What if now you are told exactly what time you will die? Will you keep moving on, learning new things, and stepping into a world you do not know? Or will you look back at your childhood and youth, seeking for the treasures in your memories? Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go gives us an answer. The main characters in this novel, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, are clones from Hailsham, and they spend their happy childhood together. Thus, when they gradually accept their planned future is donating their organs for regular humans, they struggle between accepting the knowledge of the outside world and staying in the memories they shared back in Hailsham. After the characters graduate and step into the real world, they ultimately realize the answer: the …show more content…
In the beginning of the book, Kathy introduces her job as a carer. She always chooses to take care of Hailsham donors, because she thinks there is a tight bond between Hailsham students. She explains, “The fact that we’d grown up together at Hailsham, the fact that we knew and remembered things no one else did” (5). Hailsham is a symbol of their normal and joyous childhood, and it accompanies them their whole lives. After they leave Hailsham and arrive at the Cottages, they still keep close to the people from Hailsham, because they all share common Hailsham memories. Ruth shows her deep affection to Tommy. Meanwhile, Kathy is still good friends with Tommy, and she tries to reconcile with Ruth. Though their unique personalities have spurred some conflicts, they still value each other as a significant part of their lives. Kathy’s final description of her feeling before her death emphasizes that Hailsham symbolizes the “old kind world”, where there is no cloning and donation program (272). After Tommy and Ruth die, Kathy stands alone on the field, and she says, “I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them” (286). As Kathy inches closer to her first donation, it is Hailsham that gives her faith and courage to be adamant, and memories become increasingly significant as a source of comfort …show more content…
During Ruth and Tommy’s donations, they decide to go to see a boat with Kathy. When they sit near the boat, Tommy says “I always see Hailsham being like [the boat] now” (225). The boat symbolizes their memories back at Hailsham. Hailsham has closed and is abandoned just like the boat. The “Hailsham boat” floats against the tide, trying to fight against the cloning program, but finally it fails to reach its destination. But the characters are willing to retrace their happy past from seeing the boat, even though they are undergoing their miserable lives. Hailsham’s closing is disappointing. However, when they stay together in front of the boat, holding each other with their own weak bodies, they see Hailsham again. Kathy’s accidental meeting with Laura, another old Hailsham students, illustrates this point. “When we finally mentioned the closing of Hailsham, that suddenly brought us close again” (211). Laura and Kathy both realize that Hailsham has never gone. Hailsham students all suffer being a carer or a donor. Those miserable experiences, however, are healed when they heard “Hailsham”. The memory in Hailsham is like a string, pulling the students’ hearts all together and giving them courage to go through the last station of their lives. This tight relationship
In “What is Evidence,” Trethewey refers to her mother’s name “as abstract as history”(). This idea demonstrates that not only her life, but also her past is complex. Her mother was experiencing grief, and the man attempted to kill her mother. This memory shapes her identity because it creates an image of her mother for her. It develops her understanding of what was happening and why it was happening, which allows her to develop her character in more of an understanding form towards an aspect of her life which was tragic. Tretheway also demonstrates the permanence of memories through “Photograph:Ice Storm.” Through this poem she demonstrates that photographs symbolize more than just a picture, the symbolize a memory which portrays the impact on identity through something so permanent. The impact of an event being permanent portrays that a memory is a large contribution to personal fears and developments. Ishiguro provides a different approach to the symbolic meaning of memories. Memories can symbolize an important, content aspect of life. Kathy realizes this when she reflects on her past: “the earlier years—the ones I've just been telling you about—they tend to blur into each other as a kind of golden time, and when I think about them at all, even the not-so-great things, I can't help feeling a sort of glow”(). Kathy’s reflection on her past blinds her to realize that the permanent impact of memory can also be created in a positive form because the clear reflection on the past can help develop personal identity by becoming grateful for what has happened in the past. Walton says, “Kathy thinks she’s telling the story of how fortunate and privileged she was and of her relationships, but she’s really telling the story of an alternate world where clones are living their short lives to help other people live longer ones”( Her
The opening lines of Janie’s story consist of, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizons…” These words suggest the necessity in life to endeavo...
Motor Boat – A close, dear friend from the Everglades who attempts to avoid the hurricane with the couple. (Tea Cake and Janie).
