5/17/22, 10:49 AM OCR GCSE English Literature Delivery Guide - Never let me go

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GCSE (9–1)
Delivery Guide
J352

ENGLISH
LITERATURE
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
April 2015

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GCSE (9–1)
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ENGLISH LITERATURE

CONTENTS
Introduction Page 4

Structure Page 5

Characters Page 7

Themes and contextual factors Page 9

Assessment preparation Page 13

Useful links/resources Page 16

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Introduction
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Kazuo Ishiguro’s story

“A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul.” Richard
Flanagan: The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013)

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. Ishiguro has written seven novels including the Booker Prize
winner The Remains of the Day in 1989 and Never Let Me Go in
Nine years earlier, at 11:02 am on August 9, 1945 the city
2005. Never Let Me Go was Ishiguro’s sixth published novel. He
of Nagasaki was the target for the dropping of the second
has also written original screenplays, collections of shorter
atomic bomb by the United States Air Force. If you switch
fiction and has adapted his own novels The Remains of the Day
those last two numbers round of Ishiguro’s birth date his
and Never Let Me Go for the cinema.
own story could have been a very different one. His parents,
however, made the war seem distant to him when he was
growing up.
Speaking in 2005, the year of publication of Never Let Me Go,
Ishiguro said, ‘I often play little games in my head…Our family
arrived in England in 1960. At that time I thought the war was
ancient history. But if I think of 15 years ago from now, that’s
1990 and that seems like yesterday to me.’

Ishiguro was educated at a grammar school in Surrey and

studied English and Philosophy at The University of Kent. After
working in various jobs, including as a community worker
in Glasgow and a residential social worker in London, he
became a full-time writer in 1982.

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Structure

Never Let Me Go is set in ‘England, late 1990s’ and is narrated and the rest of the children at Hailsham live in a dystopian
by thirty-one year old Kathy who looks back on her life and alternative world in which they have been reproduced as
explores her relationships with key individuals she met in clones that have the sole purpose of donating their vital
childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham school. At the organs so that the non-clone population can be cured of
time of her narration Kathy is working as a ‘carer’, a role that the various illnesses that afflict them. We discover that when
simultaneously seems familiar, in the sense that she looks the children are old enough, they will begin their careers as
after people who are ill, and ominous in the casual way doners and will have their organs harvested until, generally
she refers to her patients as ‘doners’ who will, we discover, after the fourth donation, they will ‘complete’ or die.
repeatedly donate until they ‘complete’. ‘Completion’, it
It soon becomes apparent that the roles of ‘carer’, a role
soon becomes clear, is a euphemism in Kathy’s world for
Kathy performs with real pride, and ‘doner’ are not mutually
dying. Kathy appears preoccupied by her childhood and the
exclusive, for the carers are also clones who will eventually
purpose of her story seems as much a quest to rediscover
start the process of donation themselves. Kathy’s account of
that childhood for herself as it is to inform us about it.
her life in this grotesque parallel world is made particularly
Summary haunting for the reader by the matter-of-fact way these lives
are described and her inclusion of seemingly trivial detail
Kathy tells us, in at times painstaking detail, about her
whilst steering clear of the full horrifying reality of their
childhood relationships at Hailsham, particularly with her
existences. The children, and later young people, are for the
challenging friend Ruth and with Tommy, a loveable misfit
most part in a state of denial about their realities.
amongst his peers. The lives of these three children and their
relationships with other children and their ‘guardians’ at the But the extraordinarily brave face that Kathy puts on in
school becomes the focus of Part One of the novel. describing these events sometimes slips, and the aching
tragedy of her and the other characters’ lives is revealed. The
Who hasn’t, in later life, recalled the events and friendships
title of the novel Never Let Me Go is also the title of Kathy’s
of childhood and schooling? But the world described soon
favourite song by the fictional singer Judy Bridgewater.
takes on a disturbing quality for the reader as we discover
Kathy’s projection onto the lyrics of the song is not, as would
that Kathy, as well as living in a recognisable place, ‘England’,
be imagined, that this is a song about romantic love but that
and time, ‘the late 1990s’, is also living in a grotesquely skewed
this is about “a woman who had been told she couldn’t have
version of that familiar world. For Kathy, Ruth and Tommy
babies, who’d really, really wanted them all her life. Then there

