Conditioned Insularity in Kazuo Ishiguro's Novels The Remains of the Day (1989), Never Let Me Go (2005) and Klara and the Sun (2021)

Abstract

This thesis investigates how the lives of the protagonists in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun are shaped by ‘conditioned insularity’. Through the lens of various theorists, including Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, the study examines how myth, ideology, environment, language, cultural media, ‘obfuscated intelligence’ and language work in concert to program Stevens (a butler), Kathy (a clone), and Klara (a robot) into compliance with oppressive systems. Despite differences in setting and ontology, all three characters exhibit a haunting passivity; they are loyal to the systems that commodify their bodies and stifle their agency. This research highlights how Ishiguro’s restrained narrators reveal the mechanics of consent, complicity, and socio-political conditioning, and how these insights reflect real-world labour relations.