Scarica Riassunto "Never Let Me Go" e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! PLOT SUMMARY > 1 < Kathy talks about her experience as a carer for donors. She is one of the best since she has done this job for many years now and she gets to choose the donor she wants to take care of - in fact she mostly chooses donors from Hailsham, her school. She made this choice after taking care of a donor from another place but that loved to hear about Hailsham as if he has been there too in his childhood days. After that she remembers about the things that happened at Hailsham as the day Tommy threw a tantrum because no one picked him for their team for the game. She remembers her and her friends were looking at him from the pavilion, making fun of him and hoping a guardian would have come to stop him. She was the only one worried for his fav shirt that he had on. She went to talk to him about it when the girls left the pavilion to come back to the head house and mistakenly he slapped her hand and hit her face. It didn't hurt but she gasped and only in that moment he realized what he was doing, where was him and that other people were looking. > 2 < Tommy meets Kathy on the stairs when they go see nurse Trisha for their weekly visit and tells her he's extremely sorry. She says it's all forgotten but this gesture he did, led her to get interested in the troubles he faced in the next weeks. He threw tantrums, many pranks were played on him but no one said anything to make the bullies stop. Kathy brings the thing up with her friends one night, Ruth agrees but says he has to stop having this attitude if he wants them to stop and participate in the Spring Exchange since he never did. The Exchange was an exhibition-sale where the students sold and bought goods from each other that they created in the months before - the respect you gained depended also from how good you were at creating. She remembers talking with Ruth about this exchange when she visited her at the recovery center in Dover. Then she comes back to talk about Tommy and tells where his anger issues originated: he draw an elephant during Miss Geraldine's art class and got mocked by kids in class, that did worse when the teacher tried to praise him and his drawing. From there he tried to improve by making a big effort but that just brought people laughing more at him and he deliberately started to act childish, meaning he couldn't care less. And classmates started to avoid him and being mean, especially Arthur H. Then at a point the persecutions stopped, classmates like Peter N. and Alexander J. started to talk to him and Kathy doesn't know the real reason, maybe just the fact Tommy stopped throwing tantrums and talked in a different way to people. She decides to investigate and talks to him while they are in the queue to get lunch, she wave and he decide to come back in line to talk to her. She ask what is going on, why he changed and, after saying him and the guys grew up, he confesses he had a talk with Miss Lucy and after that he felt better because she told him it was fine to not be creative if he didn't feel like to. She thinks he is lying and gets angry and goes to talk to a friend leaving him there. He then goes to talk to her and promises he was serious and he will tell her more if she meets him at the pond. > 3 < She goes to the pond trying not to look suspicious and acting as if he met Tommy there, casually. They start to talk about nothing and at a point she mentions Miss Lucy. He then says Miss Lucy told him not to worry about others, said she saw many students not being creative for years which at a point blossomed and maybe Tommy was one of them. And he then And he then confess Miss Lucy was shaking in anger but he didn't know at who, not at him tho. And they never talked about their discussion anymore and she just nodded at him in class. He makes Kathy swear she won't say a word about what he told her and she promises. And before she leaves, he add that Miss Lucy talked about the fact they weren't taught enough about the donations and similar and that she would teach them herself. Tommy doesn't know what to think and Kathy asks if she got angry/shaking when she waying about not teaching enough and he says yes and Kathy gets suspicious thinkinb him not being creative and the donations were linked. Many things happening makes her think that there is something weird going on like Madame comjng and picking their best works for the gallery with no real reason. They all linked together but Kathy doesn't know how yet. She and Tommy say goodbye after that and she talks about the gallery which they coudl never mention in front of the guardians and that was of Madame who showed up a bunch of times during the year to pick their best works and bring them to this gallery that they never saw. She never let students around her and so the girls came up with the idea she was afraid of them and made a plan to meet her. They do and her reaction proves Ruth theory was right, she was scared of them but in a disgusted way. The girls feel bad after that and resented and they understand in that moment that they are different than the guardians and madame that shivers at the idea of how and why they were born in this