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Structure

is a sort of miracle and she has a baby, and she holds this Tommy is next in line. Kathy and Tommy begin a relationship
baby very close to her and walks around singing: ‘Baby, never and, in quiet desperation of a future together, visit their
let me go...’ partly because she is so happy, but also because former teachers at Hailsham, Miss Emily and Madame, in the
she’s so afraid something will happen, that this baby will get forlorn hope that if they can evidence that despite being
ill or be taken away from her”. The poignancy of this fantasy clones they do have ‘souls’ – the evidence being in the form
is profound in the context of the lives of the clones. They are of Tommy’s collected artwork – they will be granted a ‘deferral’
infertile. They will never have babies. from donation. No such deferrals exist. Hailsham was, after
all, merely a more humane clone-rearing centre, and has
After leaving Hailsham, Kathy and some of her peers are
now closed in favour of more utilitarian operations. Tommy
moved to an establishment called the Cottages. Here they
starts to donate and Kathy continues as his lover and later,
have more freedom and can travel but their lives take on an
agonisingly, his carer until Tommy dies.
increasingly aimless quality. They have no meaningful work
to perform and the reality of their existences can no longer Kathy then does ‘an indulgent thing’, drives to Norfolk, a place
be childishly evaded. Increasingly they become preoccupied where it is believed all that has been lost will be found, and
with the idea of the ‘possible’, that there is somewhere out gazes at a desolate landscape imagining that “if I waited long
there, the human being from whom they have been cloned. enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the
In their young adult lives the desire to know something of field, and gradually it would get larger until I’d see that it was
their origins and make contact with their ‘possible’ makes the Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call”. This is, though, as
pathos of their situation even more acute. At the Cottages Kathy realises, a “fantasy” and as the tears roll down her face
they are essentially waiting until the process of donation she turns back to the car to “drive off to wherever it was I was
begins, this reality only being delayed if they become, like supposed to be”.
Kathy, a carer.
During this time Tommy and Ruth begin a relationship. This
is painful for Kathy, who also loves Tommy. Ruth begins her
process of donation cared for by Kathy. After Ruth ‘completes’,

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Characters

Major characters transformation. Once again upset by his lack of artistic skills,
he becomes a quiet and sad teenager. Later in the novel
Kathy
Tommy has a relationship with Ruth and, eventually, with
The narrator of the novel. She is thirty-one at the point she Kathy who also ultimately becomes his carer.
is telling us the story and working as a ‘carer’ of those clones
Ruth
who are donating their organs. Like them she will eventually
have her vital organs harvested through a series of donations. Kathy’s main friend during the Hailsham years. This is
During her childhood, Kathy is shown to be a very kindly and something of a love/hate relationship as Kathy finds Ruth
loving person who has a strong sense of right and wrong. at times overbearing and manipulative. In Part One of the
Her support for Tommy who suffers bullying at Hailsham novel Ruth is a dominant character who is controlling of
school, and for Ruth who is sometimes unkind to Kathy show her friendship group at school. Later it becomes apparent
her to be a very ‘good’ person. Throughout the novel Kathy that she is not as confident as she first appears and as the
struggles to show much emotion about her life and she reality of how her life will inevitably pan out in the future,
continues, in terrible circumstances, to remain mainly strong Ruth becomes increasingly withdrawn and, ultimately,
and accepting. despairing. At The Cottages, Ruth seeks desperately to fit in
– especially with the non-Hailsham characters Chrissie and
Tommy
Rodney. She becomes very impatient with Kathy’s continued
A male friend of Kathy’s at Hailsham. As a child Tommy finds
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it difficult to control his emotions and is picked on by other preoccupation withRuth
their relationship. Hailsham.
rejects This leads
things fromtoher
a painful period
past that she in
children. He struggles particularly with the creative work that perceives will negatively affect her image. She throws away
the Hailsham children are encouraged to undertake. This her entire collection of art by fellow students, once her prized
lack of creativity upsets Tommy until one of the guardians, possession, out of a sense of embarrassment about where
Miss Lucy tells him something that, for the short term, she has come from. As an adult she is deeply unhappy and
positively changes his life: it is okay if he’s not creative. He regretful. Ruth eventually gives up on all of her hopes and
feels great relief. Later Miss Lucy tells him that she shouldn’t dreams, and tries to help Kathy and Tommy have a better life.
have said what she did, and Tommy goes through another

