Never Let Me Go - Tommy’s Tantrum and Creativity

Tommy’s Tantrum

• Tommy is the other’s other.

• It mirrors human life and shows how similar the humans are to other humans.

• The clones have the same hierarchy as ‘reas’ people

• OR they have the same feelings and hierarchies as ‘real’ people.

• The purpose of the tantrums are to reinforce his human status.

• 2 quotations that show girls explaining Tommy’s treatment:

  • “But it's his own fault. If he learnt to keep his cool, they’d leave him alone”.
  • “The reason they go for Tommy is because he’s a layabout”.

  At this point of the text the characters are presented as thinking that creativity is everything. However, because Tommy doesn't follow their views, he is othered.

• Tommy is presented as being on of the key outsider in this novel.

• However, some believe that Tommy represents the character in a typical dystopian novel that rebels against the system. He knows that there is something sinister occurring, so he doesn't behave the way the other children do. As well as this his tantrums shows the rage these childrens should have, given their situation, but they are so inherently brainwashed that they don't react.

• AO3:

  • Ishiguro may have been influenced by the following characters:
  • Winston in Orwell’s 1984
  • Offred in The Hand Maid’s Tale
  • Narrator in Fahrenheit 451
  • Tommy is a typical dystopian character.

Creativity

• Creativity is a repeated motif.
• The reader is in the dark about the significance of the creativity until the end of the knowledge.
• Value is put onto the art that the students create by making them exchange tokens.
• The students are expected to create as many pieces of art within a 3 month period.
• The exchanges were important to the students as they further the relationships between students. It also allowed they to buy new belongings.
• Hailsham is presented as being different compared to the other schools due to the exchanges as they were encouraged to value each other's work.
• Creativity is a way for the students at Hailsham to build a sense of self-value and self-identity.
• It also separates those students who do not appear to be creative.
• As for the author’s message is concerned, it can be argued that creativity shows how sophisticated human characteristics.
• AO3:
  • “Without art, we’re not human. The ability to imagine and to take that imagination and make it into reality is one of the things that is really distinctive about humans.” - Anthropologist Augustin Fuentus, National Geographic.
• In the text, creativity is a marker of the soul.
• The real horror of Never Let Me Go is the fact that this creativity doesn't make any difference. The society that the clones live in ignores their creativity and doesn’t see it as anything special.