Death and Friendship

               Never Let Me Go is an interesting book riddled with themes about mortality and friendship.  It does a good job of showing just what people would do if they were faced with a deadline for when their life would end.  It makes sense why Ishiguro says that the science fiction aspect of it is an afterthought.  Normal life spans are roughly eighty years or so; if he used regular people as his characters the desperation to cling to friendships would not be as strong.  Since the kids of Hailsham are all clones and their lifespans are rarely over thirty, all the feelings are amplified.

   

               Mortality is one of the overarching themes that is never really spoken about aloud.  All the students know in some way that they will not live long since they are meant to be donors, but they seem fairly alright with it.  This probably has something to do with how the children were brought up.  By being told at such an early age and never given any other options, the Hailsham kids just accept the fact that they will not get full lives.  In a way, this is Ishiguro trying to tell the reader to make the best of what they have.  He is trying to get the reader to think about their own mortality a little bit.  Death seems like an abstract and far away concept for many of us.  We know we have many years left, so why should we worry about it now?  Ishiguro wants the reader to contemplate their own morality to see what they really value in life; what kinds of things should be clung to dearly.

               The other focus of Never Let Me Go is friendship.  The format of the book is Kathy’s memories of her two friends, Tommy and Ruth.  It tells of their good times and their bad times, but most of all it shows how strong their bond is.  In the third part of the book, Kathy mentions running into an old Hailsham classmate and is thinking about the news that Hailsham is closing.  She says, “I kept seeing those balloons again.  I though about Hailsham closing, and how it was like someone coming along with a pair of shears and snipping the balloon strings just where they entwined above the man’s fist.  Once that happened, there’d be no real sense in which those balloons belonged with each other anymore” (213).  Even though they had all left Hailsham and their similarities behind, they still had each other.  To Kathy, the fear bigger than death was her losing her connection to her friends.  Death was inevitable, but her friendships took precedence. 

               Through Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro hopes to inspire the reader to look at their life and contemplate what things are worth holding on to.  Time is short and we all have a deadline.  However, until then we can cherish the people we meet along the way.