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Characters

Other characters futures should be hidden from them and breaks the school
protocol by telling the children that their dreams of a happy
Madame
and fulfilling future will never be realised and that they exist
A woman who visits Hailsham to pick up the children’s only for organ donation. Miss Lucy suddenly disappears from
artwork and who is described as a ‘mystery’ by the students at Hailsham. One of the central debates of the novel is around
Hailsham. She acts professional and stern, but a young Kathy whether Miss Lucy is right in telling the children the truth, or
describes her as distant and forbidding. When the children Miss Emily in protecting them from it.
decide to play a prank on her and swarm around her to see
Chrissy
what she will do, they are shocked to discover that she seems
disgusted by them. Later in the novel Kathy and Tommy visit Another female “donor” who Kathy, Ruth and Tommy meet
Madame in the forlorn hope that she can offer Tommy a at the Cottages. She is older than them and more ‘worldly’.
‘deferral’ from donations. She believes the former Hailsham students are a privileged
group who might be able to get a donation ‘deferral’. She
Miss Emily
and her boyfriend, Rodney, ‘find’ Ruth’s “possible” and take
Headmistress of Hailsham, who can be very sharp, according Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth to Norfolk to see her. She “completes”
to Kathy. The children thought she had an extra sense before the book ends.
which allowed her to know where a child was if he or she
Rodney
was hiding. The regime that Miss Emily runs at Hailsham is
designed to treat the clones humanely and demonstrate, Chrissy’s boyfriend who also is at the Cottages. It is Rodney
through their creative work that the children do have ‘souls’. who first sees the woman they think is Ruth’s “possible”. He
Working within the system Miss Emily seeks to challenge the and Chrissy’s relationship ends before they “complete”.
ethics of the cloning programme.
Miss Lucy

A teacher at Hailsham with whom the children feel

comfortable. She is one of the younger teachers at Hailsham.
Miss Lucy does not believe the realities of the children’s

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Themes and contextual factors

Human cloning Related activities

Never Let Me Go was written in the decade after the Students could research something of the history of cloning
possibilities of human cloning became something much and how the debate about it has been represented in
more real and technologically possible with the successful the media, films and stories. Michael Bay’s 2005 film The

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cloning of a sheep known as Dolly, a development that Island starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson
sent shockwaves around the world and continues to shape is an interesting parallel text to Never Let Me Go as is the
frontiers of science today. Scottish scientists had taken a cell novel Spares by Michael Marshall Smith. Students could
from an adult sheep, fused it with another sheep’s unfertilized look at some of the media reporting of both Dolly and the
egg and created an identical twin. The huge media attention embryonic stem cell debate. It can provide a fascinating
that this development created focused on speculation and insight into how this technology both intrigues and terrifies
anxiety about man’s ability to manipulate biology, or in the us.
language of tabloid newspapers of the day, ‘play God’. The
Here are some questions to consider on the novel. Doing
story of Dolly reveals something of the tension between
some research, thinking and talking about and writing
politics, ethics and science and relates closely to the growing
responses to these questions will help you prepare for the
and ongoing controversy about embryonic stem cell
part (b) question in the exam.
research. Something about this debate plays to our highest
hopes and greatest fears. Q. Why do you think Ishiguro chose not to include any of
the detail or science of cloning in the novel?
Most nations had already outlawed human cloning but
some scientists still worked on cloning technology and the Q. What might have been gained and lost in the novel if
first hybrid human clone was created in 1998. The embryo such detail had been included?
that was created was then destroyed. Ten years later in 2008
Kazuo Ishiguro talked about other important themes
the biotech company Stemagen announced that they had and contexts in his novel in an interview on the website
produced five mature human embryos by a process known as
BookBrowse. Here are some of the things he said - but a
somatic cell nuclear transfer.
link to the whole interview can be found in the Useful links/
The novel does not tell us anything about the science of resources section.
human cloning or how, in a society that seems in many ways
to be quite similar to our own, it was ever thought ethically
acceptable to rear children as clones and then harvest their
organs.

