Never Let Me Go Literaly Analysis (Essay Example)

In the world of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go the overall public does not really care about the donors. There are only a few people, who actually (actively) think about how cruel the whole clone-donating idea is and try to make it more humane, two of them being Miss Emily and Madam. Although they both have the same idea in mind - Hailsham, their approach and their attitude might differ from time to time.

The roles that the two characters play in the cones’ lifes are different, so they have different relations toward Hailsham students. Miss Emily, being the headmistress, has a lot more face-to-face interactions with the clones, which results in her not visibly being frightened by them as she has to interact with them on a daily basis. Being the head of the school, makes her seem intimidating and determined as she is respected by the clones for being strict. She confronts the students who smoke, and gives them some information about their life, but not all of it so she can manipulate them into accepting their fate slowly (Miss Lucy did not agree with that: “You were told but not told,” so she lost her job). 

This cannot be applied to Madam, who is a benefactor that has nearly no interaction with Hailsham students and when she does, she is afraid of them. Kathy says that when they “swarm around her as spiders” she “froze and shuddered” and describes her as someone who “dreads contact with students like her”. Although she is rarely seen at Hailsham she is feared and respected because she is known as the woman who takes the best artwork from students. She and her gallery are also the reason for many theories (Tommy thinks that they collect artwork, so they could prove that they have souls, if they wanted to apply for a deferral).

A big difference between Miss Emily and Madam reveals itself at the very end of the novel when they reflect on what they did when Hailsham was still operating. Miss Emily remains self-assured, satisfied and complacent with (failed) charitable work on behalf of students and never doubts the idea behind Hailsham. She stands behind her belief that they have given the clones “wonderful surroundings” and kept them “away from the worst of horrors,” making them lucky in the cruel system. Madam on the other hand is doubtful of what good did Hailsham supposedly do. She realises that might have given the students false hope (Tommy and Kathy asking for a deferral) – they gave them knowledge that they will never need and feels sorry for them (“poor creatures, what did we do to you?”).

In conclusion, Miss Emily and Madam are like a coin. They share the intention-the idea of Hailsham, they form it together, as two sides of a coin form the actual coin. But no matter how similar they get they differ, Madam is afraid of the students as she always has this inner thought of what if Hailsham is not a real/ not a good thing and Miss Emily does not.