Hello and welcome to your lesson today where we'll be comparing dystopian voices in two of Ishiguro's novels.

I'm Miss Sutherland, and I'll be teaching you today.

Our learning outcome for today is to compare Ishiguro's presentation of his dystopian voices.

We'll be looking at Ishiguro's dystopian voices in "Never Let Me Go" and "Klara and the Sun," and we'll be comparing them.

We have five key words for today's lesson.

They are disconcerting, euphemism, ambiguous, dehumanise and compelling.

Let's go through each one.

Disconcerting means unsettling or worrying.

Being alone in a dark forest might be disconcerting.

Euphemism, a euphemism is a substitution of a mild word or phrase for one that may be considered unpleasant.

For example, if someone is feeling sick, they might describe themselves as under the weather.

Under the weather is a euphemism.

Ambiguous, ambiguous means having no obvious meaning, being unclear.

We've discussed how Ishiguro's opening to "Klara and the Sun" is quite ambiguous because we don't know who or what Klara is.

Dehumanise, dehumanise means to deprive someone of human qualities, for example, dehumanising someone might be depriving them of their dignity, their individuality, their agency.

And compelling.

If something is compelling, it makes you believe it because it is so strong.

So if a voice is compelling, it means you believe in that voice.

You believe that voice is real or could indeed represent the thing it's supposed to.

Pause the video and take a moment to reflect upon these key words now.

Off you go.

Don't worry if some of them still feel quite tricky.

We'll be revisiting each of them in today's lesson.

So in today's lesson, we're going to start off by reading "Never Let Me Go" and then we're going to be comparing dystopian voices in "Never Let Me Go" and "Klara and the Sun." So let's begin with reading "Never Let Me Go." I want you to read the first seven paragraphs of the opening of "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, from the start up to the word us.

I want you to make a note of any questions you have as you read the text.

Pause the video, get reading.

I hope you enjoy this extract.

Here are some of the questions you may have had as you read.

Why does Kathy introduce herself in the way she does? It's a very mechanical and biographical beginning to a text that we might not be used to.

I wonder why she does that.

What is a carer, and what is a donor? Why does Kathy seem to care so much about being a good carer? What does Kathy mean when she talks of her kind? What is Hailsham, and what does Kathy mean by completing? Those are some questions that came to my mind.

Perhaps they are similar to the ones that came to your mind.

One thing's for sure, this is indeed quite an ambiguous opening.

In this section of the text, the narrator introduces herself.

I want you to discuss: what is unique about her voice, do you feel like her introduction helps you to get to know her, can you connect with her, and what impression do you get of her overall? Pause the video and discuss these questions to explore the narrative voice in "Never Let Me Go." Off you go.

Those questions are really interesting because whilst Kathy introduces herself to us, we don't necessarily know much about her.

We don't know the ins and out of being a carer.

So Kathy seems to want to connect with us, but I'm unsure of how much we actually do connect with her based on how she introduces herself and based on her tone of voice.

The narrator expects us to know the meaning of certain terminology in the opening of the novel.

Let's find clues within the text to try and work out what a donor might be, because Kathy talks of her looking after donors, but we don't actually know what that is.

So let's try and look for clues.

The following words are used in relation to being a donor: recovery, agitation, drugs, exhaustion, pain, and completing.

It seems that being a donor is quite uncomfortable, might involve quite a lot of suffering, and it's quite a harrowing experience.

I want you to discuss: do you think a donor in "Never Let Me Go" bears any resemblance to a donor in today's society? Pause the video and discuss.

You may have said that whilst the donation process appears to be medical, both in today's society and the novel, the way a donor is described in the novel seems to be far more debilitating and painful than what we might expect.

Now I want you to discuss what do we actually find out about Kathy and the world she lives in from the first seven paragraphs, what effect does that have on you as a reader? Pause the video and discuss.

So Laura says, "We find out very little apart from the idea that being a donor is quite unpleasant and that it is Kathy's job to care for them.

We are left ignorant about what Hailsham is and what she means by her kind.

It's quite disconcerting that the narrator doesn't provide us with a full picture of the story." So Laura seems to think that this opening is indeed quite ambiguous and that is quite unsettling for us as the readers as we are launched into Kathy's world.

But we're not quite sure exactly what her world entails.

We're not exactly quite sure what world she's living in.

All we know is that the job she does seems to be quite unpleasant at times.

Here the Oak pupils are having a discussion about Kathy's voice.

Aisha says, "Kathy speaks in a conversational register, which ought to help us connect with her, but this is at odds with the lack of information she actually gives us about her world." Andeep says, "Another disconcerting thing I noticed was how Kathy tries to create a sense of calm, despite it being obvious that the donors face a harrowing fate.

