In Marxist ideology a Capitalist hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society dominated by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society so that their world view is accepted and imposed as the cultural norm. This is the case in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go where a system of exploitation exists in a world where clones are raised for the sole value of their harvestable organs. This hegemony contributes in a number of ways to the alienation and status of the protagonist Kathy. H as we see two separate societies co-existing. Ironically, it is the environment created to merge these societies together which furthers Kathy’s alienation, this being Hailsham itself, however the character herself contributes also as well as her fellow students due to their unwavering conformity to the system.

“What I’m not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save”.

This quote from Kathy highlights her awareness of her separation from mainstream society and slight rebellion in the sense that she is questioning if there was any true reason for her alienation. The organ donation program was created with the premise that the clones owe their lives to society, and that they should be willing to sacrifice them so it is clear the protagonist and the other clones are living their lives for someone else. This immediately places them at the lowest status within society through the lack of control over their own lives and this is most highlighted to the reader through the character of Miss Lucy.

“You’re not like the actors you watch on your videos, you’re not even like me. You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided.”

The clones are unable to change their fate, however this does not prevent them from having their own dreams and goals, for example, Ruth’s aspiration to work within an office and, later in the novel, Kathy and Tommy’s wish to postpone the donor process in order to have more time together. These dreams and goals are symbols of their willful ignorance to the system and in turn this contributes to the overall theme of conformity within Ishiguro’s novel. Miss Lucy describes how the clones have been “told and not told” about their fates, indeed, the characters within Never Let Me Go never truly understand the full consequences of the system they live in but they abide by it nevertheless. The organ donation system seems to run relatively smoothly because every clone is willing to accept their fate and purpose as donors and the novel is unusual in the sense because no other alternative to conformity is put across. Apart from Tommy’s brief breakdown in the field in the latter stages of the book there are no true acts of rebellion and disobedience towards the Capitalist hegemony within the novel and there is this sense that conformity is an inevitable aspect of the mindset of every character and this links to the theory of reification by Marxist philosopher Gyorgy Lukacs. In his book “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat” Lukacs describes this specific form of alienation theough the distortion of the consciouness of the people within the system and this links directly to the novel through the way the clones normalise themselves as commodities. In the book, it is stated “This transformation of a human function into a commodity reveals in all its starkness the dehumanized and dehumanizing function of the commodity relation.”. The clones inability to comprehend the magnitude of their oppression within the system they live in shows the true extent of their reification. The capitalist hegemony ruling the society within Never Let Me Go has created this system of reification and it is this system which plays a key role in determining the alienation of Kathy. H and her status within society.

However, on the other hand the strength of the reification by the hegemony is undermined through the small fragments of resistance which occur, these being the hopes and dreams of the clones themselves. It is these goals which the clones aspire to achieve highlights a break in the normalisation of society and this links with the theory of Raymon Williams’ “structures of feeling”, made in his book “Marxism and Literature”. According to Williams the dominant system will always try to distort the reality in some way or other so to break through the system is “to understand, its own concrete underlying reality lies, methodologically and in principle, beyond its grasp.” This breaking through is done by the clones through there dreams of living different lives, as although they are aware of their fates as organ donors, yet they hold this knowledge in a very vague manner. It is this vagueness, the vagueness Miss Lucy addressed in the early stages of the novel, which allows them to break through the reification and aspire for another existence and one example of this is how the clones bring about the theory of “possibles”.

“One big idea behind finding your model was that when you did, you’d glimpse your future”

This explanation by Kathy is tinged with hope, the hope of living a different, better life. In the eyes of the hegemony this should not occur however the structure of feeling still prevails as the possible represent the lives they wish to lead, their dream futures. However, even in this case there is still an underlying layer of conformity, as shown through Kathyy’s analysis of the theory.

“we probably knew they couldn’t be serious, but then again, I’m sure we didn’t regard them as fantasy either.”