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Themes and contextual factors

Being human line of “What if Hitler had won?” or “What if Kennedy hadn’t been
assassinated?” The novel offers a version of Britain that might
KI: I could see a way of writing a story that was simple, but very
have existed by the late twentieth century if just one or two things
fundamental, about the sadness of the human condition.
had gone differently on the scientific front.
Q. Do you agree that the story is ‘simple’?
Q. Find out about ‘dystopian’ and ‘science fiction’ writing.
Q. As the characters in NLMG are not ‘human’ why do you What are the main features of this kind of genre of
think he might see the novel as about the sadness of the writing? What elements of NLMG seem ‘dystopian’ or
human condition? ‘sci-fi’?

Q. Do other kinds of genre description fit the novel

better? A love story? (which, like all the best love
Time and place
stories, is also a story about loss). A growing up (or
KI: I was never tempted to set this story in the future. That’s partly bildungsroman) story? A school story (a genre popular in
a personal thing. I’m not very turned on by futuristic landscapes. the first half of the 20th century, often set in an English
Besides, I don’t have the energy to think about what cars or shops boarding school, and revived in the 21st century in the
or cup-holders would look like in a future civilization. Harry Potter series)? Try finding an example of each of
Q. Do you think this decision made by the author makes these genres, either in a library or online. What are the
for a better, or worse, novel? similarities/differences with Never Let Me Go?

Take a short extract from a different novel and compare

KI: And I didn’t want to write anything that could be mistaken
it with a similar length extract from Never Let Me Go that
for a “prophecy.” I wanted rather to write a story in which every
explores similar themes or ideas. This task would help in
reader might find an echo of his or her own life.
your preparation for the part a) question in the exam.
Q. Has the author succeeded in creating ‘echoes’ of your
lives and school experience in Kathy’s description of life
at Hailsham? What things about the characters’ lives Finding a voice
seemed familiar or believable to you?
KI: You see, in the past, my narrators were unreliable, not
because they were lunatics, but because they were ordinarily
Multi-genre? self-deceiving. When they looked back over their failed lives,
they found it hard to see things in an entirely straight way. Self-
KI: Yes, you could say there’s a “dystopian” or “sci-fi” dimension. But deception of that sort is common to most of us...
I think of it more as an “alternative history” conceit. It’s more in the

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Themes and contextual factors

