Dreams AND Fate Essay Samples

Introduction

The novel presents devastating conditions in which case innocence, knowledge and loss are prevalent and prominent throughout the story. As little children, Tommy, Kathy and Ruth are in secluded, exclusive boarding school in the English countryside known as Hailsham. Based on the story, the teachers are constantly reminding their charges on how special they are. However, they never learn the essence in their special nature since they are not very creative. One is able to point out that knowledge is an aspect that the trio has not been able to attain in their young ages while in Hailsham. As such, this depicts their innocence since they are not open to real life things which would otherwise influence their thinking and manner of doing things. Eventually, there is an element of loss which results from lack of prior knowledge in matters that would otherwise impact greatly upon their lives.

Body

Essentially, the novel centers on three main themes including knowledge, innocence and loss. Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are the victims of all these themes which unfold through different stages in their life. In their innocence, the trio does not know what the future keeps in store for them. As such, they even never know whether Ruth and Tommy will ever begin to date at any point in time. This clearly shows that out of their innocence, they carry on what the teachers tell them on different capacities. In their innocence, they do not know the reason as to why they are kept in Hailsham School since they are all clones who are expected to donate their vital organs as determined for them (Ishiguro 10). They do not know that their freedom is at the mercy of those who run the school.
As children in Hailsham School, the trio does not possess adequate knowledge since they are in a secluded school whereby they cannot access interactive opportunities with others so that they can share their experiences and hence learn from one another (Ishiguro 17). The idea of knowledge affects Kathy and her friend in a distinct way. Once they become daydreamers, wondering about their future lives, there comes a new guardian, Miss Lucy, who puts a stop to the dreams. She tells them that they will not achieve these dreams since they have been created to give away their important organs one of the days. Shifting from friend to lovers, Tommy and Ruth begin dating which is an element of knowledge.
Essentially, the donations that they are bound to make clearly depicts the theme of loss which happens to the trio at different times in their lives. Ruth, who has been innocent in her teens, comes to understand that they have a compelling duty of donating vital organs since this is what they are meant for. Tommy, together with Ruth, is constantly called in order to donate vital organs, which is indeed loss (Ishiguro 271). Losing their vital organs to others means being incapacitated in significant ways. Kathy’s fate is seen after the ‘completion’ by Tommy since she is summoned and will become a donor soon afterwards. Therefore, it is clear that these themes open and each leads to the other. From innocence, the trio gets to know their fate whereby eventually, the fate causes them to lose their vital organs through donation. Balloons and boat are metaphors representing the bodily organs of the trio, which they are donating to others who we may say, have not been cloned like the trio. The narrator in this novel addresses how the trio becomes donors of vital organs without really mentioning the organs. Metaphorically, the narrator chooses to use balloons and boast which reflect on the body parts like the private organs of the trio. This gives the reader a green light on what the trio could be losing in the donation process. For instance, balloons appear to have been used metaphorically to refer to breasts which they lose to others who have need to replacement of such. Despite losing their vital organs, the trio also loses their dreams and freedom. They cannot achieve their dreams of becoming actors. They can also not operate freely in the world like others since they have been created for a special purpose as it is indicated.
Conclusion

Works Cited

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. , 2005. Internet resource.
Ishiguro, Kazuo, and Cornelia Kaminski. Never Let Me Go. Stuttgart: Klett-Sprachen, 2012. Print.