Analysis Of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go follows the lives of organ donating clones and their struggles throughout childhood into adolescence then, eventually adulthood, who want the most out of life before they “complete”. Ishiguro primarily focuses in on three main characters who are known by the reader as Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth. Ruth specifically, is portrayed as a selfish and in many ways manipulative being. Ishiguro constructs her character to represent someone in society who is longing to create a life of action and consequentially, drama; jeopardizing her friendships along the journey of her life. Ruth also represents the people in society who willingly do anything, including lie, just to reach a higher status in life. Ruth’s character is

Kathy’s flashbacks of Ruth’s behavior at Hailsham give insight on who she really was at that time and who she pretended to be. On each account though, it seems like Kathy doesn’t want to paint Ruth as being a completely conniving brat. For instance, the pencil case incident, also in chapter 5, where Ruth tried to convince the entire class that Miss Geraldine had given her a pencil case when, in actuality she bought it herself at the Sales, a place where the kids could use the tokens that they earned from past art pieces in exchange for “cool” items, also know as, hand-me-downs that humans didn’t want, “Let's just agree. Let's agree I got it in the Sale.” Then she gave us all a knowing smile. This might sound a pretty innocuous sort of response, but actually it was like she'd suddenly got up and hit me, and for the next few moments I felt hot and chilly at the same time. I knew exactly what she'd meant by her answer and smile: she was claiming the pencil case was a gift from Miss Geraldine.” (Ishiguro, 57). It is clear what Ruth is doing here. The scene is very public, the students are all in a cramped room as class is ready to begin and Ruth is claiming that Miss Geraldine gifted the case to her. Ishiguro later reveals to the reader, in the same chapter, that Ruth actually did buy the case in a Sale after Kathy attempts to call her out but decides against