Expanding Ideas

After our discussion on Wednesday I think that alot of the questions I had were cleared up. The different opinions that were discussed and thrown out about some of the different topics that were brought up were very interesting and made me understand the book in a better sense. When we talked about the boat that they brought up in the book, I dont know if we really established anything about whta the significance of that was. I did think that it was very interesting when we talked about how if the three; Ruth, Tommy and Kath were maybe being brainwashed or forced into what they were thinking when they really knew that there was another world out there. I never had really thought about that until we read the one passage Ben brought up and looking further into it the children knew that there was another world out there and they werent quite sure how to attain it and no one would tell them about it but would just tell them that there is no other way of life and they could only be carers and donors. If there were anything else that I could talk about in class next week would be the ethics behind cloning and then making those people be donars. I know that there are so many different opions on this topic so I think that could make for a very interesting discussion. Also another point that ties in with this would be, do you think our world could turn into this someday? Are we on our way with all of our technological advances? I personally have alot of opinions on these subjects so I think it would be interesting to see what all of the other people in class thought. Pretty pumped for the potluck too..should be a fun way to end the semester!!

Some Ideas...

When we discussed the significance of the boat in "Never let me go", we had some ideas like: "boat was the only way to get them off the island","broken hopes". In my opinion, the boat had a different meaning. Before appearance of the boat, there were passages about clothing of Hailsham. "It was that exchange, when we finally mentioned clothing of Hailsham, that suddenly brought us close again, and we hugged, quiet spontaneously,..." In my understanding Hailsham is the place that brought them all together, and suddenly, after all this talks about clothing of Hailsham - appearance of the boat. Even condition of the boat might be similar to how Hailsham would look like when its closed, or what may became with it, since they(Kathy, Ruth, Tommy, and others) left. "I could now see how its paint was cracking, and how the timber frames of the little cabin were crumbling away". The Boat as a Hailsham brought them together again, for the last time.
Also, I do not remember if we talked about significance of the book title. What exactly the author was referring to when he came up with this title. There are several passages reminding us about the title. "Every so often, I could see the man's fist, where all the balloon strings were converged, and I could see he had them securely twisted together and in a tight grip."
Finally, we did not talk about political significance of this apolitical book. I'm sure, there are many subjects in the real world. Why did Ben introduced us with Strauss before making us read this book? Could we use the content of this book for our second written assignment?

Posting Assignment #10 (due Sunday 12/13, 11:59 P.M.)

For this last "normal" posting (excluding the final project), I'd like to forego a formal posting assignment and instead use this as a space to connect this week's discussion with next week's.  So, please spend some time thinking, and writing, about the following:

What questions, thoughts, and ideas relating to Never Let Me Go continue to linger after this week's class?  What points from our discussion do you want to continue in class next week -- and what points did we NOT raise in class this week, which we need to get to next week?  Use your notes from class today, especially the mini in-class writing we did at the end, as your guide...and then expand from there!

(For those of you who were not in class today -- spend some time thinking, and writing, about the following two questions, which we started with in class:  1) How did you feel as you were reading this book?  What feelings did it bring up, and when?  And why, do you think?  2) What is important here?  What do you want/need to talk about?  What's most pressingly on your mind?) 

Blog 9

"I dont know if you had collection where you were, when you came accross..." (page 38)
this is the passage that i looked up in the question example. i think Kath is using this kind of way to tell us (for every reader or anyone who doesnt go to Halisham) that she has grown up and raised by a different school system for example, in the first section of the book, we read that if they created some good piece of art, it can be collect to Madame's Gallery. Later in third section near the end, the conversation with Kath, Tommy and Miss Emily, we figure out that the reason for collecting god art works was to tell the others that these kids have souls in them.
but the original perpose is that to improve the gene so they can donate better organs.
i think that Kath is telling us that although the school system was wrong, like using the students ignorant to teach them about donor and carer, and have them dying from donating organs. She didnt stop what she was doing after hearing the evil (?!) plan of Halisham in part 3, she continued to become a carer of Tommy, eventhogh she couldnt be Tommy's forever carer at the end (im still confused that why tommy doesnt want kath to be his carer near the end). i think this is a sad story with sad ending, not only becasue Ruth and Tommy died. Its about Kath attitude, she seemed to accept the way people want her to be, and accept it although she knew it will be a sad ending.
i dont know what Kath want us (the people who didnt attend Halisham) to think her story is important, but to me spicificaly, it makes feel that i shouldn't accept the fate that people had given me, if its a sad fate, i shouldnt accept it but to find a way to change it.

