NLMG Ending Analysis Flashcards
“The Kingsfield”
- irony - king is something of value - contrasted to the lives of the donors
- Their organs have value though
“The buildings look more like wasteland”
- symbolic of the lives which the donors lead
“Held in wire-mesh fences” ‘The Square”
- imprisoned
- name of the prison
- slaves to their destiny > their whole life is a prison
“Scraping through all the nettles and brambles”
- symbolic of hardships the clones go through
“It was really foggy” - K+T walk
- pathetic fallacy
- fog represents lack of reasoning Kathy has.
- She doesn’t understand Tommy because she is not a donor
“He stopped next to the fence and stared at the blank fog on the other side”
- metaphor for death
- something better on other side? Or nothing?
“And it’s what Ruth wanted too”
- Kathy puts this reason last.
- Suggests Tommy has more respect for Ruth’s desires than her own
- undermines K+T’s relationship
- Kathy is an unreliable narrator
“Ruth wanted that other thing for us”
- their relationship is “that other thing” suggests he doesn’t view it as love.
- Unequal power. Tommy is dependent on Kathy
- Relationship not based on love, uncomfortable
“I’m the one to help you” - after T talks about Ruth
“Ruth wanted the other thing for us”
- Ruth has now died, and I’m the only one left who can help you.
- Not a strong relationship
- Suggests Tommy doesn’t want the relationship
- Wants to leave
“A palm pressed against the wire-mesh fence”
- trapped in relationship
- Kathy making him feel worse
“Listening intently to the sound of the traffic somewhere beyond the fog”
- fog represents death
- looking for an escape like Tommy > wanted to move towards death
“Kath, sometimes you don’t see it. You don’t see it because you’re not a donor”
- are we (believe in free will) different to donors
- they have a destiny they don’t fight, that society sets out for them
- is our free will real?
“The way he’d divided me off yet again… from him and Ruth”
“This never turned into a huge fight though”
- Kathy realises how Tommy prefers Ruth to her
- Suppresses everything. Do we fight for what we believe in? English trait - Partly Japanese Ishiguro criticising that
“As we were sitting in the dull light”
“On the edge of his bed”
- symbolic of relationship created by Kathy
- Tommy wants to escape
“The donors will all donate, just the same, an then they’ll complete.”
- Realistic view of life?
- Utilitarian view
- Our society? > putting older people in homes like the donors who aren’t useful
“You’d be the perfect one for me too if you weren’t you”
- Irony
- You’d be a perfect carer if you were a donor and went through the same things
“Though we kept sitting side by side”
- no affection
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast”
- river symbolises death
- like the river Styx in Greek mythology.
- to go through the river was to forget the living.
“They’ve got to let go, drift apart”
- symbolic of title
- Circular structure
“Little-Hampton” - madame house
- no significance despite them finding out about deferrals
“Surprisingly tranquil”
“Tommy listening to me read”
- waiting for the end, no passion
- Kathy dominant
“Doodled away for new animal ideas while I read from the bed”
- Tommy has negative view > turned to animal instinct
- Kathy has positive view > like Ishiguro, a writer?
- Books will never let you go like Hailsham
“December afternoon”
“Everything was as Norma”
- tommy given up on life.
- Kathy keeps fighting, is this the best approach?
“Tommy, are you glad Ruth completed before finding out everything we did in the end?”
- K brings up R in final conversation
- Reveals her jealousy and knowledge he values R more than K
“She always wanted to believe in things”
- Religious view
- Kathy is writing a book
“Because of the time of year, the sun was already setting behind the buildings”
“A few shadowy figures”
- Symbolic of Tommy’s death
- Symbolises everyone else’s deaths
“Just a small kiss”
“Then the Square had gone from the mirror”
- little affection
- Kathy escaping prison
- But also driving towards it as it’s in the mirror
Hailsham - a hotel, a school, a ruin
- Hail - hail a king / queen - power
- Sham - suggests the power has faded > fake power
Fake free will - Is every school like this?
- Underprivileged children have no chance of succeeding
I’ll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head
- like books, creating a universe inside our head
- Offers Kathy comfort
“All those flat fields of nothing and the huge grey skies”
- Image of death > pathetic fallacy
“Field after flat, featureless field”
Ironic fricative, Kathy doesn’t rebel out loud but does as she writes down
“A tiny figure would appear on the horizon… it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call”
- Tommy doesn’t respond even in her fantasies
- Not a true relationship
“I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be”
- sense of longing (new beginning?)
- sense of hopelessness, can’t work out the point of life.
- Ishiguro suggests she’s a writer now that will live on after her, like him.
