Importance of Self-Identity

After reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go, the overarching question I keep asking myself is why didn’t Kathy, Ruth, or Tommy try to rebel and run away? Most readers of this novel have asked themselves this same question, and I see the answer lying within the character’s struggle with identity.

You would think that if you were told that you would have all of your vital organs harvested until you die, you would try and come up with a plan to try and escape your horrible fate. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy didn’t even think about leaving Hailsham, and that is because they do not know who they are without it. Their lack of rebellion and progression towards a better future for themselves comes down to their inability to self-identify. Knowing that they are clones pulls them further from knowing who they really are, so their identification with Hailsham is the only part of themselves that they truly know and want to hold on to.

When Mrs. Lucy tells the students, “you were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided,” their identities are further compromised, because they are stripped of their freedom to explore who they are and who they want to become (Ishiguro, 81). Kathy’s constant reminiscing about Hailsham while she’s at the Cottages proves how attached she is to those memories, because it was the only piece of her life that she had to remember. Ruth’s anger, when she realized that the woman she was following around wasn’t her possible, was due to her not knowing who she was supposed to be. Ruth was seeking guidance; she wanted her possible to provide insight on the identity that Ruth was trying desperately to find. Kathy’s browsing through porn magazines in attempt to find her possible also highlights the weight both her and Ruth put on trying to discover who they were supposed to become. Even at the end of the novel, when Miss Emily tells Kathy and Tommy that “there’s no truth in the rumor” of the deferral, they still never consider running away together, even though they were in love (Ishiguro, 258). 

After Ruth and Tommy die since they chose not to run away from Hailsham, Kathy still treasures her time there and says, “I’ll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head, and that’ll be something no one can take away” (Ishiguro, 286). Thus, the reason for never wanting to escape their doomed fate is that their only sense of identity came from Hailsham, and as clones, that meant more to them than their own life or love.