"So Never Let Me Go was published 20 years ago and there's a question that I've been asked over and over again: why don't the characters, given that they're living in a pretty dystopian world, rebel or escape?
This really seems to bug people. For a long time, I used to think this was a weakness of the book. But as the years have gone by, I've started to think this is part of the reason the novel has lasted and, to some extent, haunted people.
When I was writing the book, I was very aware of a huge wave of blockbuster movies and great novels that addressed the question of human rebellion against oppressive, authoritarian, or other systems. Sometimes it ends badly, as in 1984. And sometimes the rebellion is glorious.
But I wasn't so interested in that kind of narrative. What fascinated me was the extent to which, in the world outside of books and films, people usually don’t rebel. They don’t protest. Most often, they accept the hand they’ve been dealt and try to make the best of it.
Throughout history, people have remained in terrible marriages. They’ve done awful jobs all their lives. Millions of people worked in ghastly mines or factories, including small children. Millions more worked and died as slaves. And countless people have fought in wars they didn’t believe in or didn’t even understand.
The fascinating thing, for me, is how people respond to being dealt a really bad hand. Sometimes, if that’s all you know—if that’s the world you’ve grown up in—you cannot even see the boundaries you would need to run past. You cannot see what you have to rebel against.
Instead, people often try, sometimes heroically, to find love, friendship, or something meaningful and decent within the horrific fate they’ve been given.
So that’s the only answer I can usually offer when people ask: why don’t the characters in Never Let Me Go run away?"
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