“Well, Alice, my father said, if it had to happen to one of you, I’m glad it was you and not your sister” (57). Even though Alice was the victim of the horrid crime, she had to stabilize her own emotions, so that she could help her sister cope with this tragedy. Throughout Alice’s childhood, Jane struggled with alcoholism and panic attacks. “I wished my mother were normal, like other moms, smiling and caring, seemingly, only for her family” (37).
The theme of this novel is to look at the good you do in life and how it carries over after your death. The moral of the book is; "People can make changes in their lives whenever they really want to, even right up to the end."
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
“Picking up the pieces of their shattered lives was very, very difficult, but most survivors found a way to begin again.” Once again, Helen was faced with the struggle of living life day-to-day, trying not to continue feeling the pain of her past.
When Kathy tells a patient about Hailsham she says, “There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind […] But then there came a point where I just stopped resisting” (Ishiguro 5). And, just like Kathy, they want to live in her stories because they don’t want to be reminded of where they came from and “instead [they] wanted to hear about Hailsham” (5). She often uses words like ‘baffling’ or ‘wasn’t clear’ which indicates that her memory is still foggy. However, Kathy continues to narrate her story in order for her to come to an understanding about her life as memory is her only source of foundation.
Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” describes the lives of a mother, Mrs. Hopewell and her daughter, Joy and the irony of their relationship. This passage from the short story expounds on their character development through details of their lives. The selected paragraph uses a matter-of-fact tone to give more information about Mrs. Hopewell and Joy. Flannery O’Connor has given an objective recount of the story, which makes the third person narrator a reliable source. Mrs. Hopewell’s feelings are given on her daughter to examine their relationship. It is reader who takes these facts to create an understanding of these women and their lives. This part of the story illustrates the aspects of their lives that they had little control over. Therefore, it indirectly shows how each woman acclimated to their circumstance. Although genetically related and living with one another, Mrs. Hopewell and Joy were exceedingly different people.
Alistair Macleod’s “The Boat” is a tale of sacrifice, and of silent struggle. A parent’s sacrifice not only of their hopes and dreams, but of their life. The struggle of a marriage which sees two polar opposites raising a family during an era of reimagining. A husband embodying change and hope, while making great sacrifice; a wife gripped in fear of the unknown and battling with the idea of losing everything she has ever had. The passage cited above strongly presents these themes through its content
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go illustrates an alternate world where clones are created for the sole purpose of becoming organ donors. The story follows clones Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy as they are born into a society in which they slowly understand and accept, as they grow older. Kathy, the narrator, reflects on her experiences in Hailsham, the Cottages, and her life as a carer. Conformity and the acceptance of fate are two themes that are present throughout the novel. Kathy exhibits obedience to social norms and never thinks to challenge them. It is only until Kathy looks back at her past where she notices her acts of omission and questions why she never intervenes with reality.
...the novel Mrs. Ross and Robert are both left blind representing a physical embodiment of their discontent with the world. The tragic misfortunes they have witnessed throughout the novel culminated into an overwhelming darkness they have welcomed. Timothy Findley teaches the reader through Mrs. Ross, that the repercussions of the death of just one person, like Monty Miles, can traumatize a person forever. Mrs. Ross further emphasizes the holistic effect of war, especially on the families watching the doors for their sons return. Hence, Mrs. Ross’s relationship with her son throughout the course of the book, teaches us what it means to truly appreciate life. We sometimes look at war with a scope that does not allow us to comprehend what the loss of life truly means. However, in this novel we learn that life is truly sacred, especially in the eyes of a loving mother.
The human voyage into life is basically feeble, vulnerable, uncontrollable. Since the crew on a dangerous sea without hope are depicted as "the babes of the sea", it can be inferred that we are likely to be ignorant strangers in the universe. In addition to the danger we face, we have to also overcome the new challenges of the waves in the daily life. These waves are "most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall", requiring "a new leap, and a leap." Therefore, the incessant troubles arising from human conditions often bring about unpredictable crises as "shipwrecks are apropos of nothing." The tiny "open boat", which characters desperately cling to, signifies the weak, helpless, and vulnerable conditions of human life since it is deprived of other protection due to the shipwreck. The "open boat" also accentuates the "open suggestion of hopelessness" amid the wild waves of life. The crew of the boat perceive their precarious fate as "preposterous" and "absurd" so much so that they can feel the "tragic" aspect and "coldness of the water." At this point, the question of why they are forced to be "dragged away" and to "nibble the sacred cheese of life" raises a meaningful issue over life itself. This pessimistic view of life reflects the helpless human condition as well as the limitation of human life.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)