On the simplest level, Kathy H's audience is a donor she is caring for. Based on the passage it is safe to say that the donor was not a student at Hailsham. We never hear an answer as to how it really is where our mystery audience was. What we do know is that it must have been worse than Hailsham. Kathy says "is" not "was" when referring where patient X was. By the end of the book we know that Hailsham and every other facility that emphasized humane treatment of donors is now closed and only the shitty places survive. If Kathy had said "I don't know how it was where you were" it would be possible that the center was comparable to Hailsham.
Once again, since we never get an answer it can be argued that the donor doesn't want to talk about their experience. This begs the question, why does Kathy ask? Kath H seems very content sharing her story. She makes reference to wanting to sort out the memories of her time at Hailsham on a few occasions. She is telling her story as much to her own benefit as to the patient's. The phrase is a simple matter of politeness. Kathy is trying to get her donor involved in the story but she never lingers too long. At the beginning of the book she talks about her experience with a donor who was obviously distressed at the idea of having to recall too much of his days as a student.
That was the simple level. New question, why does Ishiguro write it? We readers as a meta-audience didn't go to Hailsham or a government run home. Are we supposed to think back to our own childhood and early school days? Were we molded into human capital, prepped for unquestioning slaughter by the great machine? Or are we being reminded to actually listen when we ask a question? How many times have any of us asked "How are you?" just to go on with our day or simply talk about our own little problems.
This phrase is another small reminder to what extent anyone in the donor programme is willing to sacrifice themselves for... well just sacrifice themselves. In their minds, this is nothing to question. Kathy and Tommy ask for 3 extra years, not complete deferment. As a donor you can think about how well you were reared, but that's just about it. How much is Ishiguro suggesting we are complacent in letting kids in sweatshops suffer? To what extent does he imply we are in a way donors ourselves, simply luckier than the poor souls who are in the government run facilities?
John...I really wanted to agree with your argument about the intended audience, but I think I might have evidence that contradicts it. Throughout the book, I came to believe that Kathy was addressing another donor for whom she was caring, and that we were a third-party eavesdropper to her very long-winded story. In fact, the story takes on so much detail and so much jumping of timeline that is is a really great example of the way in which people try to tell stories to each other. Saying things like "but that was all several weeks before the thing I am about to tell you right now, and I'll get back to why I'm telling you this later" is an amazing portrayal of how we really talk to each other, I think.
ReplyDeleteOn the first page of text (3), Kathy begins in such a way that we seem to be the object of her narrative, as if she's telling it directly to us. But then Kathy goes on to say "I can understand how you might get resentful--about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I get to look after" (4). This quote seems to imply that Kathy might be addressing her story to another carer OR to a donor.
But after her switch in possible addressees at the eng of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6, I now think that it is implied that we, the readers, are clones too. That we are being directly addressed in the text, but that we are clones ourselves - carer or donor - we are clones.
I suggest a re-reading of pages three through six, and I'd be really interested to know if you agree with me or think I am a cyclops twit!
Best,
Jim
In my reading she is saying on page 4 "You may well have been a carer who's skills equaled mine, but you didn't get any credit for it. That gives you all the right to be resentful for my car, my bedsit..." That was my most obvious clue I was basing it off of. I'm not sure which part of chapter 5 you meant. That part to me was all about how all they wanted was parents. Even though none of the donors had ever had them, they all daydreamed about the possibility of a grownup taking special care of them.
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