THE UNCONSCIOUS PAST: MEMORY, NOSTALGIA, AND TRAUMA IN KAZUO ISHIGURO’S NEVER LET ME GO

Memory is one of the few enduring remnants of human existence beyond the material possessions accumulated during a lifetime. It preserves the present and gradually becomes a recollection of the past. Everyday experiences and events are recorded as memories in the human mind, encompassing both positive and negative experiences. As time passes, memories that have had a significant impact on an individual often remain at the conscious level and can be retrieved, recollected, reminisced, or remembered. However, many memories become subdued or repressed within the unconscious mind due to attempts to forget or ignore traumatic past experiences, unresolved conflicts, and unfulfilled desires, corresponding to Freud’s concept of “repression.” Thus, memory is closely associated with the recollection of the past, bringing forth thoughts and experiences from both the conscious and unconscious realms of the human mind. Nostalgia, understood as a sentimental longing for the past, becomes an important dimension of memory. In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, many characters dwell upon their nostalgic and traumatic past while confronting an inevitable and traumatic future. Employing a psychoanalytic lens, this paper examines how memory and nostalgia function as significant emotional forces that reveal the psychological depth of the characters and uncover the abyss beneath their illusory sense of connection with the world.