Never Let Me Go Lesson 10

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Never Let Me Go

Lesson 10

In Class Today

Plot

Summary and Analysis Chapters 22-23

PLOT

Plot is a literary element that describes the structure of a story. It shows the causal arrangement of events and actions within a story. 

Most great stories, whether they are a Pixar film or a novel by your favorite author, follow a certain dramatic structure. According to Freitag, these stories can be broken down into five elements, usually including exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution or denouement.

Exposition. 

This is a set of scenes in which no major changes occur and the point is to introduce the principal characters, time period, and tone, and set up the “exciting force.”

Exciting Force. 

Freytag also calls this the “complication,” and other frameworks call it the “inciting incident,” when some force of will on the part of the protagonist or an outside complication forces the protagonist into motion.

Rising Action.

Now that the chief action has been started, this continues the movement toward the climax. Any characters who have not as of yet been introduced should be introduced here.

Climax.

In Freytag’s framework, the climax occurs in the middle of the story.

In this framework, the climax can be thought of as a reflection point. If things have gone well for the protagonist, at the climax they start to fall apart tragically.

Or in a comedy, if things have been going poorly for the protagonist, things start improving.

After the climax, whatever ambition the protagonist showed is reversed against himself, and whatever suffering she endured is redeemed. In other words, the energy, values, and themes shown in the first half are reversed and undone in the second half.

Falling action.

Things continue to either devolve for the protagonist or, in the case of a comedy, improve, leading up to the “force of the final suspense,” a moment before the catastrophe, when the author projects the final catastrophe and prepares the audience for it. As Freytag says, “It is well understood that the catastrophe must not come entirely as a surprise to the audience.”

But just after this foreshadowing, there must be a moment of suspense where the slim possibility of reversal is hinted at.

Resolution.

Freytag was chiefly focused on tragedy, not comedy, and he saw the ending phase of a story as the moment of catastrophe, in which the character is finally undone by their own choices, actions, and energy.

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Freytag's Pyramid

Can you fill in Freytag's pyramid for Never Let Me Go? 

Freytag's pyramid

Exposition: Kathy and Ruth begin a bumpy friendship at Hailsham.

Rising Action:  Kathy recalls growing up with Ruth and Tommy at Hailsham, where ambiguous references to their future as “donors” punctuate their idyllic childhood. As they become young adults, they hope in different ways for the possibility of changing or deferring this future.

Climax: Kathy and Tommy visit Madame’s house, where Miss Emily cuts off their last hope for more time together when she reveals that deferrals on donations do not exist.

Falling Action: Kathy spends a last few weeks with Tommy before he completes on his fourth donation, leaving her with her memories as she waits to become a donor herself.

Resolution/Denouement: Kathy mourns Tommy in Norfolk shortly before becoming a donor.

Chapter 23 - Summary

When Tommy notice for his fourth donation comes, Tommy tells Kathy that he wants a different carer. He points out that Ruth wanted “the other thing” for them, and would not have wanted Kathy to be his carer at the end. Kathy is angry at first, but complies. 

Kathy and Tommy spend a last few weeks together. On Kathy’s last day as his carer, they talk about Ruth. Tommy says that while he and Kathy always wished “to find things out,” Ruth always wished “to believe in things.”

Chapter 23 - Analysis

Tommy has a degree of self-knowledge that allows him to understand that he wants to be alone, away from Kathy, when he undergoes the difficulties of the final donation. 

Both Kathy and Tommy realize that they truly love each other. Despite all the other tragedies and misfortunes of the novel, this remains an important fact - Ishiguro allows the novel, despite all its other trappings of drama and technology, to remain a love story between two young people.

Chapter 23 - Summary

Kathy says a final goodbye to Tommy, but since they have been saying “goodbye” to each other for a long time now, the end is difficult but not excruciating. Kathy goes on with her life, and hears after months that Tommy completed after his fourth donation. She remarks to herself that, though she has “lost Tommy and Ruth and Hailsham,” she still has memories of these places, and she can keep these memories with her, and fight the decay of these memories, during her time as a donor, which is set to begin shortly.

Chapter 23 - Analysis

Maybe what Kathy is saying here is that despite the constrictions imposed on her life, she still had a life—a deeply human life—to remember and cherish. Hailsham may have been a bit of a sham and a failure at that, but it was still a place of love and comfort for her. Her relationships with Ruth and Tommy may not have been perfect, but they still contained love.