Never Let Me Go Lesson 1-2

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Never Let Me Go

Lesson 1

In Class Today

• Introduction to the theme & assessment
• Introduction to the author
• Introduction to the novel
• Start reading

Introdution to the theme

1. Introduction
2. The Narrator
3. Characterization
4. Mood & Setting
5. Foreshadowing
6. Symbolism
7. Theme
8. Plot
9. Altered Page 

The Assessment

Your goal for this theme is to transform or upcycle a book into a creative work of art that accurately analyses and represents literary components and your understanding of the novel you read with the class.

You will be utilizing a variety of different techniques and media to make your “Altered Book” interesting and eye-catching. 

This is a group assignment

But you will receive an individual assessment

Altered Page

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Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro is one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world.

Never Let Me Go, was named by Time as the best novel of the year, and was included in the magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

Kazuo Ishiguro

In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded Ishiguro the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer 

"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world". 

Ishiguro was knighted in the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Never Let Me Go

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world. But for what reason were they really there? It is only years later that Kathy, now aged 31, finally allows herself to yield to the pull of memory and try to make sense of the past...

Never Let Me Go

Published in 1996, Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. 

Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world

Start Reading

Characterization

The way an author develops characters and reveals their treats or qualities. 

1. Direct characterization (author tells us). 
2. Indirect characterization (character shows us). 

Direct characterization: The author makes direct statements about a character. Think adjectives 

Indirect characterization: What we can infer from the character's actions and interactions with others. Think verbs

Kathy H. 

Kathy is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. We see events through her eyes, filtered by her memory. Most readers seem to find Kathy a sympathetic character. That means that we generally like her. Is that true to your response?

Think-Pair-Share

What do we know about Kathy so far? Discuss what you like / dislike about Kathy's character.

"Anyway, I'm not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don't get half the credit. If you're one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful - ...(Ch1, p.3) Assumes prior knowledge and builds interest because the reader wants to find out.

" Or maybe I am remembering it wrong..., maybe I did feel a little stab of pain" (Ch1, p.8)

"And although we hadn't had any part in this latest plan to rile Tommy, we had taken our ringside seats, and we were starting to feel guilty" (Ch1, p.10). 

" So I reached forward and put a hand on his arm" (Ch1, p.11) Kathy is positioned as an empathetic character - certainly more than Ruth so at this point.

"This was all a long time ago so I might have some of it wrong; but my memory..." (Ch2, p.13) Retrospective narrative, looking back at the past. The acknowledgment that as a narrator, she is flawed - her memories may betray her/have changed over time/only show her side. 

Is she a reliable or an unreliable narrator? She is willing to admit that her memories are only her side of the story.

"I don't know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham..." (Ch2, p.13) She is talking to other people just like her - clones.

"'You notice everything, don't you Kath?' (Ch2, p.23). Kath appears to be rather perceptive - a good quality - a very human quality. 

"Thinking back now, I can see we were just at that age when we knew a few things about ourselves-about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the people outside - but we hadn't yet understood what any of it meant" (Ch3, p.36)

"So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you - of how you were brought into this world and why - and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs" (Ch3, p.36). Kathy doesn't like seeing herself through Madame's eyes. It's no fun to realize that other people are disgusted by you. Plus, realizing what Madame thinks of her seems to change the way Kathy thinks about herself.

Tommy

"We'd all seen plenty of Tommy's tantrums by then,..." (Ch1, p.9).

Human emotions - anger

"Then everyone was talking at once, about how Tommy never even tried to be creative,..." (Ch1, p.10)

Tommy stands out - also one of the first clues that being creative is important at Hailsham.

"I'm not sure when the big temper tantrums started. My own memory of it is that Tommy was always known for his temper, even in the Infants, but he claimed to me they only began after the teasing got bad... -the summer of our Senior 2, when we were thirteen..." (Ch2, p.21. Note that Tommy is much older than the traditional age of tantrums. This is why Tommy stands out.

Ruth

"..., and I realised everyone was waiting for Ruth's response - which was usually what happened whenever something a bit awkward came up. I kept waiting, then I heard a sigh from Ruth's side of the room, and she said: 'You've got a point Kathy. It's not nice. But if he wants it to stop, he's got to change his own attitude' " (Ch2, p.15)

Ruth is less empathetic than Kathy. Ruth is positioned as a leader.