blog 9

In this book I found it very confusing with the concept of us, them and, it much like most people have already posted about. One of the phrases that I found was in the very beginning on page 13 "I don't know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we had to have some for of medical every week" It seems to me that throughout most of the book there are these comparisons or she almost seems to be distancing the reader or another idea on what she might be doing is trying to get the reader to start to think more about their childhood, maybe wanting to tap into the readers creative side. With that being said I think that the author might be targeting adults in trying possibly think more of their childhood and become more creative and imaginative. The whole issue of us, them, it is very confusing at some points I thought it was Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy as us but Tommy still seems distant from the other too. As far as the them goes I believe that it might be the guardians and the it is anything that is outside of the fenced in area.

blog 9

The fact that she directs this phrase directly at us (“where you were”) means that she wants us to relate to her story on a personal level. I think it shows us something about her intended audience. It shows that her story is directed at people who have somewhat similar backgrounds, but she obviously doesn’t expect them to be too similar because she says, “I don’t know how it is where you were.” She usually uses this in the first part of the story; the part where she describes what her school was like. Because of this, I think she is directing her story to an audience that has attended elementary, middle, and high school. I think she is making the assumption that her audience went to a school as a child. She assumes that they went to school with many other classmates and that they spent a lot of time together and were close like the children at Hailsham.

As far as ideas, messages, or arguments she is trying to convey, that is not so clear to me. I can see in her writing that she wants us to relate to her. She wants to help us understand her story better by describing all the details of conversations and interactions with other students. This means to me that she wants us on her side. But what is her side, and her side of what? Well, I think this has to do with the fact that they are clones created for the purpose of giving donations. I also think she is against this idea, so I think she wants us to realize how very horrible this really is. They way she does this (how she conveys her message)is by telling us her whole life story and having the readers relate and empathize with her. She does this by (like I said) pulling us into her world by giving us many details so that we can better understand her (and empathize with her).

Why is it important for these things to be conveyed? A book should have a purpose. I think some books might be written simply for the pleasure of reading a light-hearted story. Even those books have some sort of moral or something to take away from it. People reveal their arguments, passions, and beliefs through writing, and I think a book is an appropriate place for a person to convey his message. So why is it important for Kathy to convey her message? I think it is important for everyone’s voice to be heard. It is important that she tells her story and inserts her message because she needs to speak her mind and people can learn from her story.

Blog 9

From Kathy’s viewpoint, I think the “us” could mainly include Kathy, Tommy, Ruth, and other students. The “them” could be any one who is not a clone.

The line “I don’t know how it is where you were, but…” is used to show that there is some sort of major difference between Kathy and her intended audience, which I believe to be those who aren’t clones. I also think this phrase is used kind of in an insulting manner towards those who choose to acknowledge clones as non-human by implying that Kathy doesn’t really care about how things go for them.

However, I think that through this story, Kathy is trying to blur the line between “us” and “them” by using the students ‘creativity to show that they too can be fully human. When Tommy says “So what you’re saying, Miss, is that everything we did, all the lessons, everything. It was all about what you just told us? There was nothing more to it than that?” I think that another similarity is shown. It is the inevitability of death and the question of why do any of us do the things we do?

Strange Yet Eeerily Similar

There are countless “coming of age” stories within our culture. Most of us have seen Disney Channel Original Movies, read sappy teenie-romance novels, or experienced some other sort of media production that captures the journey a character from youth to adulthood. The vast majority of these pieces of literature attempt to show some sort of growth usually from the “ugly duckling”, and through good morals and usually a quircky best friend, the transformation into the “beautiful swan.” Kazou Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go offers an extremely unique look at this literary genre.

The repetition of the phrase “I don’t know how it is where you are but…” throughout Ishiguro’s novel helps encompasses many of the reasons his book differs from previous coming of age tales. For one, it reveals the extreme uncertainty of the narrator, Kathy, in determining not only who she is, as in classic coming of age stories, but also WHAT she is. The narrator is drawing a distinct separation between herself and the readers of this book. When Kathy reuses that phrase and states “We certainly knew-though not in any deep sense-that we were different from our guardians, and also from the normal people outside” (69). This is the author both showing that she does not fully understand her situation, but certainly proves it may be similar but definitely not exactly the same as the reader’s. This is what makes Never Let Me Go’s perspective so unique.