world. > 4 < Kathy says she will stop being a carer at the end of the year and she needs to make order with her memories. She mentions the token controversy for which kids started to understand that Madame took away their most marketable pieces and it was no longer an honor for them to have her take them. Students started to demand to be compensated with tokens when Madame took something and Roy J. decided to talk about this with guardian Miss Emily since he had tons of his works taken away. In the end they decided to give students some tokens but not many since having the piece at the Gallery was already an honor. One morning in class with Miss Lucy, Laura makes a joke about the tokens and the teacher asked them what they thought and at that point Polly asked why Madame took their things. Lucy says it is for a good reason that they wouldn't have understood but that hopefully someone would have explained to them one day. Kathy remembered about that episode when she talked with Tommy at the pond. She also explains about the Sales, similar to the Exchange but where they could get goods from the outside such as Tommy's fav shirt, that happened once a month. The juniors would follow the men with the boxes asking what was in it and becoming excited with the reply and they would sometimes end up arguing because more than one person wanted the object and got a speech from Miss Emily. Every day at Hailsham started with a speech/assembly anyway but just with announcements or poems reading while after the Sales she scolded them telling it was disappointing to see them acting like that when they were so privileged to be Hailsham students. Miss Emily was scary when angry but sometimes with some students she just let go, like with Kathy when she went for a walk near classes where students couldn't go, Miss Emily was rehearsing something in a class and saw her but never said a word about it. Then she talks about how she and Ruth became friends. They weren't friends at an early age, in fact Kathy has only one memory of Ruth back then, the girl being mad at two other girls and Kathy hoping she didn't think she had something to do Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005) Movie by Mark Romanek (2010) with whatever they did to her. Then when they were 7-8, Ruth came to her asking if she wanted to ride her horse, Kathy asked the name and Ruth said she can't ride Thunder, her best horse, since he's dangerous but she can ride others and asked Kathy if she had some too. She said no and Ruth allowed her to ride Bramble and if it liked her she could keep him. They go and play with these invisible horses and slowly Ruth starts to become friends with her, letting her ride the other horses, even Thunder. Ruth at a point seems tired of her, saying she did everything wrong and asked if she liked Miss Geraldine, and Kathy said she was her fav guardian and Ruth let her be one of the lady's secret guards, Ruth didn't explain what it meant but Kathy found out several days later. > 5 < Secret guards were to protect Miss Geraldine from being kidnapped by other students under the guide of Miss Eileen and be brought to the woods, it was all made up by Ruth but around the woods there were legends of killed students who got too curious of the outside. Small details were enough to let them believe the complot against Miss Geraldine was true like when Mr. Roger was talking to Miss Eileen looking at the oher guardian but they were never brave enough to confront the culprits – probably because they knew it was all in their mind. Ruth was the authority because she saw things from before the other members were there and those close to her would let the fantasy grow. Kathy was convinced Ruth would be a master in playing chess since when passing some students playing she always talked about moves they didn't see. So one day at the Sales she bought a chess set and continuously asked Ruth to play, the girl always refused till she had to accept and she taught Kathy the pieces all moved in an L. Kathy understood that Ruth clearly didn't know how to play and felt upset but didn't say a word, just took her set and went away. Couple of days later, she found Ruth and the secret guard talking and telling her they were discussing something – she understood they were about to kick her out of the guards. She went walking by herself one day and met Moira and they saw Ruth and the others talking secretly, Moira was expelled some time before from the guard and she commented that it was all a childish thing made up by Ruth, Kathy gets mad and tells her she knows nothing and defends all that they have been doing in those years, even lying about the fact she heard herself people talking about kidnapping Miss Geraldine. Another time Ruth had an amazing pencil case, something that all the girls wanted and when Kathy asked where it came from, if it was from the Sales, Ruth hinted that it was a gift from Miss Geraldine. She always hinted Miss Geraldine did some favors for her because she was her favorite and no one ever had the chance to reply but this time Kathy didn't want to let go, she wanted to know the truth and so with anger inside, she made up a plan to find out if Ruth was lying or not. Everything bought at the