Q. What might an ‘unreliable narrator’ be? Find out about to manipulation. You’re not just telling the reader: “this-and-
the literary tradition of unreliable narration. Do you think this happened.” You’re also raising questions like: why has she
Kathy provides us with a ‘reliable’ account of events? remembered this event just at this point? How does she feel about
it? And when she says she can’t remember very precisely what
KI: She’s [Kathy] someone narrating in contemporary England, so
happened, but she’ll tell us anyway, well, how much do we trust
I had to have her talk appropriately... The challenge is...getting a
her? And so on. I love all these subtle things you can do when you
voice that properly presents that narrator’s character. It’s finding
tell a story through someone’s memories.
a voice that allows a reader to respond to a character not just
through what he or she does in the story, but also through how Q. What do you think is significant in what Kathy
he/she speaks and thinks. remembers from Hailsham and what she has forgotten
(or chooses not to tell us)? Were you surprised at some
The point the author makes here is relevant to AO2 in
of the things she does tell us, and some of the things she
your exam: Analyse the language, form and structure used
doesn’t?
by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant
subject terminology where appropriate. KI: Kathy’s memories are...principally a source of consolation. As
Q. In pairs make a list of ten quotations from Kathy that her time runs out, as her world empties one by one of the things
seem to you to be important. For each one, see if you she holds dear, what she clings to are her memories of them.
can examine the ways Kathy describes things and what Kathy is very nostalgic about her childhood. Nostalgia is
this reveals about what she truly thinks. For much of the when we look back fondly at our past lives, particularly
novel Kathy puts a brave face on things but are there to a time when life seemed happy and easy. The word
moments when her language, almost in spite of herself, derives from the ancient Greek words nostos (meaning
reveals her real feelings? homecoming) and algos (meaning an ache or pain). Many
people are nostalgic about the past. Do you know people
Q. Do you think Kazuo Ishiguro has succeeded in
yourself who often talk fondly of the ‘good old days’?
making Kathy’s voice ‘appropriate’ for someone living in
Perhaps you do it yourself! Why do you think we tend to
contemporary England?
be nostalgic? And why do you think this is such a strong
KI: I like it that a scene pulled from the narrator’s memory is characteristic of Kathy?
blurred at the edges, layered with all sorts of emotions, and open

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Themes and contextual factors

KI: When I write about young people, I do much the same as

when I write about elderly people, or any other character who’s
very different from me in culture and experience. I try my best
to think and feel as they would, then see where that takes me. I
don’t find that children present any special demands for me as a
novelist. They’re just characters, like everyone else.
Q. How well do you think the author captures what it
is like to be a child in Part One of the novel? Find some
examples from the text featuring Kathy, Ruth and/or
Tommy where you think Kazuo Ishiguro has managed to
‘think and feel as they would’.

Towards a World Unknown

KI: The school setting, I must add, is appealing because in a way

it’s a clear physical manifestation of the way all children are
separated off from the adult world, and are drip-fed little pieces
of information about the world that awaits them, often with
generous doses of deception, kindly meant or otherwise. In other
words, it serves as a very good metaphor for childhood in general.

In Never Let Me Go the children are, according to Miss Lucy ‘told,

and not told’ about what awaits them in adult life. In this regard
the guardians are much like any other adults who think it is right
to withhold certain information from children.
Q. Do you think adults should be more honest with

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children aboutprotect
certain things the realities of life?
children – orDoes
makenot tellingdifficult
it more them
for them to cope with these realities in adult life?

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Assessment preparation

Assessment Objectives:

Read, understand and respond to texts.

Students should be able to:

AO1
• maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response
• use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations.

Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology
AO2
where appropriate.

AO3 Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written.

AO4 Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

Required skills Approaching the text

Learners will develop comprehension skills and learn to express their Two key passages from the novel: the opening and the ending.
ideas about aspects of plot, characterisation, events and settings and
The opening of the novel
to distinguish between literal and implied meanings. They will also
develop critical reading skills and engage personally with texts and Re-read the opening section of the novel in which Kathy introduces
be confident in sustaining and supporting an individual response to herself.
their studied text in comparison with a thematically linked, same genre
NLMG is told as a first person narrative told from Kathy’s point of
unseen text.
view. Looking back on her thirty-one years, Kathy tells us about the key
Learners will be exploring, responding to and interpreting the following moments in her life. All the information we discover about the world in
areas in their chosen text: which Kathy lives is represented in Kathy’s language and consists of what
Kathy has seen, has remembered and thinks worthy of telling us. As well
• the significance of key themes, ideas and issues
as being a key participant in the events being described Kathy is also the
• characters and their relationships controller of what story is told. Kathy, as first-person narrator, not only
determines how the story is told but also what the story is.
• choices of language, form and structure made by the author
A first-person narrative is where a story is narrated by one character
• how social, cultural and contextual factors are significant in terms of
at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrators
understanding the text.
can be authoritative and reliable or deceptive and unreliable. Such
a narrator will refer to themselves using the first-person singular form
“I”, and/or the first-person plural form “we”. The reader will encounter
the thoughts, opinions and feelings only of the narrator, and no other

