Themes!

Wow, the last seventy pages were busy! Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy finally reconnect since their time in the Cottages years before. In this section, Kathy becomes Ruth’s carer, and then Tommy’s. The three friends find much closure while creating their final memories together. Through this closure, several thematic ideas emerge.

#noregrets is one of the themes that becomes the most developed throughout the book. In all seriousness though, this became an important aspect of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth’s lives. Throughout the story, Ruth’s character is a bit volatile at times. One moment she’s sharing secrets with Kathy, the next she’s giving her the cold shoulder. At times, I thought Ruth was a jerk for becoming unreasonably angry at Kathy and Tommy so frequently, but in this last section Ruth realizes she didn’t always treat her friends fairly, and atones for her behavior. This meaningful conversation is the last one among the three of them since Ruth is almost “completed” by this point; Ruth wanted to die in good grace with the people who stood by her.

The desire to have no regrets is also present in Kathy’s relationship with Tommy. Since Tommy is in the donation process, their relationship is pressured by a ticking time-bomb. Kathy kicks herself for not dating Tommy sooner, exclaiming to him,“yes, we’re doing this now and I’m glad we’re doing it now. But what a pity we left it so late” (239). Kathy continually tries to push this feeling of regret aside as she enjoys her last months with him, but even after he dies, she cannot escape this feeling.

Another theme I took away from the book is time will always move forward, but memories can keep it from running away. Kathy must deal with a lot of loss towards the end of the story when she must watch her friends die. At one point, Tommy asks her if she feels tired and lonely from the great amount of effort she puts into her job as a carer, and she responds, “A good carer makes a big difference to what a donor’s life’s actually like… I have to keep going” (282). This perseverance shows Kathy’s strong character. She understands that people don’t live forever, particularly her friends who were destined to die around the young age of thirty, but holds them in her memories.

This whole book is a compilation of Kathy’s memories, which adds to their significance as a means of finding the strength to carry on. Kathy notes, “the memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them” (286). Even though memories can become slightly distorted over time, in the end that’s all we really have. Dealing with adversity and tragedy is certainly applicable to our world today. We should all take a lesson from Kathy and deal with hardships by holding onto the good memories and using our energy to help others in need.

And finally… what we’ve all been waiting for: in this section the purpose of Hailsham is revealed! Kathy and Tommy track down Madame in hopes of receiving a deferral on their donations, but they found out more than they bargained for! It turns out, Madame, or Marie-Claude, was working alongside Miss Emily to provide a cultural and humane experience for clones. Miss Emily explains that the art she collected was “...to prove [the students] had souls at all” (260), that they weren’t just robotic clones who could be “kept in the shadows” of society. After hearing this, Kathy and Tommy are incredulous, and Tommy becomes outraged, which makes him question the meaning of his life. Miss Emily justifies her work by saying, “... we gave you your childhoods… You wouldn’t have become absorbed in your lessons, you wouldn’t have lost yourself in your art and writing” (268).

Miss Emily is right. As bleak as it is, well all die eventually, so we must live our lives for the experiences and the passion. The students at Hailsham are all clones who could have been locked away, but they got the opportunity to laugh and develop their own sense of identity through art. This brings me to my final theme: It’s not always about the way things end, it’s about how you get there. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy found out at a young age that they were destined to become donors, yet that did not stop them from enjoying the time they had. The guardians were admittedly scared of the Hailsham clones, but in the end, the students’ quality of life wasn’t much different than a “normal person’s.” Kathy and the students learned to accept their fate, and make the best of what they were given.

This mentality can also be applied to our world. Although we are not all dying at the age of thirty, we should all take a step back from the big picture--whether it’s going to college, getting a job, or finding love--and enjoy the journey.