Sales was recorded and she planned to look at the virtual book next time she would have gone there – and so she did. Later one day, her and Ruth were walking together and she brought up the subject of the book she saw, Ruth seemed lost and speechless and Kathy felt bad and tried to say she didn't see much, she felt how she acted towards her dearest friend wasn't necessary but Ruth was disappointed and hurt anyway and she walked away. > 6 < After that, Kathy tried to find a way to make up for what she did because Ruth was very hurt and kept acting civil but distant so she tried to let her know she had for real a special place in Miss Geraldine's heart and that she would have never exposed her with the others. She once said if Ruth asked her to go out to play in the rain, Miss might have accepted since it was her asking and Ruth was pleased. Then she let Ruth pass exactly right after Miss Geraldine when they left class to give her a chance to be with the woman as if they were best friends, Ruth was grateful. The opportunity to make up for it completely came up one day when in art class Midge asked Ruth where was the pencil case and where it came from, she didn't know how to answer probably due to Kathy being there but was Kathy first to answer saying they couldn't tell where it came from and Ruth was extremely grateful for that and tried for over a month to return the favor. The occasion came when Kathy lost her tape of "Songs after dark" by Judy Bridgewater from 1956 that later she and Tommy found a copy in Norfolk. Norfolk was like a myth for them, Miss Emily described it as a "lost corner" and that's when they became interested in it because in Hailsham they also had a lost corner that you went to when you found or lost something, so they thought Norfolk was a place where people from all over the country went when they lost something, it became a comfort place, something that gave them hope that if they lost something one day they would have found it there and that's why her and Tommy felt the memories deep inside when they went there and found a copy of Kathy's tape. Back in time Kathy was very jealous of her tape because on the cover Judy was smoking and smoking was highly forbidden at Hailsham, the guardians turned entire classes into lectures on why smoking was wrong, eliminated books or pages that talked or showed about it. One day Marge K asked Miss Lucy if she ever smoked and she said yes unfortunately when she was younger. It was a big shock for the students and she weighed each word she said, adding that smoke would be way worse for them than it was for her, since they are special students they need to be very healthy inside and therefore never smoke. No one was brave enough to ask about it, to ask what she meant probably because they knew enough to know that that was a dangerous territory to get near to. Kathy turned the cover of the tape upside down not to let anyone see the cigarette in Judy's hand but what was important for her was track n°3 called "Never Let Me Go". She used to listen to it when she was alone in their dorm and she was so attached to it because she imagined a woman that could have never had babies as someone told her but one day she has one and she is partly happy and partly afraid someone would have took the baby from her or it would have fallen ill. One day she starts to dance with a pillow, faking it was a baby and when she turns she realizes that Madame was there looking at her and sobbing, she didn't say a word, just kept sobbing till she left. Kathy didn't tell anyone about it, she was worried and didn't know how to feel about it and told Tommy and he said that maybe she started crying because she knew they couldn't have babies as they were always told and thought it was miserable and said to see Kathy do that with the pillow when she would have never gotten a kid. Kathy is not convinced because the thing of the baby was always in her head and Tommy suggests maybe Madame read minds. Couple of months after the Madame episode, the tape went missing. Kathy wasn't sure what happened to it and none of her friends saw it. Ruth said she didn't see it and went on with her things but the day after Kathy heard her asking the others if they were sure they didn't see it – she understood how important it was for Kathy. After some time Ruth asked her to go for a stroll and handed her a new tape, not the one she lost but one she got at the Sales and she thought Kathy would have liked. With that gesture, they become friends again and the whole pencil case issue is forgotten. > 19 < Kathy and Ruth go to meet Tommy at Kingsfield from Dover and they go all together to see the boat. They enjoy the place a lot, even if Ruth has difficulties in breathing since her 1st donation didn't go too well. On the way back, they talk about the ADs they see on the road and Kathy talks about the office Ruth wanted to work in and both her and Tommy told her she should have given it a try. At that point Ruth says something and asks Kathy to forgive her for how she acted and especially for lying to her about how she felt about sex – because she too wanted to have sex with anyone sometimes when she said not – and for keeping her and Tommy apart since it was clear they