BLOG NINE.

The phrase, "I don't know how it was where you were.." was something I started thinking about before I read this post--probably the second time it was repeated and most probably due to the fact that we have been talking about the intended audience of readings so much recently. My first thought was, "She is assuming that the reader is also a carer or a donor." This initial thought stayed with me through out the reading and I became even more certain that was her meaning as I read how much she tried to relate with everyone around her and find identity through others like her. There was such a sense of alienation between the the donors and 'real' people and it became even more apparent as they were older. It was not really seen until the Madame first ran from them 'as someone afraid of spiders' and you wondered how she saw them that you weren't picking up on from the reading--because, at the beginning they seemed like isolated but, normal children. Then, near the end when Tommy and Kath go to visit Madame and Miss Emily is there--they state how repulsed they were by them and what they were and there is even more of a divide between the donors and normal people. Leading me to believe even more that Kath was viewing the reader as one of them, one that would understand what they were going through on an intimate level. She wanted the audience to be able to relate to them--because, to Kath relating was important, being connected was important. She found such isolation as she lost Ruth and Tommy to the donors and she was thought to not understand because, 'she had never been a donor.' This a continual theme that comes up--her isolation from the donors as she is a continual carer. A scene I thought was really interesting was when her and Tommy are leaving Miss Emily's and Madame's (p 272) and they are driving and Kath is thinking about the obscure roads they are on and how she wonders if maybe the other cars are donors and carers and these are their roads--there is such a great seperation between them and the real world that has grown even greater by this point. And this intimate descriptions continue to lead me to believe that she is writing for an audience that has been through similar experiences.

As far as Kazuo Ishiguro's intended audience--I can only assume that he wished to portray a humanistic aspect to how technology has advanced and it seems to me a caution to be careful and not forget basic human rights. --When Madame and Kath are discussing the time that she was seen holding the pillow and swaying to the music and the Madame cries because she sees a girl crying and and begging for a kinder world--and I think that this is Ishiguro's message--to not let go of human kindness and get so caught up in ourselves that we neglect people.