NLMG Ending Analysis

Question 1

“The Kingsfield”

Answer 1

• irony - king is something of value - contrasted to the lives of the donors
• Their organs have value though

Question 2

“The buildings look more like wasteland”

Answer 2

• symbolic of the lives which the donors lead

Question 3

“Held in wire-mesh fences” ‘The Square”

Answer 3

• imprisoned
• name of the prison
• slaves to their destiny > their whole life is a prison

Question 4

“Scraping through all the nettles and brambles”

Answer 4

• symbolic of hardships the clones go through

Question 5

“It was really foggy” - K+T walk

Answer 5

• pathetic fallacy
• fog represents lack of reasoning Kathy has.
• She doesn’t understand Tommy because she is not a donor

Question 6

“He stopped next to the fence and stared at the blank fog on the other side”

Answer 6

• metaphor for death
• something better on other side? Or nothing?

Question 7

“And it’s what Ruth wanted too”

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

“Ruth wanted that other thing for us”

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

“I’m the one to help you” - after T talks about Ruth
“Ruth wanted the other thing for us”

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

“A palm pressed against the wire-mesh fence”

Answer 10

• trapped in relationship
• Kathy making him feel worse

Question 11

“Listening intently to the sound of the traffic somewhere beyond the fog”

Answer 11

• fog represents death
• looking for an escape like Tommy > wanted to move towards death

Question 12

“Kath, sometimes you don’t see it. You don’t see it because you’re not a donor”

Answer 12

• 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?

Question 13

“The way he’d divided me off yet again… from him and Ruth”

“This never turned into a huge fight though”

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

“As we were sitting in the dull light”

“On the edge of his bed”

Answer 14

• symbolic of relationship created by Kathy
• Tommy wants to escape

Question 15

“The donors will all donate, just the same, an then they’ll complete.”

Answer 15

• Realistic view of life?
• Utilitarian view
• Our society? > putting older people in homes like the donors who aren’t useful

Question 16

“You’d be the perfect one for me too if you weren’t you”

Answer 16

• Irony
• You’d be a perfect carer if you were a donor and went through the same things

Question 17

“Though we kept sitting side by side”

Answer 17

• no affection

Question 18

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast”

Answer 18

• river symbolises death
• like the river Styx in Greek mythology.
• to go through the river was to forget the living.

Question 19

“They’ve got to let go, drift apart”

Answer 19

• symbolic of title
• Circular structure

Question 20

“Little-Hampton” - madame house

Answer 20

• no significance despite them finding out about deferrals

Question 21

“Surprisingly tranquil”
“Tommy listening to me read”

Answer 21

• waiting for the end, no passion
• Kathy dominant

Question 22

“Doodled away for new animal ideas while I read from the bed”

Answer 22

• Tommy has negative view > turned to animal instinct
• Kathy has positive view > like Ishiguro, a writer?
• Books will never let you go like Hailsham

Question 23

“December afternoon”
“Everything was as Norma”

Answer 23

• tommy given up on life.
• Kathy keeps fighting, is this the best approach?

Question 24

“Tommy, are you glad Ruth completed before finding out everything we did in the end?”

Answer 24

• K brings up R in final conversation
• Reveals her jealousy and knowledge he values R more than K

Question 25

“She always wanted to believe in things”

Answer 25

• Religious view
• Kathy is writing a book

Question 26

“Because of the time of year, the sun was already setting behind the buildings”

“A few shadowy figures”

Answer 26

• Symbolic of Tommy’s death
• Symbolises everyone else’s deaths

Question 27

“Just a small kiss”

“Then the Square had gone from the mirror”

Answer 27

• little affection
• Kathy escaping prison
• But also driving towards it as it’s in the mirror

Question 28

Hailsham - a hotel, a school, a ruin

Answer 28

• 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

Question 29

I’ll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head

Answer 29

• like books, creating a universe inside our head
• Offers Kathy comfort

Question 30

“All those flat fields of nothing and the huge grey skies”

Answer 30

• Image of death > pathetic fallacy

Question 31

“Field after flat, featureless field”

Answer 31

Ironic fricative, Kathy doesn’t rebel out loud but does as she writes down

Question 32

“A tiny figure would appear on the horizon… it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call”

Answer 32

• Tommy doesn’t respond even in her fantasies
• Not a true relationship

Question 33

“I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be”

Answer 33

• 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.