Never Let Me Go, Never Let Me Go, Never Let Me Go, Never Let Me Go

Book covers can affect the way people interpret the meaning of the novel. The various book cover versions display different important aspects of the story. Kazuo Ishiguro takes advantage of this fact and with his novel "Never Let Me Go" there are many different book cover options. Below is my analysis of the four following book covers.

Book Cover #1:

The first book cover portrays a young girl sitting in a field. We can conclude based on the book cover that the girl on the cover is Kathy H. and that she is sitting in the field near the cottages where she stays. The intended purpose of this book cover is to highlight on the importance of Kathy H. as a character and a narrator.  This cover examines again how important Kathy is to the pace of the story and to how the reader receives information. Without the light-color highlighting on Kathy H. then the importance of her character would not be obvious upon first glance at the book. The greenery that surrounds Kathy demonstrates a fear of the unknown., The seated almost folded position that she is in also shows how submissive and scared she is of the unknown, and even though she is surrounded by something familiar, nature, she is nervous of what lies beyond the familiar. A similarity between this cover and the other below covers is that they contain spots of bright color in the center of the book. A distinct difference, however, is that this is the only cover with a distinct image of a girl on it. The various covers were created as a way to highlight the different important aspects of the story. The most important is the dichotomy of alienation vs. groups and the importance of this aspect to the development of Kathy H. as a character and a narrator.

Book Cover #2: 

The intended purpose of this novel is to present the ending of the book to the audience before the novel even started. The boat represents the beginning of the end for Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy's relationship. The boat was a place for the characters to experience freedom. After this trip Ruth completes and her relationship with Kathy and Tommy moves from her being the center of attention to her being the third wheel to the new couple Kathy and Tommy. The light colors of the center of the book act as a spotlight to the title that is presented in the center of the cover. This is similar to the book covers of three and four. Another similarity comes from the yellow hue that is present in the book that is similar to the covers of the book cover one and four. The difference lies in the fact that this is the only cover that does not display a person or body on the cover. This is to hint at the importance of the setting to the story rather than the characters themselves. The subtle hint at Norfolk demonstrates the author's need to emphasize societies lost and found items as well as the characters lost and found items. The diseases that plague society are the lost items and the clones like Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are the found parts of society meant to fix this problem.

Book Cover #3:

This cover's purpose is to subtly tell the reader one of the plot twists of the story which is that the characters are clones. Their purpose in life is to grow and stay healthy in order to be harvested for their organs. The dark colors amplify the eerie and ominous nature of the novel. The gothic literature aspects of the novel such as the gloomy decaying setting, the romance, and the broken society further amplify the dystopian nature of the novel. A similarity between this novel and the third book cover is the center-aligned nature of the title and how it attempts to amplify the meaning of the title "Never Let Me Go". The meaning is an urge to society to not forget their humanity the way the society in the novel has forgotten about Kathy. A difference between this novel and all the others is the absence of light colors on the cover page. There are only dark muted blues that seem to show tranquility which juxtaposes the overall nature of the book. The reason for this version of the cover is to display humanity in a very simple and toned down form. There is no individualism on the cover and it breaks humanity down to it's most basic nature, simply a cage holding organs to keep a body alive. No humanity and no individualism.

Book Cover #4:

The intended purpose of this book cover image is to highlight on Kathy H. as a narrator but not necessarily as a person. The absence of the person on the cover's face is to eliminate the humanity of the clones in the book. The yellow light-colored cover juxtaposes the nature of the novel. The placement of the title at the bottom of the cover highlights the importance of the blurry image on the cover. A similarity between this cover and book cover one and two is the use of yellow to highlight on the main focal point of the cover. Another commonality that can be seen between the book covers two and four. They place Kazuo Ishiguro's name above the title "Never Let Me Go" as a way to symbolize the importance of authorial creativity in a novel. A difference between this book cover and the other book covers is the minimalistic nature of the image. The main focal point is a blurry character and nothing else. This demonstrates the minimalistic nature of Kathy as a character while simultaneously showing the depth of the purpose of the novel. The reason this cover is different than all the other various covers is that it depicts a blurry Kathy on the cover. The reason that there are various covers is that Ishiguro is trying to communicate important aspects of the novel of the reader before the reader even begins reading.

Comparisons:

The first book cover that I decided to look at more in-depth was cover number one. The first few words that come to mind when I saw this cover were "isolation" and "nature." It makes me think of how before technology, before social hierarchy, and division there was just man and nature. It was simple and there were no problems like clones and disease and love triangles. Before reading the book the cover would make me think the novel was about a girl who was struggling with something in her romantic life. The girl is sitting in the middle of a patch of greenery surrounded by plants. The plants symbolize rebirth and fertility and her being in the middle of them represents either her immense fertility or lack thereof. After reading the book, however, I know that the book is about Kathy and her inability to produce because she is, in fact, a clone. Kathy is portrayed on the cover and therefore she seems to be the narrator of the story after reading this hypothesis was confirmed. The book seems to spark some cultural construction of the book regarding the way in which the social structure has an effect on people. The effect is that society makes people feel alone in a place where considerably one should feel over accompanied. People who felt they were cheated by society would be the ones to create a book like this, and those who are looking for companionship in a world that they feel alone are the ones who would read it.

The second book that I decided to look at more in-depth was cover number three. The first few words that come to mind when I look at this image are "solitude" and "human." It makes me think of how similar everyone is on the inside and how even though there is prejudice and discrimination everyone is the same on the inside. Everyone has a heart and a brain and blood in their veins. If I had not read the book I would have thought the book has something to do with someone who has a disease of their organs based on the almost x-ray image on the front. I would have thought that this is someone who has a terminal illness and is experiencing their last few moments before they die. However, after reading I know that the organ sketch on the front of the novel is actually an homage to the donors that the clones become, and these donations are their internal organs. The body that is portrayed on the cover is no one in particular however it implies that the narrator is supposed to the reader, that the reader and the narrator are one that the connection between the two is minimal. This book insinuates that the cultural constructs of this book are that all people are to remain part of the collective, faceless, non-individual. It forces the people that are part of the book to examine what their life is when they have no freedom to choose. The kinds of people that would make this kind of book are those that believe societal classes are the way to keep people from feeling like they are unique and original. The kinds of people who would read this book are those who try to find solace in the familiarity of fictitious people.