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Assessment preparation

characters. In some stories, first-person narrators may refer In the opening what kind of person does Kathy come
to information they have heard from the other characters, in across as being? Does her story interest you? Does
order to try to deliver a larger point of view. it seem typical of the way that people you know tell
stories? What impression do you have of what Kathy does
A third person narrative is where a story is narrated
tell us here – and what she doesn’t?
using third-person pronouns such as ‘he’ or ‘she’. Third-
person narrators can be limited in perspective (they only What presumptions does Kathy make about us – as
know so much about the events being described and the listeners to her story?
motivations of the characters) or omniscient (or god-like)
When you have thought about these questions, read
in their understanding of all the thoughts and feelings of
what the author Rachel Cusk had to say about the
all the characters in the story. When writing in third person
opening of the novel in an article in The Guardian in
omniscient form, the author will move from character to
2011. The article coincided with the release of the film
character, allowing the events to be interpreted by several
version of Never let Me Go directed by Mark Romanek
different voices.
and starring Kiera Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew

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Garfield.
Related activities http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/29/never-let-
me-go-kazuo-ishiguro
Work in pairs or small groups to jot down some ideas for
the following: The end of the novel
Why do you think a writer might choose to tell a story Re-read the final passage of the novel, where Kathy looks out
from a first-person point of view? on the empty fields. The section begins ‘I found I was standing
before acres of ploughed earth…’
We have all had the experience of someone telling us a
long story about themselves in which they talk in detail
about people and situations. These people just assume
Related activity
we know what and who they are talking about. Jot down
words and phrases from the opening of the novel where In what ways do you think Kathy has changed by the end
Kathy assumes, wrongly, that we are familiar with her of the novel?
world.

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Assessment preparation

By this point in the novel, Kathy has lost all she for candidates. This part of the task aims for candidates to
previously held dear. She weeps but, still, is not ‘sobbing be creative and exploratory in relation to the two extracts
or out of control’. Kathy has a daydream here that on two (one from the set text, one unseen). For this part of the task
pieces of barbed wire, instead of the rubbish and old candidates will not need to bring to bear their whole-text
plastic bags she sees, are washed up all the things she knowledge of their studied text, this will be assessed in part
has lost since childhood. b), but focus more on the treatment of the particular theme
or idea in the two printed extracts.
Draw or find an image on the internet of two lines of
barbed wire. Draw onto the wire some of the things you
think Kathy has ‘lost’ since her childhood. These could be
things literally lost or they could be images of things that
represent more abstract losses she has suffered.

Responding to examination questions

In the new OCR GCSE English Literature (9-1)J352 specification

there will be a two-part question on the modern text (prose or
drama):

a) a comparison of an extract from the set text with an

unseen modern, same-genre extract

b) a related question on the set text as a whole.

The new comparison requirement in part a) allows
candidates to explore a key theme or idea in their studied
text by comparing it with a thematically linked unseen text.
The unseen text chosen for this section of the exam will
always have a direct link with the extract from the relevant
studied text and is intended to be accessible and engaging

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Useful links/resources

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Resources
BookBrowse interview with Kazuo Ishiguro
Click here
https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/477/kazuo-ishiguro

2005 Review in The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/feb/26/bookerprize2005.bookerprize Click here

2011 The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/29/never-let-me-go-kazuo-ishiguro Click here

YouTube video of Ishiguro talking about the novel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SmuYqKeTTs Click here

Interview with the author from The Paris Review

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5829/the-art-of-fiction-no-196-kazuo-ishiguro Click here

Carey Mulligan talks about her role as Kathy in the film version of Never let Me Go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQu-l_VXh5I Click here

Film clip where Kathy, Ruth and Tommy experience the ‘outside world’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lARtutiRTKY Click here

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