Never Let Me Go

As both the protagonist and the narrator, the insight that you get into the intricacies of Kathy’s character are vast. Kathy is a pupil of Hailsham, and as is the case with all pupils, she is a clone designed with the sole purpose of donating her vital organs when she reaches adulthood. Kathy can be characterised as an inquisitive, caring, and careful observer, and this entails a degree of passivity, particularly in her childhood. Although she is at times determined and self-assured, she is never rebellious and certainly never particularly confrontational. Kathy’s lack of rebellion may be purely a product of her socialisation as a child, or due to her character, but this same tendency is apparently shared by the majority of Hailsham students, and clones in general.

Above all else, Kathy is almost obsessively nostalgic, particularly towards her time at Hailsham. Excluding the fact, that the whole novel is narrated in terms of her reminiscing on her experiences, even within these events she recounts things that she remembered at the time that she is remembering! This propensity for nostalgia only increases with age. For Kathy, her memories of the grounds, relationships, and events of Hailsham are of undeniable importance and act as a form of escapism. Kathy is able to ‘remove’ herself from her current situation and her impending donations for the memories of childhood that offer comfort as a time of innocence. It is also worth noting that Kathy’s memories do not purely serve the purpose of recalling – consistently as these memories arise, she analyses the reasons behind people’s actions and words, at times admitting to her own shortcomings in terms of the accuracy of her story telling. At the same time that these memories are given with the added detail of hindsight, they are also from a single perspective, as Kathy presents information according to how she sees it, and the reader’s knowledge is limited to only what she knows. Although it may be in part due to her intended audience, who is alluded to be a fellow carer, Kathy chooses to direct the reader not to the socially fascinating political complexities and ethics of human cloning, but instead to what is important to her; the relationships and events that her life had consisted of up until this point. Additionally, Kathy withholds certain information about herself that she wishes to remain private, for instance her feelings toward Tommy were never articulated until she explains to the reader that they enter into a romantic relationship, several years after the most likely time where such feelings could have developed, before they lost contact.
 
Kathy’s characteristics are also clearly reflected through her relationships, particularly with the other two central characters of the novel, Tommy and Ruth. Kathy’s friendship with Ruth is at times very highly strained. Although they are very close friends they often disagree, though after any fight they would soon reconcile. As Kathy seeks to avoid confrontation, even when Ruth would frequently mistreat or lie to her, or even when she would mistreat Tommy, Kathy would refrain from comment, and if she did, it would only be in the form of indirect passive aggression.

Although she does not make it clear from her narration, Kathy harbours strong romantic feelings for her close friend Tommy. Ruth admits later that she was consciously trying to keep the pair apart and as penance helps the pair reunite and begin a romantic relationship many years after they have all become estranged. Prior to this, in their childhood Kathy played an important role in Tommy’s life as one of the few people who did not taunt him and instead became close friends with him and tried to help him by teaching him to control his anger.