blog 9

For me, the repetition of the phrase “I don’t know how it is where you were, but…” serves two purposes. Primarily, it illustrates the fact that Kathy is directly addressing someone. In that sense, it is not like a traditional story in which the reader is supposed to assume he/she is the one being addressed, but rather he/she is constantly reminded of this.
In addition, I think the phrase serves as way to create a division between the reader and Kathy. It is important that the reader is made constantly aware of what separates him/her from Kathy. Although the above quote is used many times to do this, the ‘outside’ is also referenced as a way to further this division. For example, on page 50 when Kathy states “She’d been a Hailsham student until one day she’d climbed over a fence just to see what is was like outside” (50). Another example occurs when Kathy is talking about Miss Emily and explains her actions by saying “I suppose she wanted us to have a grasp of what was out here surrounding us” (65). Furthermore, it is used on page 69 when Kathy says “We certainly knew- though not in any deep sense- that we were different from our guardians, and also from the normal people outside” (69).
In terms of him/her/them/us/it, I would argue that the reader belongs to the “normal people outside” and is part of the ‘them;’ the unknown. As for the ‘us,’ it seems like they are those living in Hailsham as a community separated from a larger community. Finally, I think that the’ It’ is all of the differences that separate the people of Hailsham from those on the ‘outside.’