NEVER LET ME GO - symbols

Art / The Gallery

→ Express identities – human trait despite artificial origins

→ “Prove that they have souls” – means to be human

→ Marginalised group have to ‘prove’ their humanity

Idyllic setting – never see animal (see animal imagery but no animals (clones are the animals))

Hailsham

→ Microcosm of dystopian society

→ Exposes ethical framework of this world

→ Represents power of nostalgic and collective memory -> system of control

→ Idyllic childhood / gothic reality

→ Privilege + class

→ “Beacon of hope” -> closure = lost hope/sealed fate -> education

Relationships (Kathy – not letting go of the relationship that she formed at Hailsham)

1. Idyllic childhood. 2. Related to privilege (hailsham students seen differently – Rodney and Chrissy talking about deferrals) 3. idea of hailsham being revealed as a system of control

Tommy Animal Drawings

→ Individuality + emotions = means to be a human

→ People calling him an “animal” shows how he hasn’t changed his identity – concertina of time

“Protect” -> animals symbolise the clones in their helplessness

Judy Bridgewater tape

→ Kathy’s lost memories and link to identity. – gets lost as soon as she leaves hailsham = lost child innocence

→ Shows connection with Tommy (he wants to desperately find the tape for Kathy in Norfolk )

→ Motherhood – clones can never have children

Clones idealise quotidian life -> little girl holding on to a lost world/time

The woods

→ Control through isolation

→ Rumours, imagined fears – sense of irony, because their actual fate is worse than their imagined realities

Gothic motifs

Water / Bodies of Water

→ Pond at hailsham – enclosed body of water = limited freedom

→ Secrecy – pond isn’t transparent

→ Sea: more volatile, more expansive = more freedom

→ Water = drowning in their inescapable fate

→ Imagery with the river “that’s how it is with us, we have loved each other all our lives but we can’t be together” – metaphor of river – how fate is inescapable, forces Tommy + Kathy apart

Cottages

→ Once a farm – foreshadows how the clones are like livestock – raised to be slaughtered

→ Bildungsroman form

→ Site for maturity, learn about their realities, opportunities to ‘rebel’

Freedom -> but limited freedom in a controlled society

The Boat

→ itself might be mirroring the decaying bodies of the clone - can’t go anywhere since its on the beach- clones can't go anywhere

→ Hopelessness of clone's situation

→ Dilapidated – warn out – foreshadowing how the clones are donating their organs

→ people talked about going to see the boat - like an attraction - point of curiosity 

→ boat itself seems to be a relic of the past, partially forgotten 

→ Remembering how the boat might have looked in the past, and how beautiful it must have been. Like Kathy, how she looks back into the past for memory/comfort. 

→ Boat can also be a symbol for loss of freedom, abandonment of thoughts and dreams. On a boat you can be free and explore the ocean, be mobile, yet when the boat is beached, it a symbol for the loss of freedom. 

→ ‘Lost and found’ - boat finds the trio again, symbol of loss of freedom, they also loss time - they don’t have a lot of time left. 

How does the boat mitigate existing tensions for closure? - “Maybe this is what hailsham looks like, don’t you think” - catalyst for them going down the route of looking back at past.  - talking about people who they knew that had completed

Norfolk

→ “lost corner” - all lost items end up here, maybe the clones go there to look for their innocence, humanity etc, bc they loss all of those

→ lost childhood and hope - Kathy finds replacement for J.B tape, representing a fleeting connection to a “normal” life

→ Broken Dreams and Reality: The trip to Norfolk highlights the impossibility of their hopes, such as Ruth’s search for her "possible" (or donor origin), which ends in disappointment.

→ The Sea/Boat: The coastal setting and the stranded, broken boat they visit symbolize the "beaching" of their own lives—abandoned by society, approaching "completion," and lacking true freedom.

→ Finality and Grief: At the end, Kathy drives to Norfolk after Tommy’s death, transforming it from a place of active hope into a place of quiet, mature grief

Bildungsroman

→ NLMG seen as a Bildungsroman to a large extent.

