• English & American cultural studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.323-348
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• 2009

Kazuo Ishiguro's fifth novel When We Were Orphans (2000) tells the story of Christopher Banks, a private detective, who embarks on the ultimate case of his career, the puzzle of his own life. The novel consists of two overall parts, one taking place in London, the other in Shanghai-a division which reveals one of the novel's major themes, the relation between home and abroad. Set in the 1930s, Ishiguro's novel on the one hand contains all the classic ingredients of the so called golden age detective genre-an archetypal English private detective, equipped with fierce deductive skills and a magnifying glass, as well as suspects, criminals, and victims-and yet on the other hand it also deviates in significant ways. In this article, I will attempt to make some links between When We Were Orphans and the genre paradigm of the golden age detective story, arguing that Ishiguro's novel offers an exploration of the genre's ideological connections to a larger historical discourse of imperial nostalgia and decline.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.121-129
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• 2017

The evolution of biotechnology is no longer strange to the hypothetical scenario of cloning human genes to make cloned human beings. The characters of are cloned humans made in the laboratory by the 100-year-old life planning. They are cohabited in a school called Hailsham, where they are secretly reared. The purpose of this project is to provide healthy organs to real human patients with incurable diseases. The main characters Cathy, Tommy, and Ruth experience the growth of body and consciousness here during adolescence, and they also know the secret of identity as a clone. As adults, they move to a second residence, Cottage and are ready to begin organ donation. The second stage is also part of a program to provide more genuine-like organs to real patients. Even though they know all the plans that humans have built, they do not resist them and fatefully accept their situation. However, their non-responsiveness is not a declaration of renunciation of life, but a self-sacrificing life extension for another future that is the extension of life through their organ donation. The film emphasizes the fraternity and sacrificial attitudes of the cloned human beings and shows that it is necessary to continue the discussions on cloned human beings from a bio-ethical point of view supported by philosophical reasons.