Is she trying to hide something?" So Aisha and Andeep have reflected on Kathy's narrative voice here and how there are some contradictions within her voice.

I wonder if you picked up on those as well.

So, so far we've discussed the narrative voice in "Never Let Me Go" and the ambiguous opening.

I want you to answer this question to check your understanding of what we've talked about so far.

True or false? Ishiguro reveals all the information about the lives of carers and donors in the opening paragraph.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and answer that question.

It is false.

Ishiguro does not reveal all the information about the lives of carers and donors in the opening paragraph.

Now, how do we know that's false? Pause the video and justify your answer.

We know that Ishiguro does not reveal all the information about the lives of carers and donors because he only offers small hints and details about the discomfort donors face, but does not actually tell us what a carer and donor is.

The reader is left in the dark, therefore, about the world Kathy lives in.

And this can create for quite a disconcerting feel to the beginning of the novel.

I now want you to write a paragraph responding to the question, how does Ishiguro create a disconcerting opening in "Never Let Me Go." You could write about any of the things we've talked about in the lesson so far, so you could write about how much we actually find out about Kathy's world, the contradictory elements of her narrative, how Kathy talks of her achievements, what life as a donor seems like, and the tone of the narrative.

Pause the video and get writing.

Off you go.

Brilliant effort there with your writing.

Well done for exploring how Ishiguro creates the disconcerting opening in "Never Let Me Go." Let's consider what Izzy's ideas were.

Izzy has written, "The ambiguous nature of Kathy's world is disconcerting for the reader as whilst we're acutely aware that the life of a donor seems harrowing, based on words such as exhausting, pain and drugs, we do not actually know what a donor is.

Perhaps what is even more disconcerting is the fact that the narrator, Kathy, lulls us into a sense of calm and security through her conversational register and prideful tone.

We get the impression that Kathy's voice does not give us the full picture of what it means to live in her world.

Overall, it is disconcerting to follow a voice that may be secretive, self-serving or unreliable." That is a great paragraph from Izzy in which she's used two of our keywords in today's lesson.

I want you to consider now how well Izzy's ideas align with your own.

Pause the video and reflect.

Izzy has come up with some brilliant, brilliant ideas.

I hope even if you didn't write anything similar to Izzy that you've come away with some new ideas.

Now let's move on to our second learning cycle where we'll compare dystopian voices.

I'm really excited to be looking at two of Ishiguro's dystopian voices in this section of the lesson with you.

So "Never Let Me Go" is set in a dystopian world, and this is an imagined place in which people live dehumanised lives.

In "Never Let Me Go," donors are clones who are created merely to donate their organs to human beings.

They can donate up to four organs before completing, which is a euphemism for death.

A carer is someone who looks after the donors, and carers will eventually become donors themselves.

So this is the context for the novel.

This explains the world Kathy lives in.

I want you to discuss now does this background information shine light on the way Kathy opens the novel and does it add to our understanding of her as a narrator? Pause the video and discuss.

You may have said that the world Kathy lives in is quite an uncomfortable one and maybe one that she doesn't really like talking about directly because of how it might be disconcerting for her of how it might make her feel and reflect upon her existence.

So potentially, Kathy speaks in an ambiguous way and opts for a prideful conversational register to maybe hide how truly discomforting her world is.

Now, some readers have noticed similarities between Kathy, the dystopian voice in "Never Let Me Go," and Klara, the dystopian voice in "Klara and the Sun." Klara is an artificial friend designed to provide humans with companionship.

So she's an AI device or humanised robot that seeks to give friendship to humans and people can buy her from the shop.

Kathy, on the other hand, is a clone designed to donate organs to humans.

Discuss now: did you notice any similarities between Kathy and Klara and the way they introduced their worlds? Pause the video and get discussing.

So you may have noticed that both Kathy and Klara seem to be designed to provide some sort of service or benefit to humans.

That can make for quite an interesting narrative voice as both narrators might question their agency over their lives.

Now, what might we expect a dystopian voice to be like? Think back to the other dystopian novels that you may have read.

What is typical dystopian protagonist like? Pause the video and discuss.

You may have said the following: dystopian voices are often rebellious, they feel deeply wronged, they are marginalised, they're critical, and they're quite dissatisfied with the world they live in.

Discuss now: do you see any of these traits in Ishiguro's dystopian voices of Kathy and Klara? Pause the video and discuss.

That was quite an interesting question because upon looking at that question deeply, Kathy and Klara are not your typical dystopian voice.

They're both marginalised voices, but that's about the only criteria they seem to meet.

Klara seems too naive to understand or criticise her position in society.

And Kathy, while she seems to understand the society she lives in and the role she plays in it, she seems relaxed and calm.