Hailsham

"...the fact that we'd grown up together at Hailsham, the fact that we knew and remembered things no one else did"  (Ch1, p.4).

Shows us the importance of Hailsham to Kathy.

"That was when I first understood, really understood, just how lucky we'd been - Tommy, Ruth, me, all of the rest of us" (Ch1, p.5-6). 

Starting to see that there was something special about Hailsham, but as readers we don't know what at this point.

"Days could sometimes go by without us seeing a vehicle down that narrow road, and the ones that did were usually vans or lorries bringing supplies, gardeners or workmen"  (Ch3, p.34).

Haisham appears to be disconnected from society.

PART 1:

England, late 1990s

" I don't know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we had to have some form of medical almost every week - ..."  (Ch2, p.13). This is one of the first times that their health becomes a focal point in the narrative - a clue for readers as to what they were intended for.

"I should explain a bit here about the Exchanges we had at Hailsham" (Ch2, p.15) She is addressing the reader here and gives us a little context about the world at Hailsham.

"Looking back now, I can see why the Exchanges became so important to us. For a start, they were our only means, aside from the Sales - the Sales were something else, which I'll come to later - of building up a collection of personal possessions". (Ch2, p.16) Here it becomes clear that Hailsham is not a normal boarding school in the way that they don't have any personal possessions.

"A lot of the time, how you were regarded at Hailsham, how much you were liked and respected, had to do with how good you were at 'creating'"(Ch2, p.16). 

"If you think about it, being dependent on each other to produce the stuff that might become your private treasures - that's bound to do things to your relationships" (Ch2, p.16). 

"'It's all part of what made Hailsham so special,' she said once. The way that we were encouraged to value each other's work' (Ch2, p.16). The relationships they have with one and other are central - they appear to be disconnected from society.

"It must have been a Friday or a weekend, because I remember we had on our own clothes" (Ch3, p.25). Hailsham is a boarding school.

"I don't know if you had 'collections' where you were. When you come across old students from Hailsham, you always find them, sooner or later, getting nostalgic about their collections" (Ch4, p.38). 

Lesson 2

The Narrator

What questions do you have about your reading so far?

What is "narration"?

Narration

Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration encompasses a set of techniques through which the creator of the story presents their story, including:

Which points of view are used in storytelling?

Point of view

Narrative perspective is the position and character of the storyteller, in relation to the narrative.

• First-person
• Second-person
• Third person

What point of view does Never Let Me Go use?

First-Person Narration

A first-person point of view reveals the story through a participant narrator. First person creates a close relationship between the narrator and reader, by referring to the viewpoint character with first person pronouns like I.

The narrator openly acknowledges their own existence. . 

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is written in the first person and the story is told entirely from Kathy’s point of view. 

"My name is Kathy H. I’m 31 years old." 

The action and characters are presented entirely as Kathy herself perceives them, 

"And I realised that for Ruth and the others, whatever the boys chose to do was pretty remote from us..."

Narrative in Never Let Mer Go

 The reader therefore only finds out about events if Kathy herself remembers them and is only allowed to view the events from Kathy’s point of view. 

Kathy only informs the reader about the events she wants them to know about, so certain key occurrences may be kept hidden, therefore distorting the reader’s knowledge and understanding.

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

This requires the reader to do a certain amount of perceptive thinking of their own. For example, you need to consider if Kathy can be trusted as a narrator. You need to ask if she narrates events as they really happened or if she retells events in such a way that forces you to see them how she wants them to be seen. 

What are some consequences of first person narration for the reader?

The Unreliable Narrator

The unreliable narrative voice involves the use of an untrustworthy narrator. 

This mode may be employed to give the audience a deliberate sense of disbelief in the story or a level of suspicion or mystery as to what information is meant to be true and what is meant to be false. 

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

It is also important to look closely at the opening page of the novel. Kathy assumes the reader has a certain amount of prior knowledge about life in the society in which she lives, but of course they do not. This makes the opening quite confusing until certain details become apparent as the novel progresses. 

Narrative in Never Let Me Go

For example, the reader is unclear why Kathy does not provide her full surname, what the role of a carer actually entails, 

"I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years", 

What being a donor is all about, 

"My donors have always tended to do much better than expected." 

The reader is also unaware what Kathy means when she says,

"I’m a Hailsham student – which is enough by itself to get people’s backs up."

Read on!

Before class next week:

Read up to and including chapter 5 of the novel