Death in Never Let Me Go

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  • Death
    • In denial
      • Talk of recovery centres and people being well as if there was a future
        • "He's just come through his third now and he's completely all right" p223
          • Next operation will end in death, meaning this is a manifestation of T's bravado and denial
      • Language in relation to death
        • Only once does a character mention stark reality
          • "If we're just going to give donations, then die, why all those lessons?" p254, K
        • Euphemisms for death
          • "completion" in NLMG
            • Ironic and sad as it is only "completion" in sense that it ends misery and lack of fulfilment
            • Last stage in denial that clones are as human or normal as those whose illnesses they'll die to cure
          • "passing away", "gone to heaven", "in a better place", "6 feet under"
          • "Death" only used twice
            • reference to ghost of girl who went outside Hailsham to explore “she’d died” (ch. 5)
            • “dead hour” after lessons were finished (ch. 9)
        • Taboo of death due to the Victorians and Romantics
          • Victorian gravestones and 19th C poetry reduce death to "falling asleep"
    • Language in relation to death
      • Only once does a character mention stark reality
        • "If we're just going to give donations, then die, why all those lessons?" p254, K
      • Euphemisms for death
        • "completion" in NLMG
          • Ironic and sad as it is only "completion" in sense that it ends misery and lack of fulfilment
          • Last stage in denial that clones are as human or normal as those whose illnesses they'll die to cure
        • "passing away", "gone to heaven", "in a better place", "6 feet under"
        • "Death" only used twice
          • reference to ghost of girl who went outside Hailsham to explore “she’d died” (ch. 5)
          • “dead hour” after lessons were finished (ch. 9)
      • Taboo of death due to the Victorians and Romantics
        • Victorian gravestones and 19th C poetry reduce death to "falling asleep"
    • Parable about mortality
      • Story that explains or teaches a point
        • Aesop's fables e.g. the boy who cried wolf
      • I used a loosely contrived science fiction setting to examine human attitudes to death
        • Explain unrealistic details (novel not intended to be realistic because its a parable about mortality)
      • How is their experience of death similar to ours?
        • Death is inevitable, we can't control it
        • Children protected from too much knowledge of D
          • all are "told and not told"
          • Why?
            • If they were taught they were living to die, they would question education or living well
            • Compassion requires them to be sheltered from true horror
        • Turn to positive explanation of death in form of a religion
          • Rumours which spread among students e.g. deferrals act as a religion of hope
            • T and K denied that hope when Miss E says "your life must now run the course which has been set for it"
          • If not, you have to face future of being "all hooked up" amidst the "drugs, and the pain and the exhaustion"
        • Language in relation to D
        • In denial
          • Talk of recovery centres and people being well as if there was a future
            • "He's just come through his third now and he's completely all right" p223
              • Next operation will end in death, meaning this is a manifestation of T's bravado and denial
        • Isolated from others as you near death
          • T sends K away when he accepts his death and lack of future
            • Represents T's recognition that he has to face D alone
        • K's approach similar to elderly person who has lost many loved ones
          • Frightened acceptance of the inevitable that is best not thought about too deeply- no matter how much D you've witnessed
          • Understand Miss E's actions and sanitisation of D yet know how horrific it really is
        • Manner of death always uncertain and some die prematurely similar to clones completing unexpectedly before the 4th
      • How is their experience of death different?
        • D awaits clones in specific, calculated way
        • Still being conscious during 4th donation
      • Bleak novel invites reader to develop a healthier , more open attitude to D or reflect on other attitudes

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