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Summary Compare how Shelley and Ishiguro make use of symbolism
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Example Prose Essay: Symbolism
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Example EssayCompare how both writers make use of symbolism
In the science fiction novels ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro and Frankenstein by
Mary Shelley, both novelists make use of symbolism to create a rich reading experience. This
is seen in both novels in how water symbolises peace and cleansing. Ishiguro achieved this
through using rain strategically to connote a cleaning of hope and fantasy, whilst Shelley
associates’ lakes with peace and baptismal allusions. Both Shelley and Ishiguro also use
synecdoche in their novels, and thus the characters of Madame and Victor symbolise wider
societal issues the authors saw during their respective time periods. This may have been
influenced by how both Ishiguro and Shelley wrote science fiction novels, meaning both
made use of the conventions of the genre to make subtle social commentaries. Finally, both
authors use the world around external world of their novels to symbolise their characters
internal traits. Ishiguro uses objects and settings such as the cassette tape and the ‘long,
weaving road’ to symbolise Kathy losing who she loves, whilst Shelley utilizes the setting of
the forest to symbolise Victor’s isolation.
Both Shelley and Ishiguro use water to symbolise peace and cleaning. Both novelists had a
personal link to water, as Ishiguro’s father was a well-respected oceanographer and Shelley’s
husband had a fondness to making and sailing paper boats. He also passed in 1822 from
drowning, which was before the 1832 rewrite of ‘Frankenstein,’ possibly influencing some of
the changes made. In Shelley’s novel, in Chapter 4 of Volume 1, Victor feels ‘free’ around
the ‘heavenly water’ and was ‘often tempted to plunge into the silent late, that the waters
might close over me and my calamities.’ This suggests water, specifically lakes, symbolise
peace and cleansing, though the verb ‘tempted’ with its religious connotations, may suggest
to the reader that this is an allusion to suicide. This may be true, however, having ‘calamities’
lifted after entering ‘heavenly’ water may also allude to baptismal practices. Although during
the 19th century many (including Shelley’s husband) were speaking out against Christianity,
everyone in England would have been familiar with the practice. These religious allusions
and symbolism is unsurprising, as it is a convention of the gothic novel. This is as the first
gothic novel (the Castle of Otranto) brought religious imagery back into England’s popular
culture. However, Ishiguro’s work is unlike Shelley’s as ‘Never Let Me Go’ is not a gothic
novel, but a dystopian one. A typical dystopian convention is the restriction of information
and freedom. Ishiguro conforms to these conventions by using water, especially the
‘downpour’ in Chapter 7, to symbolise the young ‘students’ being forced to cleanse
themselves of the freedom of imagination in exchange for information. In this chapter Miss
Lucy reveals ‘none of you will ever go to America, none of you will ever be film stars. And
none of you will be working in the supermarket.’ The anaphora in ‘none of you’ creates
emphasis on the fact none of the ‘students’ will escape their fate, creating a sense of
hopelessness. The students wish to go to ‘America’ and be ‘film stars’ are typical childish
fantasies, and thus are linked together in a sentence. Ishiguro separates the wish to work ‘in
the supermarket’ to emphasise to the reader that Kathy’s dystopian world offers no humanity
to the clones, as they are not even allowed to occupy occupations that would be seen as less
desirable or lower-class. The fact they are forced to play in the ‘rain’ directly after this
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