Not only does the phrase I don’t know how it is where you are but…” that there is a separation between “us” the readers of the story, like myself and other humans, and the “them” of the story, which are the distinctly different (yet eerily similar) to the clones. Most of all though, the phrase acknowledges the “it” of the story which in my opinion encompasses the emotions, feeling, and memories that both “us” and “them” experience in our lives. It is clear to me that the “us” in this story are supposed to pull away similarities in Kathy’s upbringing and our own. It is hard to read this story and not reminisce about my own elementary life. But once the author grows, we become more detached from “them’s” lifestyles but still throughout the book there are strong resemblances of our own lives. I think we as readers are supposed to draw opinions on love, friendship, and how we treat each other from perspective of a non-human. It is so strange but still so familiar!

So Many Them/Us/Its, So Little Time

This book is probably one of the best representations of multiple them’s and us’s that change frequently throughout the story. The reoccurring words of “I don’t know how it is where you were, but...” makes me think of a collective of people, all being brought up in different places and taught different things. And, as you finish the book, it makes almost complete sense. There were two kinds of places a “student” could be brought up in Kath’s time: a place that valued the “students,” that cared for them, or a place that, as it says, put the donors into shadow and made them inhumane. Here is one representation of us and them; in Kath’s view at the end of the book, Hailsham is an “us” whereas the other places were a “them”.

Maybe this makes no sense whatsoever, but the point I am trying to make, I guess, is that there are so many us/them/it/him/her possibilities in every situation, and it can change at a moments notice. Even at the end of the book, one moment Kath is combining Tommy and herself into an “us” category by not driving on “the big glittering motorways with their huge signs and super cafes [that] were for everyone else,” and the next moment she is being “divided...of yet again, not just from all the other donors, but from [Tommy] and Ruth.”

And I guess I am also trying to say that Kath’s intended audience, I would like to think it’s anyone who feels different, or thinks different, is being persuaded to except whatever group you are put in, and that you can’t fight it. Maybe its best just to leave it alone. Which is completely depressing in its own right, and also agrees with the entire tone of the novel as a simple, disturbing story with a simple, disturbing end.

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.

Blog #9

"The world didn't want to be reminded how the donation programme really worked. They did not think about you students, or about the conditions you were brought up in. In other words, my dears, they wanted you back in the shadows".
The audience of the Kathy in the ugly world that was horrible enough to create such an institution. The world that would assume that these donors have no souls. The world that would look to the people like them as suppliers for the medical experiments.
The phrase "I don't know how it is where you were, but..." referring to people, who were even though uncomfortable about an existence of the donors, but still preferred to keep donors in a shadows due to the "overwhelming concern that their own children, spouses, parents, friends, did not die from cancer, motor neuron disease, and heart disease." People, who selfish enough not to care of what happening to other people, as long as their significant others can be safe and healthy.
This reading, which is basically ripped my heart in peaces by the way, is a perfect allusion to the real world, about developed and advanced countries taking away resources from developing countries. If America in "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson was giving people from the rest of the world "something to dream about", Madame and Miss Emily were giving these poor kids the same thing - a false hope. The difference is that these are real people with hopes, souls, and other intangible values.
This phrase can also tell as that these "students" had (have) something that the rest of the world doesn't have, the knowledge that they are different than everyone else, their purpose, their Hailsham which is not just a place with fences and guardians, but a place that made them all a family. "I'll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head, and that'll be something no one can take away. Despite the fact that they were losing each other, they learned to treasure intangible things.
Kathy as a narrator is aware of the fact that the rest of the world is different from the one she grew up in. By this phrase she separates her world with the rest. I assume, that when most of us read this book, we emphasize with the "students" - we become us, and the rest of the world, the world that wishes to have donors in shadow becomes them, - as we read the book. But roles changing as we close this book and begin analyzing it and comparing it with the present world.
The question is, even though we realize the ugliness of all of these do we begin to think that this all should be changed or eliminated? Do we want to stand on the way of the technological progress, which can be possibly supplied with the material of such nature?

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.’

