Plot
- Kathy H., a 31-year-old 'carer', looks back on her childhood at Hailsham, a boarding school in England, with her friends Ruth and Tommy.
- Miss Lucy, a guardian, tells the students the truth: they are clones, created to donate their organs until they 'complete' (die). Madame collects their best art.
- At the Cottages, Ruth and Tommy are a couple. Later, as donors and carers, the three meet again. Ruth, before she completes, admits she kept Kathy and Tommy apart and gives them Madame's address.
- Kathy and Tommy ask for a 'deferral', but learn it never existed; the art was collected to prove clones have souls. Tommy completes, and Kathy prepares to become a donor.
Themes and context
- Mortality, memory, what it means to be human, acceptance, love and friendship, and the ethics of science.
- Kazuo Ishiguro published it in 2005, set in an alternative late-20th-century England, after debates about cloning (Dolly the sheep, 1996).
Form
- A quiet first-person narrative full of memories, with euphemisms such as 'donations', 'carers' and 'completing' hiding the horror.
Key terms
- Euphemism
- A mild word for something unpleasant, such as 'complete' for die.
- Clone
- A copy of a living thing made from its DNA.
- Dystopian
- Describing a world that seems good but is deeply wrong.
- Carer
- In the novel, a clone who looks after donors.
Quick questions on Never Let Me Go
- Who narrates Never Let Me Go?
- Kathy H.: She looks back on her life.
- What is Hailsham?
- A boarding school for cloned children: Students are kept apart from the outside world.
- What are the students created to do?
- Donate their organs: They 'complete' after several donations.
- Who tells the students the truth about their future?
- Miss Lucy: She is dismissed from Hailsham.
- What does 'complete' mean in the novel?
- Die after donating organs: It is a euphemism.
- What do Kathy and Tommy hope to get from Madame?
- A deferral, putting off their donations: They learn it never existed.
- Why did Madame collect the students' art?
- To prove that clones have souls: It was part of a campaign for better treatment.
- When was the novel published?
- 2005: It followed debates about cloning.