were made for each other so she gives them Madame's number for the deferral to give it a try even if Tommy has already had his 2nd donation. Kathy cries and doesn't say a word and Ruth gives the number to Tommy to keep in case they wanted to try. Kathy keeps being Ruth's carer till she dies. For all the time she was alive, she kept telling Kathy to think about becoming Tommy's carer and before Ruth passes, Kathy promises her that she will (Ruth passes at her 2nd donation as Chrissie did, she heard). > 20 < Kathy becomes Tommy's carer and they get together, they even have sex even if Tommy is a bit weak. He even comes back to draw his animals, even if they never openly talked about going to Madame's. Till one day, since Tommy's nearly ready for his 4th donation and there's not much time left, they talk. Kathy says she went to see where Madame lives and Ruth was right, found the right address, and they decide to go and talk to her and try to get deferral and live their love together for 3 years. > 21 < They go to Littlehampton to see Madame, taking advantage of the fact Tommy had to do some clinical tests. They go into town and see Madame, follow her and Kathy is the first one saying "excuse me". The two guys introduce themselves and Madame invites them inside. When they get in, they start to talk about why they are there, about the deferral, the fact they love each other, the fact Tommy hasn't been creative and productive at Hailsham but now is, their theory on the Gallery and that the art was to reveal their true selves… Madame (called now Marie-Claude) gets emotional and tells someone else to talk to them. This someone is revealed to be Miss Emily in a wheelchair. > 22 < They finally talk to Miss Emily and she tells them everything, the whole truth behind Hailsham. They were brought to the world after the war to be scientific creatures, humans used to cure proper humans, giving them their organs when people were dying. They weren't considered humans and Miss Emily and MarieClaude and the other guardians fought all their life to let politicians, bishops and people understand that they were real humans, that they had souls and that's why they took their art, to make exhibitions all around the country with it and demonstrate they weren't just scientific products to be used when in need. Miss Emily admits there's no deferral for students in love with the big delusion of the two of them saying she is sorry they can't help. Also explains those from Hailsham were lucky because they had a better life than other clones in other schools, they tried to give them the best education and best life possible even if they couldn't save them from their being used as donors and says Miss Lucy had to be sent away because she was too idealistic, she wanted to tell the kids the whole truth but it was the not telling them all to keep them safe and let them have a decent life. Marie-Claude instead tells Kathy she cried when she saw Kathy dancing because she saw her embracing the old world while she was there at Hailsham and they tried the best for all of them. Kathy and Tommy leave the house to come back to Kingsfield till at a point Tommy asks her to stop and goes away. She follows him because she hears him screaming and finds him throwing a tantrum. When they get back in the car he says he is sorry and she says it is fine, that maybe all the tantrums he had was because deep inside he already knew. > 23 < Tommy starts to act differently with her, being distant till he tells her he wants another carer since his 4th donation – and death – are near. Kathy gets mad and goes away because he says if she was a donor, she would understand why he didn't want her to see him like this. They make up for it a bit after in his room where they talk and she accepts how he feels. For the rest of time, she spends it with him till the day of leaving him comes, they kiss goodbye and he confesses her about a gesture he did when he was playing football. Kathy remembers of her last days as carer, where she drove around and unconsciously tried to spot Hailsham somewhere but weren't able to till she gets to a place and she imagines Tommy – that completed/passed some time before – waving at her and she cried and thinks Hailsham will never leave her as much as Tommy and Ruh will never leave her when she will be in her center to start to donate. TITLE It comes from Kathy's tape, the song she used to listen to. TIME & PLACE Between the 60s and the 80s, England. CHARACTERS Main: Kathy H: carer, from Hailsham, kind and caring | Ruth: donor, from Hailsham, stubborn, selfish, spoiled | Tommy: donor, from Hailsham, nice but stubborn Secondary: Kathy's friends – Jenny B., Laura, Hannah, Matilda | Nurse Trisha checked them at school every week | Guardians: miss Geraldine, fav of all, very kind and tried to comfort them; Miss Lucy, very sporty and strong, not too talkative; Arthur H.: Tommy' enemy| Madame – Marie-Claude: French or Belgian lady that gets the students' works, tall, narrow, short hair, quite young, never talked to the students | Miss Emily: older guardian, strict but made them feel safe at Hailsham. THEMES  Love, friendship, family  Importance of health  Sacrifice, the guys sacrifice themselves to save other people's life  Power of knowledge and how it gets silenced when one wants to have control over others  Desperation and hope, desperation when Kathy and Tommy find out there is no deferral and the hope before that.  