Blog Post #9

I think the use of the phrase really separates her world from the intended audience’s world. It sets her farther away from “normal.” Instead of just being a place in England, it becomes an entire different planet. This is emphasized when the ghost story is being explained about the girl who was a Hailsham student “until one day she’d climbed over a fence just to see what it was like outside” (page 50). The girl’s curiosity about the “outside,” meaning simply beyond the fence, drives her to climb that fence and is never let back in. The fact that the entire “boarding school” is fenced off added to the division of the worlds.
The intended audience is obviously someone that is not a part of Kathy H.’s world. Like I said, repetition of that phrase makes a distinction between us, the readers that live somewhat “normal” lives, and them, those living in Hailsham. Usually, the reader seems to relate to the narrator in the book (at least that’s been the case for me in many of the books we have read in this class); therefore “us” involves the reader and the narrator. I found it easy in this book to at least empathize with the narrator, which is a characteristic that we noted in class that relates to defining “us.” I think that is another reason that the author stressed the phrases like "I don't know how it is where you were….” It was a reminder, at least for me, that I am very different from Kathy H., or at least living an extremely different life. Kazuo Ishiguro may have also done this to make that connection. Although we are living different lives, we can still have similar personalities, goals, ambitions, etc. It was possibly a way to kind of let the reader be okay with empathizing with the main character.
It’s more complicated than that, because I’m confused at who us, them, and it even is in this book though. If I heard this story told through the eyes of someone from “my world,” I think I would categorize the people in Hailsham as “it.” The people in Hailsham are created for one purpose and are contained in this camp of sorts. When Kathy H. says, “did someone think we didn’t have souls?” (page 260) my ideas of who I thought us, them, and it were was completely changed. They’re simply clones, which I would typically refer to as “it,” but the entire book convinces me otherwise.

It's christmas, donate now

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?

Blog 9

The repetition of the phrase “I don’t know how it is where you were, but…” make me see Kathy as an other. I am not sure if this other is a part of the group Them or It. I am not the only person who is unsure about how to classify Kathy H. and the other students, donors, or clones. I think that the words you choose describe Kathy H. helps to place her in the them or it category. I think Kathy H. keeps saying this phrase because she knows she is different from her audience. She assumes we are not like her, that we could not understand what it meant to have collections or what the proper way to act around guardians is.

The meeting between Kathy, Tommy, Madame, and Ms. Emily shows how it is unclear to determine how to classify Kathy and Tommy. Ms. Emily and Madame wanted them to be seen as having souls and as students. They taught the arts and made them believe there were possibilities for them just like others had. In reality this was not true. I am confused on why Madame and Ms. Emily did it at all. They both say how they are repulsed by the students. Ms. Emily says how she constantly had to fight her repulsion to the students. Madame is also repulsed by the students looking at them with disgust. When Kathy, Ruth, and her friends first try to interact with Madame she looks at them as if they were spiders. She had dread in her face and was suppressing a shudder. (pg 35) Even after all the work she did for Hailsham Madame did not fully believe in it. When Tommy and Kathy were about to leave and Madame reached out to Kathy cheek she was trembling (pg 272) If the people who were suppose to be helping them not know what group to place them in how should I know? Kathy only has her fellow students that she can relate to so everyone non Hailsham is them. Kathy repeats the phrase because we are all them to her.

When I first read the line, “I don’t know how it is where you were but…,” the first thing that came to my mind was that Kathy’s world, experiences, and life is probably different than to how mine is. This is what I think Kathy means when she repeatedly says this, her world is different than most people’s. She is raised to believe what is going around her is alright and that the “students” are not humans. The “students” were trying to be dehumanized by the guardians. On page 260, Miss Emily says, “Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.” As mentioned, the boarding school tried to dehumanize the students. The guardians collected the students’ art work to determine if they were human-like. Humans have “souls” and emotions. If the students had souls, like Miss Emily said the art work was used to prove, then the whole cloning and donation system would be thought of morally wrong since human beings were being killed at the expense of others.

I believe the “us” are people who are taught to think that donations and going to “completion” are alright. I think “them” are the people who try to convince others that it is acceptable. Finally, I think “it” are the donors/clones because they are suppose to be thought of as “nonhumans” and “it” must be thought of as an object.

I think the attended audience is anyone who does not necessarily take time to look pass blatant facts. Sometimes, the true understandings of things are behind curtains and are well hidden.

number 9

“I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we had to have some form of medical every week … p. 13

“I don’t know who she was angry with. But she was angry all right.” P. 28

These were a few quotes from the beginning of the book that related to Kathy’s story. When Kathy, Tommy and Ruth were attending Hailsham, Kathy was more focused on containing Tommy’s temper and controlling Ruth’s beliefs. She was so focused on them she was not taking care of herself and paying attention what was going on around her at Hailsham. Those two quotes relate to that in a sense that she was so focused on what was occurring right in front of her she was unaware of other details. Students were so “special” at Hailsham they had no idea they were not even human, but just clones.

