Never Let Me Go Question Plans

Question 1

Question plan linked to love, avoidance, relationships or running out of time:

Answer 1

Thesis:

1: Part 1: avoidance
- Pencil case incident – she never truly talked about it with Ruth.

3: Part 2: avoidance: Norfolk, tape
- Ruth is the problem
- Kathy and Tommy seem to like each other
- Avoids telling Ruth - foreshadowed consequences
- Doesn’t do anything to confront Ruth, just leaves

4: Part 3: too late, running out of time
- Gun analogy, Ruth’s confession, too late
- Miss Emily, urgency, running out of time, futile

Conclusion: Ishiguro revealed in an interview how his aims ‘was always […] to write a story about how love and friendship fitted into peoples lives, particularly as they began to realise time is short’. Beyond the dystopian society we see in the novel, Ishiguro himself said that this was ‘the last pice of the jigsaw’, a ‘device’ he used to explore ideas of love and friendship. Furthermore, although he wanted ‘to create this world that seems initially very strange or distant initially’ he hoped that the reader would soon ‘recognise it as their own story’. Throughout the novel, we see the characters progressively running out of time. From the narrative voice of Kathy, we experience her avoiding tricky situations, ignoring dark truths, and can do nothing as we see this attitude result in harming her relationships with others. By the end of the novel, things are addressed ‘way too late’, and we see that there is nothing more she can do. By doing this, Ishiguro shocks the reader as we realise the extent at which this applies to our own lives – as the interpretation of the film adaptation of the book suggested, it can be wondered whether ‘[the clones’] lives have been so different than the lives of the people [they] save’. We ourselves are running out of time to spend with the people we love: ‘we all complete’. Ishiguro tells us how precious our time is, and the saddening effects of what happens if we do not confront what is holding back our lives.

Question 2

Identity:

Answer 2

Thesis:
- Hailsham gave them identity
- This identity is a group identity, however. The students sacrifice individuality to conform. While we do see them express individuality where encouraged by the school, such as in the collection boxes they are given, individuality in other aspects, such as creativity, is taken away, for people try to blend in.

1: Part 1:
- Tommy’s creativity – bullied for being different – Kathy sees it as the ‘usual things’ and calls it a ‘golden time’

2: Part 2:
- Clones copy the veteran’s mannerisms and from the TV.
- Don’t leave the cottages until they do with the veterans

Question 3

Conformity:

Answer 3

• Animal descriptions to describe conformity.
• Those with these descriptions soon come to an end/are bullied.

Question 4

Humanity:

Answer 4

Thesis: Ishiguro makes us feel empathy for those who aren’t considered human.

• Structure: we get to know them before they are clones
• Complex psychology of situations: pencil case incident, manipulation in relationship