→ follows Kathy’s growth from childhood to adulthood - where she reflects on her purpose in life

→ like a traditional “coming of age” story, the novel shows how she learns about friendship, love and loss (thru T and R)

→ e.g Ruth’s “secret guard” group, shows how childish games shaped her early understanding of loyalty

→ in the novel, her role as a carer highlights the maturity she develops when facing death

→ however, unlike a typical bildungsroman, her journey doesnt end in her happy freedom, but more of an acceptance of becoming a donor.

KATHY

Homodiegetic narrator – she exists within the story she tells

Retrospective narrator – recounting events long after they have occurred

Unreliable Narrator - Kathy frequently uses hedging language (“I suppose,” “maybe,”” I don’t know”) which undermines certainty and reinforced epistemic limitation.

Her narrative is fragmented and associative, mimicking memory rather than logic

Kathy as a symbol:

Hailsham - loss of childhood innocence -> nostalgia, benevolent memories, retrospective ———> “little fantasy”

Suppresses emotions —> unreliable narrator = reflect her lack of humanity - artificiality as a clone?

Complacency and acceptance of her role in Hailsham = coping mechanism

Mirrors a controlling society —> post colonial context, England 1990s, clones’ body being controlled 

Dichotomy - contributes and is complicit in the ‘donations’ — existential level, she seems purposeless - futility ———> mundane life, collecting lamps, window shopping, ‘driving off wherever she needs to be’ = lost, nihilistic (nothing matters),

Window shopping = lack of permanence 

Emphasis on relationships to comment on what it means to be human -> in limited lifespan what is important? ‘Concertina’

RUTH

→ Viewed antagonistically

→ Presented in contrast to Kathy -> not passive / assertive. ->  dreams beyond her circumstances (searches for possible, work in open plan office)-> delusions of grandeur

Internalised dehumanisation: Ruth polices other clones because hierarchy offers meaning in a meaningless system.

Ruths arc moves from false authority -> exposure -> belated remorse. Her apology comes too late to enact change, reinforcing inevitability.

Reader E: Pity rather than condemnation – Ishiguro refuses simple moral binaries.

RUTH POSSIBLE:

→ Belonging and origin -> clones desperate for belonging = not possible, taken from them

→ Unattainable nature of their dreams  

Her insecurity:

 -> starts rumours (pencil case), failed search for possible causes her to break down and lash out “we are modelled from trash” “look in the gutters” and links to loss of hope + WIMTBH as it’s a strong emotional response

 -> donations (completes after her 2nd round) -> but also hopefulness in part 3 before she completes – irony as she asserts herself as special, but when her life gets cut short she transfers the hopefulness that someone else is the special one.

TOMMY

→ static character - doesn’t change throughout the novel

Ishiguro suggests that authentic emotion cannot be systematised

RE: Tommy’s breakdown exposes the cruelty of hope – once hope is introduced, its removal becomes catastrophic.

→ Expressive – temper tantrums - Reveal how the clones value conformity + what it means to be human as emotions reveal his humanity/pain

Tommy is presented as someone who struggled to control his temper. For example, at the beginning of the novel, Ishiguro lists verbs such as ‘raving, flinging his limbs about’ when describing one of his temper tantrums. This behaviour is mirrored towards the end of the novel, when he asks Kathy to pull over after their visit to see Madame. Again, Ishiguro uses a list of verbs such as ‘raging, shouting, flinging his fists and kicking out’ to show how, despite all this time passing, Tommy still struggles to control his anger.

MADAME

→ Looks at the clone with fear/disgust -> sense of “spiders” (vermin/pests)-> how the outside society views the clones/reflective of dominant social perspective = uncomfortable, repressed truths “told and not told”

→ Social conditioning vs conscious/moral code

→ PERHAPS Synecdoche (philanthropists, animal rights activists?) – “life’s work” is this altruistic or egotistical

Jeffers, chrissie and Rodney

→ Naïve – but also harsh truth

→ Class privilege -> hierarchal upbringing

→ Deferrals -> privilege

→ Fear, hope, escape, deferrals  

→ Theme of love