Dignity, when Tommy doesn't want Kathy to see him dying.  Importance of creativity and feelings, that make us human.  Importance of identity, research of identity  Dreams and career  Lies and betrayal, what Ruth did to Kathy and Tommy and the whole system lying to them about what is going to happen STYLE It is very well written. Some passages may sound a bit monotonous but it's a story with a deep meaning, it makes you think about how lucky we are. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BOOK & MOVIE Kathy is 28 and talking about her story. Hailsham 1978 | In the movie, Kathy is closer to Tommy when they are kids, even sits with him to eat | They know what Madame's name is, clearly tell them she will take the best work for her gallery and tell them what there may be in the boxes at the Sales, in the movie and not in the book | Kathy talks to Miss Lucy about Tommy's tantrums and he stops having them sooner than the book | Tommy gets Kathy the tape at the Sales and gives it to her and she gives him a kiss on the cheek. They seem much closer to each other in the movie than the book – the first part of the movie is mostly about them than her, him and Ruth | Kathy doesn't really dance with the pillow and it is Ruth seeing her, not Madame | Miss Lucy tells them much more about their donation program, like that at their 3rd or 4th they will be completed (die), she tells them without a real reason to and shortly after she is sent away from Hailsham and Miss Emily announces it in the assembly in a morning, while it doesn't happen in the book. Kathy during this sees Ruth holding hands with Tommy and is on the edge of crying because she had a crush on him, she even catches them alone kissing and she kept hoping they would have split up | Cottages are in 1985. They leave Hailsham at 18 in the movie, not 16. Kathy seems a bit weaker in personality than she is in the book, doesn't get mad at all | Kathy sees Tommy and Ruth in bed together, which doesn't happen in the book | Ruth is very emotional for her possible and she is sure she wants to go and she is the one inviting Tommy and Kathy, happens the opposite in the book – she didn't want them and wasn't sure if to go, she was much more indifferent | Chrissie and Rodney cry and are upset for the fact the deferral story is not known by the guys and that they say it may not be true | They don't go to the gallery of Ruth's possible | Tommy and Kathy don't talk about her searching her possible in porn magazines when in Norfolk, nor searching for the tape | Kathy doesn't tell Tommy about the porn magazines nor to Ruth and it's Ruth telling her that Tommy told her he found her looking at them. She tells her that he doesn't understand what she was doing but she does and gives her a kiss and goes away | Completion 1994. They don't talk about the other classmates or guardians much. Just the 3 of them. She finds Ruth casually in a center and visits her and sees she still has some things of hers from Hailsham like the little horses, doesn't happen in the book | They know about the Morningdale scandal while in the book it was miss Emily telling them about this scientist creating superhuman when she tells them the truth | Ruth is less bully, all of them are quieter | Ruth asks for forgiveness while they're still at the beach, not the ride back. She only mentions keeping Kathy and Tommy apart, she admits she knew they were in love and so she didn't want to be left alone and got in the middle | Tommy shows Kathy his drawings only when they are already together, talking about going to Madame for deferral, not back at the Cottages as in the book, and Ruth has no idea about them | Tommy admits he knew he was looking for her possible in the porn magazines at that point, when they are already together and she is his carer | Ruth is still alive when Tommy and Kathy are applying – Kathy tells her they will – for the deferral but she dies soon after that | The house of Madame is not dark. Kathy recognizes in that same moment the painting of Hailsham, she didn't in the book | It's Tommy talking to Madame and not Kathy | Madame and Miss Emily don't explain why Hailsham was created, about their movement to save the kids and give them a better life nor about the exhibition to let people understand they had souls as any other human | It ends with Kathy assisting to Tommy's donation and he looks at her (not in the book) and she remembers their days at Hailsham. And she talks after 2 weeks she lost him. She stops at a place looking at the barbed wire thread imagining it was Hailsham and tells she got her notice, her 1st donation is in a month and she will stop therefore being a carer. And imagine seeing Tommy waving at her but she doesn't let the fantasy go beyond that and understands their life (donor) is the same as the humans they save because at a point they all complete, but they didn't have enough time. WHAT I THINK OF IT I loved it but it left me with a sense of melancholy and sadness, it made me cry a bit especially seeing the movie.