Never Let Me Go - Symbol Essay Flashcards
Moving on from Hailsham
“There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look back so much. But then there came a point when I just stopped resisting.”
“There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look back so much. But then there came a point when I just stopped resisting.”
Hailsham was a home for the clones because it was all they knew for their entire childhood. Clones were given a sense of identity at Hailsham through their collections and art, and a sense of belonging through the family created - guardians were parental figures to them and the other students felt like family also. During her adulthood, Kathy finds herself looking back at Hailsham a lot and missing it, frequently searching for familiarities of it wherever she is at the time. Hailsham holds importance to its students because, unlike other schools, it provides them with basic human essentials even though they are viewed as inhumane things by the public. When they leave to live at places like the Cottages, they lose these things and so find the memory of Hailsham a comfort.
Tommy’s polo-shirt
“What I do remember is that I noticed Tommy was wearing the light blue polo shirt he’d got in the Sales the previous month - the one he was so proud of.”
“What I do remember is that I noticed Tommy was wearing the light blue polo shirt he’d got in the Sales the previous month - the one he was so proud of.”
Kathy is a very observant character and finds herself noticing details and watching social settings instead of involving them. Proof of this is how she remembered and recognised Tommy’s - a boy who she is not friends with - favourite polo shirt which he was ruining during a fit of rage. She does try and help Tommy during his rage to prevent any more mud shattering over his shirt, but in that moment Tommy is not appreciative of it. While this interaction shows Kathy’s attentiveness it also symbolises Tommy and Kathy’s relationship because this is their first interaction which leads to their friendship blooming.
Missing the Guardians
“If we were honest, though, particularly near the beginning, most of us would have admitted missing the guardians. A few of us, for a time, even tried to think of Keffers as a sort of guardian, but he was having none of it.”
“If we were honest, though, particularly near the beginning, most of us would have admitted missing the guardians. A few of us, for a time, even tried to think of Keffers as a sort of guardian, but he was having none of it.”
Hailsham created a good start of life for the clones that attended it, giving them a sense of identity and belonging through the things they gave them and encouraged; collections, creativity and a family. The Guardians were parental role models for the clones at this school, never being overly comfortable with them but they were all the clones had to consider as parents. When the clones left Hailsham they missed the comfortability and safety of the place and started to look for hints of it elsewhere. Keffers was the man who ran the Cottages but wasn’t fond of being looked at like that by the clones so that was a short lasting hope. On the other hand Hailsham had given it’s students one last assignment to complete for after they left and that was an essay which many of the students worked on at first but their attention slowly faded from it the longer they had been from Hailsham. No student finished it, not even Kathy who was desperate to keep connected to the only place she knew to be as home.
Ruth throwing away her collection
“I put them in a bin bag, but I couldn’t stand the idea of putting them out with the rubbish. So I asked old Keffers once when he was about to drive off, if he’d take the bin bags to a shop. I knew about charity shops, I’d found it all out.”
“I put them in a bin bag, but I couldn’t stand the idea of putting them out with the rubbish. So I asked old Keffers once when he was about to drive off, if he’d take the bin bags to a shop. I knew about charity shops, I’d found it all out.”
Collections were personal items that students at Hailsham built up from buying them at Sales and Exchanges. They gave the students a sense of identity because they collected things of their own personal interest and discovered themselves through this. Even after leaving Hailsham and finding that keeping a collection is not encouraged in the outside world, collections are still very important to Hailsham students. Due to Kathy’s especially strong attachment to Hailsham she never threw hers away, but Ruth - being the leader of the group - took it upon herself to throw her collection away so that her friends felt comfortable in ‘growing up’ in this new environment. Ruth never could actually just throw it away and convinced Keffer’s to take it to a charity shop. The long standing importance of these collections shows the lasting impact of Hailsham’s work on the improvement of life quality of clones and proves to us (just as those working with Hailsham were trying to) that the clones are human. They cherish small things just like we would, for example, Kathy’s music tape that she only properly liked one song of. We see multiple hints of humanity in these clones and with this are able to dismiss the ignorant excuse of the clones not having souls made up by the ‘real’ humans in this world which are allowing such an inhumane organ harvesting programme to occur.
Kathy looking at porn mags
“I moved through the pages quickly, not wanting to be distracted by any buzz of sex coming off the pages. In fact, I hardly saw the contorted bodies, because I was focusing on the faces. Even in the littles adverts for videos or whatever tucked away to the side, I checked each model’s face before moving on.”
“I moved through the pages quickly, not wanting to be distracted by any buzz of sex coming off the pages. In fact, I hardly saw the contorted bodies, because I was focusing on the faces. Even in the littles adverts for videos or whatever tucked away to the side, I checked each model’s face before moving on.”
In this moment, Kathy is searching through porn magazines for any sort of possible for her. Due to having such strong sexual urges where she feel such a need to have sex that she would do it with anyone, and after speaking with Ruth who told her it sounded weird and unnatural, Kathy has her mind set on the fact that these urges have a link to the person they modelled her from. She is so focused on finding her original for answers that she doesn’t pay attention to anything on the page apart from faces of the models. Furthermore, the poor treatment of clones from ‘real’ humans leads many clones left with the conclusion that they have been modelled from some of the parts of the outside world that are looked down on which has led to the world not liking them either. They feel like because they are treated from dirt they must have been modelled from the human equal. This proves that clones are isolated from the outside world and have no grasp of the reality of the situation or world they are in.
Rodney and Chrissie talk about deferrals
“If you were a boy and a girl, and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, the sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.”
“If you were a boy and a girl, and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, the sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.”
Deferrals represented the living hope within all the clones. It gave them hope that love could save them, that if they were in love they could be saved. The theme of hope is very prominent throughout most of the novel but that is turned to lost when Madame’s House comes into play. This setting is where they find out the truth about everything and that deferrals were only just a rumour. Deferrals are a symbol of hope because it made clones hopeful in their very unfortunate situation. In the final part of the novel, Kathy and Tommy finally get to date and decide they will try to get a deferral after Ruth finds Madame’s address from them in an attempt to make up for intentionally keeping them apart. It doesn’t work out in their favour and this theme of hope turns into ruined hope as all the clones have left for them is what is left; their preplanned life that is soon to come to an end.
Tommy looking for Kathy’s lost tape in Norfolk
“Oh, I might as well tell you. In that shop we were in, they had this shelf with loads of records and tapes. so I was looking for the one you lost that time. Do you remember, Kath? Except I couldn’t remember what it was anymore.”
“Oh, I might as well tell you. In that shop we were in, they had this shelf with loads of records and tapes. so I was looking for the one you lost that time. Do you remember, Kath? Except I couldn’t remember what it was anymore.”
The Judy Bridgewater tape symbolised Kathy’s innocence in the beginning of the novel, how she longed for an intimate relationship and a family of her own but would never truly have that. In the second part of the novel, when Kathy and Tommy find this tape years after it went missing, what it symbolises changes. From this point on it begins to symbolise the love shared between Tommy and Kathy, how they rekindled their connection during their time in Norfolk and tried to hide it away from Ruth to prevent any disruption like there had been in Hailsham. The characters do not get to be together until they are older, Tommy now being the donor that Kathy is caring for. On every car ride during her carer life, Kathy listened to that tape, reminiscing about her friends and life before her preplanned life began to take place.
Tommy wanting to find Kathy’s lost tape
“And when it looked in the end like it wasn’t going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I’ll go to Norfolk and I’ll find it for her there.”
