Challenging Conventions: C Period

This book might seem like it is so far out there as people are being cloned or basically grown for their organs, but actually the book isn't that far fetched. According to the facts from here , on average every ten minutes someone is added to the national transplant waiting list, and 20 people die each day. So is it so crazy to assume that someone in today's society, someone either with intentions to save lives or simply make money, would clone humans? Science today can do more than in years prior and with new technology, cloning is possible, and maybe the reason cloning was created in the first place was for a way to harvest organs. There are places in the world, including the United States, where people sell their organs for large sums of money. So it is possible that people would consider cloning humans to make a buck in a society today that is so focused on money and material possessions. According to the facts from here , in 2010 alone 11,000 organs were obtained from t...

Never Let Me Go V.S. Blade Runner Never Let me Go is a book that is based in a world where clones are vital to Health. The clones are grown from birth to adulthood, until their vital organs are harvested to be used by humans who are sick and in need of transplants. In the Blade Runner universe, there are clones called replicants that are used by society for manual labor. However one of the main things the movie covers is humanity. In the first movie, some replicants are rebelling and a "blade runner," the person whose job it is to hunt down and kill rogue replicants, tries to complete his job. In Blade Runner 2049, humanity of replicants is an even bigger issue, when one is said to have given birth, as replicants are sterile, this is a miracle. In NLMG Kathy is dancing to her favorite song Never Let Me Go, which she believes is about someone who is sterile becoming pregnant, and celebrating the miracle. The number of connections between the two universes is mind-blowing....

In many ways, I can compare the novel "Never Let Me Go" to the latest Star Wars film, "Rogue One" because both main characters are in a situation where they are sucked into a life that decides their fate and are forced to live it.  In the film, the main character, Jyn Erso is recruited by the Rebellion to steal the Death Star plans; in return, she will not be punished for her previous actions in crime (so if she turns the offer down, she will be arrested), most likely induced by the fact that her tech-savvy father was taken when she was young so he could make the plans for the Death Star.  In Never Let Me Go, Hailsham students like Kathy are born into a life where they are essentially science experiments and donate their organs to die.   Furthermore, t hey both know they will die in their ultimate fates; Jyn in Star Wars is on a suicide mission to save the chances of the Rebellion against the Empire and Kathy is faced with the fact that her organs will be taken ...

Jenna Blocher Ms. Schieffelin MLMG Connection                                                           Thalidomide vs. Cloning In the novel Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, the entire plot is based off of human clones. Later in the book, readers hear about the Morningdale Scandal. Miss Emily tells Tommy and Kathy, "He carried on his work in a remote part of Scotland, where I suppose he thought he'd attract less attention. What he wanted was to offer people the possibility of having children with enhanced characteristics... but a generation of created children who'd take their place in society. Children demonstrably superior to the rest of us? Oh no. That frightened people. they recoiled from that." (p.264). In the outside world, there was a situation that had some similarities to this. Throughout the Holocaust, the drug Thalidomide wa...

Throughout Never Let Me Go, we constantly debated the topic of whether it is okay or not for Kathy and her friends to have their organs harvested in this dystopian setting. Although we know that this is simply a story and nothing more, this is a serious issue in the real world today. In this article by Dale Archer,   he discusses the serious issue of organ harvesting throughout the black market globally. Archer explains the various issues in regards to organ harvesting, such as young children and teenagers suddenly dying because of organ harvesting. He states that many of the "clients" that needs these organs are wealthy, greedy, middle age men in need of an instantaneous transplant. Archer also notes that this organ harvesting process can have ties to human and sex trafficking. The demand for such organs relates to nearly the entire concept of Never Let Me Go mainly because Kathy and her friends don't have a choice that their organs are being taken and they are essential...

Connecting NLMG to Trix You been Trix'd By: Will One of my favorite meals is breakfast, and I particularly enjoy cereal. Cereal brands are often marketed through the means of entertaining animated characters in commercials. These adverts usually contain a protagonist and a distinct villain. The villain usually wishes to indulge in the coveted cereal but is then stopped by the protagonists. For example, within the Trix cereal franchise, the villain is a rabbit. The rabbit always attempts to obtain the cereal but then is inevitably stopped by a group of children who chant, "Trix are for kids". This pattern follows through all of the different iterations of the commercial. The rabbit despite his freewill to create different plans to obtain the cereal, his fate will always be to fail in his plans and be foiled by the children. In this advert, the rabbit is waiting outside, painting an image of the Trix cereal, he then is lured by the scent of the voluptuous ...

