The Reoccurring Theme of Hopelessness in Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go presents themes of hopelessness throughout the novel as the narrator, Kathy, and the audience comes to terms with the grim fate of both her and her loved ones. In the beginning, the book presents itself as any coming of age novel would. It depicts Kathy and her two best friends, Ruth and Tommy, navigating the difficulties of life at their boarding school, Hailsham. When readers start to grow attached to the characters, they soon learn the twisted fate they are subjected to and a steady erosion of hope arises within the eyes of the audience. Readers realize that the students at Hailsam are clones, and are expected to donate their organs when they become of age. Although it leaves many unanswered questions, everyone can agree the dreams and hopes they had for those characters were all stripped away in an instant.

In the dystopian novel, clones have no other option in life than to eventually donate their organs, to humans in need. All have acknowledged their fate, but that doesn't stop some from having hope. Conversations arise with older clones such as their "dream futures"(Ishiguro 142). Although this conversation has a joking tone, one would not bring up the topic of discussion if there was not a sliver of hope for a different life. As the clones's time continues to run out, their hope does as well. The one sense of hope that many still cling to is a deferral, the rumor that if two clones are in love they can defer the "donation" process for a few years. All characters, especially Ruth, Tommy and Kathy cling to this hope.

Kathy's hope continues to run out largely after she watched her best friend Ruth die from her donation, and sees the poor shape Tommy is in after a few of his. Tommy has a belief that the art Hailsham students created while in the program is a key to decide whether student's souls are a "good match" or a "stupid crush" when determining deferrals (176). Kathy and Tommy soon fall in love and wish to find out the truth about said deferrals. To do so, they visit Madame, the woman in possession of their art. The last bit of hope the characters and audience have was stripped away once it is learned there is "no deferral [or] nothing like [it]"(266). After learning the truth both characters lose all hope and agree they are like two people "in a river somewhere, with water moving really fast, trying to hold on to each other... but in the end its too much" (285) and they have to let each other go. 

Never Let Me Go, continuously strips away the hope from readers until eventually there is no more hope, the audience is left hopeless and have to let go.