Never Let Me Go Chapter 7 Quotes
Never Let Me Go Chapter 7 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
As it happened, I didn't have to go through with it because Tommy found out first. (7.48-49)
Even Kathy has her slip-ups. When she tells Tommy that she'll strap his arm so that his elbow won't "unzip," she knows she's lying to her friend. Not cool, Kath. Years later, Kathy not only remembers this incident, but she still feels the same emotion she felt back then when she betrayed her friend: guilt.
Quote 2
"The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. But I'm not. If you're to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you." (7.20)
You might say Miss Lucy is a bit of a downer here. She thinks students deserve to know their depressing fate and is upset that the students have been "told and not told" the truth. If the students have been "told and not told," then have they been lied to? Or have they just not understood? At the end of the day—who's really responsible?
Quote 3
Tommy thought it possible the guardians had, throughout all our years at Hailsham, timed very carefully and deliberately everything they told us, so that we were always just too young to understand properly the latest piece of information. But of course we'd take it in at some level, so that before long all this stuff was there in our heads without us ever having examined it properly. (7.26)
Tommy has come up with quite the conspiracy theory. The guardians at Hailsham seem to be masters at slipping information into the students' heads without the students even knowing about it. Is this effective parenting? Or good teaching? Or is it just plain old brainwashing?