Kathy's Feelings About Donation

 Never Let Me Go left me thinking long after finishing the novel about questions I still had unanswered. One question I found myself with at the end of the book was whether Kathy was really ready to become a donor or not. When Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth visit the boat, Ruth brings up the subject of completing after a second donation. She seems to be quite scared of this idea and believes that secrets are being kept from the donors. When Kathy refutes, Ruth turns to Tommy stating, “she wouldn’t know, would she Tommy? Not what it’s really like” (Ishiguro 222). Ruth seems to be implying that because Kathy is only a carer, there are aspects of the donations that she can’t fully grasp. Later when Kathy is Tommy’s carer the subject is mentioned again and Tommy asks her, “I mean, don’t you get tired of being a carer? All the rest of us, we became donors ages ago. You’ve been doing it for years. Don’t you sometimes wish, Kath, they’d hurry up and send you your notice?” (276). Kathy responds to this that she doesn’t mind being a carer that much, but I wonder if this is truly the case. I think that Kathy didn’t actually feel ready to be a donor. Throughout the novel Kathy seems mostly indifferent when recalling her past. Of course she identifies emotions and why she is affected in such ways, but she spends most of her time simply recounting events with an apathetic tone. When she becomes Tommy’s carer, the pair decide to go to Madame in an attempt to get a deferral and stay together longer without worrying about donations. They are hurt to find out that such deferrals don’t exist, but what hurts Kathy more is Tommy asking for a new carer after this discovery. He once again tells her that there are things she can’t understand as a carer, and she becomes increasingly upset, however she seems more avoidant of the topic of donation. Instead the root of her emotions stem from Tommy. She says, “but what had really stung, coming after all those other little things…was what he’d said then, the way he’d divided me off yet again, not just from all the other donors, but from him and Ruth” (276). Kathy doesn’t seem fixated on the idea of donation, but seems instead to be refocusing her emotions on her relationships. This happens earlier in the book as well, when Kathy leaves the cottages to begin her training after a fight with Ruth (199). She doesn’t leave because she’s excited to begin training, but instead because of her struggling friendship with Ruth. I think that Kathy used her relationships and her memories of Hailsham and the Cottages as a means for avoiding thinking about donations. She tends to feel much more strongly in regards to Tommy or Ruth than she ever lets on about becoming a donor. Her memories, good and bad, let her escape in a sense from her daunting future as a donor.