So both of these characters, despite you could say being marginalised and wronged by society in some way, don't seem to be your typical dystopian narrators.

And that could cause us to question, why does Ishiguro present them as non-typical dystopian voices? Now, despite not being traditional dystopian voices, we could argue that Kathy and Klara both reflect a dehumanised world, and therefore, they're potentially quite good dystopian voices.

I want you to answer, how do both Kathy and Klara reflect a dehumanised world? Pause the video and discuss.

Let's take a look at this now.

So for Klara of "Klara and the Sun," Klara is a humanised robot, and this could present a dehumanised world because she blurs the line between human and machine.

So what rights does she actually have? She feels like a human.

She talks like a human.

She behaves like a human, but she's a robot.

So how is one expected to treat her and what freedom and agency does she have? That's quite disturbing.

Now, Klara also has a lack of agency.

She answers to the manager and can be bought by customers so she doesn't have control over her own life or her own fate.

And lastly, the creation of artificial friends, such as Klara, suggests we can replace human connection with AI.

And indeed that could represent a dehumanised world in itself.

The fact that humans are no longer relying on each other for support but on AI.

Let's take a look at Kathy now.

Kathy is a clone, and clones are dehumanised by nature.

They're denied their humanity because they're created as a means to an end.

They're not an individual person in their own right.

They're created to serve a purpose for humans.

And that's quite similar to Klara.

Kathy also suffers a lack of agency.

She answers to an unnamed authority figure called they in the opening of the novel.

And of course, once Kathy is no longer a carer, she will be a donor in which she will inevitably give up her own life for someone else.

And lastly, in terms of Kathy's world, the creation of clones could suggest that humans are disposable.

In other words, humans can be created and then got rid of quite easily, and calls into question the sanctity of life and how much we value life, human life.

So there are quite a few similarities, we could say, between Kathy and Klara and they both definitely reflect dehumanised worlds despite not being traditional dystopian voices.

Discuss now: which dystopian voice out of Kathy and Klara do you find most disconcerting? Which voice unsettles you the most? Pause the video and discuss.

Now let's check your understanding of what we've talked about so far in the lesson.

Kathy and Klara are voices we'd expect from dystopian protagonists.

Pause the video and answer that question.

Off you go.

Well done if you said of false.

Kathy and Klara are not voices we typically expect from dystopian protagonists.

I now want you to pause the video and answer why that is.

Pause the video and justify why that's false.

You may have said that Kathy and Klara are not voices we'd expect from dystopian protagonists because they're not critical or rebellious.

They both seem to accept the worlds they live in and perhaps this is even more disconcerting.

They do not question their dehumanised worlds because that essentially tells us how normalised their treatment is.

I now want you to write a paragraph answering the following question, which of Ishiguro's narrators provides the most compelling dystopian voice? You could write about: how far each voice reflects a broken or dehumanised world, which voice is most disconcerting, how far each narrator encourages you to reflect on your own society and which voice you feel more sympathy for? I hope you enjoy cracking into this fruitful debate here.

Pause the video and get writing.

I bet there's been a wide range of answers for this question and a lot of healthy debate, which is always a good thing to do when we're reading texts.

Now, Aisha and Andeep have given their opinion on which voice they find the most compelling.

Let's read both of them.

Aisha says, "For me, Kathy provides the most compelling dystopian voice.

The fact she directly addresses the reader, expecting them to know the world of donors means she assumes the reader is a clone too.

This allows the reader to feel the reality and horror of Kathy's world." Andeep says, "I think Klara is a more compelling dystopian voice.

I feel sympathy for her because as an artificial friend, she seems to feel like a human, but I fear she will never be treated like one.

Ishiguro blurs the line between human and machine through Klara, making me reflect upon our rapidly advancing technological society." I now want you to reread your paragraph.

Which of the Oak pupils did you most align with? Pause the video and reflect.

Brilliant job there.

I hope you've enjoyed exploring your own opinion as well as exploring some of the Oak students' opinions as well.

It really goes to show what a wide range of opinions we can have on a topic.

Let's go through what we've learned today then.

Ambiguous novel openings can be disconcerting for the reader.

Kathy's narrative voice is full of contradictions, which may also be disconcerting for the reader.

The disconcerting voice of "Never Let Me Go" may add to the dystopian feel.

Kathy and Klara, two of Ishiguro's narrators, are perhaps not traditional dystopian voices, but Kathy and Klara both reflect dehumanised worlds.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed exploring the texts "Never Let Me Go" and "Klara and the Sun." They're both two brilliant dystopian texts, which I hope you'll be able to read more of.

Thank you again, and I hope to see you in another lesson soon.