as an attempt of nonconformity to face that society, that is, romantic love means a reaction and resistance against that social system.

Biografía del autor/a

Karla Cristina Lima Mesquita da Silva, Universidade Estadual do Pará

Discente do curso de graduação em Licenciatura em Letras-Língua Inglesa pela Universidade Estadual do Pará (UEPA). Integrante voluntária do grupo de pesquisa: O amor Romântico e suas variadas vertentes na literatura, arte e mídia.

Sandra Mina Takakura, Universidade Estadual do Pará

Dra. Sandra Mina Takakura (D. Lit.) é professora na Universidade do Estado do Pará, Brazil. É líder do grupo de pesquisa GFIE (Grupo de Formação Intermidialidade e Estilo). Seus interesses de pesquisa incluem semiótica da cultura e relações midiáticas em producões culturais em inglês, português e japonês.

Citas

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FOUCAULT, Michel. O corpo utópico: as heterotopias. Trad. Salma T. Muchail. São Paulo: N-1 Edições, 2013.

FOUCAULT, Michel. Outros Espaços. In: FOUCAULT, Michel. Estética, Literatura e Pintura, Música e Cinema (Ditos e Escritos III). Org. Manoel. B. da Motta; Trad. Inês A. D. Barbosa. 2. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária, 2009.

ISHIGURO, Kazuo. Never let me go. Chatam: Faber and Faber, 2005.

JOHNSON, Richard A. We: Understand the psychology of romantic love. HarperCollins e-books, 1987.

KARANDASHEV, Victor. Romantic love in cultural contexts. USA: Springer, 2017.

MARQUES, Eduardo M. de. Dystopian Britain: Critical Utopia and the politics of the body in P.D. James´s The Children of Men, and Kazuo Ishiguro´s Never Let Me Go. XIII Congresso Internacional da ABRALIC, Campina Grande, 2013.

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PARRINDER, Patrick. Utopia and romance. In: GREGORY, Clays (org.). The Cambridge Companion to Utopia Literature. London: Cambridge, 2010. p. 154-160.

TROUSSON, Raymond. Utopia e utopismo. Trad. Ana Claudia R. Ribeiro. Morus: utopia e renascimento (dossiê: utopia como gênero literário), v. 02, n. 2, 2005, p. 123-135.

VARSAM, Maria. Concrete dystopia: Slavery and its others. In: BACCOLINI Raffaella, MOYLAN, Tom (org.). Dark Horizons: Science fiction and the dystopian imagination. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. p. 203-221.

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Publicado

2023-11-19

Número

Sección

Artigos - Estudos Literários