The song Lean On Me by Bill Withers talks about the kind of friendship that Tommy and Kathy have. The some of the lyrics are "lean on me, when you're not strong, and i'll be your friend, i'll help you carry on." Kathy helps him carry on physically and literally. She is his carer and his true love. She is his friend when they were at hailsham and stays a constant friend later in life. She was the one who was always there for him and understood what he was going through. This connects to another set of lyrics in the song 'I just might have a problem that you'll understand" He literally leans on her when she is his carer. She takes care of him when he is recovering and prepares him for the next donation. The song's lyrics really explain the connection that Tommy and Kathy have.

One of my favorite podcasts is called Radiolab. Radiolab investigates interesting stories that often have a connection to something in the scientific field and I highly recommend it. They have a really interesting episode about  CRISPR  and ever since I heard about it I feel that it has been in the news quite often. CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, and it is basically a newly developed way to precisely and inexpensively edit a genome. Scientists have already been able to create mosquitoes that cannot carry malaria, corn that resists drought, extremely muscular beagles, and change the color of a butterfly's wings. In the next few years they believe that they will be able to cure blood diseases like leukemia and lymphoma. Scientists also anticipate that pigs will soon be developed that will be able to host human organs to be used for transplants. CRISPR can even be used at an embryonic stage when parents would be able to choose desira...

Never Let Me Go is similar to the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas because certain people were being treated inhuman and like animals. Although the settings are drastically different where one group is being fed and nurtured, while the other group is being forced to work while being starved and punished, the people around the situation do not do anything about what is going on and watch as if there is nothing wrong. The teachers at Hailsham watch as the children grow up and plan their lives when they know the truth is they are only useful for their organs, and the surrounding families of the soldiers know what is going on and they keep living their lives as if everything is normal.

In this video , aging is explained and it also talks about ways to suppress the effects of aging and also how to possibly extend the lifetime of a person, by taking important substances or objects from one person and giving it to another. This is like a real world version of the donations, but it would not kill the donor, due to the body's ability to produce them. NLMG has the extreme version of this where instead of trying to heal people's vital organs or other body parts, they are simply replaced. The methods that are explained in the video would not be able to cure as wide of a range of issues that replacing organs could, but theoretically would be able to subdue some.

This Vice news video In Bangladesh, poor people will illegally sell one of their kidneys to make more money. The wealthy will find poor people with healthy kidneys and will pay them a lot of money (more money than they will probably ever make working a farm) for their kidney. There is also a global illegal organ trade where wealthy people travel to impoverished areas in search of those willing to donate organs for money. This obviously relates to Never Let Me Go because the characters are donating their own organs, however for them it is not optional.

I listened to  this episode  of Studio 360 (a great podcast that tends to focus on pop culture and the arts )  the other day on my way home from school, and it seemed so relevant given our discussions of the role of creativity at Hailsham. Give it a listen (either in its entirety or in segments) if you're interested. You can also search for it in your Podcast app on your phone. I also came across this article:  "Creative Collaboration is What Humans Do Best" by  Agustin Fuentes in the New York Times Magazine . Fuentes recently wrote the book: The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional, and this short article distills some of the most important ideas from the book. Fuentes argues: "Creativity is not a private endeavor vested in a single person or a select group of people. It is not solely about genius in the arts or sciences, or actions by prominent artists, celebrities, or politicians. It is not even limited to the work of particu...

What do you think the students thought when Mrs. Lucy admitted to smoking and when she said it was worse for them then for her?

Why do you think Ishiguro gave the big reveal in the way that he did? Is this the most affective way to deliver this reveal?

How does the environment of Hailsham affect Ruth and her personality?

Why does Kathy H. sometimes say that what other people say is not correct when she is telling her little stories/anecdotes?

Over time, Kathy forgets aspects of events in her memory. This affects the way she remembers people, places, and events. How does she fill in the blanks? Does she fill in the blanks?

When Tommy flees the dormitories to escape being taunted about his elbow injury, why is Kathy so concerned about him keeping his temper? How would the situation have changed or escalated had Tommy lashed out? What it is about his tantrums that creates problems for Tommy in the eyes of other characters?

How does Kathy's perception on certain events change due to it not happening in the present, but rather her living events over years later? Use examples from the text.

In these chapters the children are told that they are growing up to have there vital organs harvested, and that they are infertile. This brings up questions of Kathy's job as a carer, how are doners able to survive without vital organs?