“…even though Miss Emily’s words should have crushed us, there was an aspect to them that implied something further, something being held back, that suggested we hadn’t yet got to them bottom of things.” P. 258

When they were older and looking into their past at Hailsham, they were starting to realizing the other important details they overlooked while being students, clones, at Hailsham. The students were secluded.

Kathy is trying to get the message across to students/employees to pay attention to all detail and realize their actual role in society. Citizens are so locked into a typical routine they do not even understand what their actual responsibility is in their university/business. This in an important image to portray to students/employees to dig deeper and understand what’s going on behind scenes, not just the blatantly obvious facts. It still gives students/employees a chance to become more dependent and just be clones of what instructor/bosses mold them to be.

blog nine

"I don't know how it is where you were, but..."

When first reading this phrase, you have to consider the obvious.. each of our individuals worlds is different from the next. The same goes for the world of the characters in Never Let Me Go. For example, Kathy H. was living a much different world then Tommy was, simply for the fact that their personalities are diverse. This phrase is constantly being repeated (whether in this format or similar to this) because I think Kathy H. is trying to show us that the world she grew up in, at Hailsham, is honestly unlike anything we, or the other people, grew up in and we have to try and see what it was like where the people around her were thought of as either "having souls" or not. It seems like the best placement right now for the "us" would be the people, such as Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy H. who are trying to live their lives by doing their donations and being carers; the "them" is the people like Madame and other Hailsham staff who are trying to convince others and themselves that this is an alright thing to do since the students are not technically "human"; and that implies what the "it" is supposed to be, the "non-human" or soul-less students who are just clones to be used for donor transplants. If I had to pick right now who I think the intended audience is, I would say that it is for those people who look deeper into things, to think that maybe there is so much more to life than what we have been taught or know (or think we know) and that we are all just being sheltered by our gaurdians, but in order to be fully prepared for our future, we should be allowed to know everything and the full truth about what is out, waiting for us in the world.

Blog 9

"I don't know how it is where you were, but..."

As I read these words, it made me think of how truly screwed up this book is. To me this repetition just seems condescending considering the rest of the world believes that the students are completely inhuman. It also makes me think of how the world is today still... "I don't know how it was where you grew up...but our worlds are obviously not the same"... In this book it is so painfully true. What if we all are donors - and never knew it?

A passage from 265 says "Back in the shadows where you'd been before the like of Marie-Claude and myself ever came along." It makes me think that yes, the two guardians did do something nice for these kids - but was Miss Lucy right? Would it be better of if the students knew?

I think that the passage Ben put in the blow also tells us that the audience that Kathy is trying to reach is all of us. In my mind she is saying... well - no one really knows each other's past - and what if, what if we are all donors in real life. I think it clearly makes a statement between us and them... although we truly have no idea who is "us" and who is "them"

Posting Assignment #9 (due Sunday 12/6, 11:59 P.M.)

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"I don't know how it is where you were, but..."

This phrase recurs several times, without variation, during the first sections of Never Let Me Go. It is, I'm pretty sure, the only series of words at this length to be repeated verbatim -- and it's also repeated other times with small but important variations (e.g., "I don't know if they had 'collections' where you were" (38)).

After our reading of Strauss, this repetition should make us prick up our ears: something important is going on here. In your posting this week, I'm asking you to think hard about what that something is. What role does this phrase play in the context of the rest of the book (written by Kazuo Ishiguro) and the story within the book (told by Kathy H.)? More specifically:

What does this phrase illuminate about Kathy H.'s story? What does it tell us about her intended audience -- who that audience is, and what assumptions she is making about him/her/them/us/it? About the ideas or messages or arguments she is trying to convey to that audience, and how she is trying to do it? About why it is so important for these things to be conveyed to this audience?

In answering these questions, please make reference to specific passages as needed. You'll also note that the questions I'm asking here are the same questions I'm encouraging you to ask about your own writing, in longer written text #3. This is not a coincidence!

***A WORD TO THE WISE: There is no one right answer to these questions; they are very much open for interpretation. However, to propose a plausible answer to them, you have to have read the whole book first, or at least most of it. It will be painfully obvious if you have not. Chapter 22 (pp. 256-275), in particular, will be crucial.***
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