Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Overview… an outgoing student getting an unconventional education, to say the least. Young Ruth C. attends a strange school called Hailsham with her friends Kathy H. and Tommy D. Instead of learning science and math, the children are encouraged to spend their time drawing and exercising. They also wear monitoring bracelets and are forbidden to wander off of school grounds. Those who do are said to meet a horrible end. Ruth and her friends always knew that there was a sinister side to the school, but now they’re about to find out how truly twisted Hailsham is.
Personality... competitive and a bit bossy. Ruth C. enjoys being the center of attention. It’s a good thing Kathy and Tommy are rather accommodating. Otherwise, she’d be left alone, which is one of the things she fears most.
Get to Know her in...
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As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.
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Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it's only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is. Never Let Me Go is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.
