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"Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as "agitated," even before fourth donation. Okay maybe now I am boasting" (3).

"Ruth, incidentally, was only the third or fourth donor I got to choose. She already has a carer assigned to her at the time, and I remember it taking a bit of nerve on my part" (4).

Kathy is very nostalgic in the first chapter. She uses "you" a lot and it seems like she is addressing the reader as if they were someone in this time and lived this way. She recalls her time at Hailsham and her friends. Kathy seems very proud about her job as a "carer" and where she came from.

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"This was all a long time ago so I might have some of it wrong; but my memory of it is that my approaching Tommy that afternoon was part of a phase I was going through around that time- something to do with compulsively setting myself challenges..." (13).

Kathy seems to have much empathy and concern for Tommy, but she acts indifferent towards him and doesn't actually act on her belief that someone should stick up for him.

"Looking back now, I can see why the Exchanges became so important to us. For a start, they were our only means, aside from the Sales- ...- of building up a collection of personal possessions" (16).

A clear conflict is one between Tommy and all of the other children at Hailsham. He was bullied and made an outcast because of art. This is something that seems meaningless, but in Hailsham it defined you and your status.

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“‘Shaking. With rage. I could see her. She was furious. But furious deep inside.’” (28)

It is revealed that Miss Lucy disagrees with the culture at Hailsham. She is angry about how Tommy is treated because of his lack of creativity. Miss Lucy also disagrees with the adults not being completely honest with the children about their futures (donations, etc.)

“I am sure I was pretty typical in not being able to remember how or when I’d first heard about it. Certainly, it hadn’t been from the guardians: the never mentioned the Gallery, and there was an unspoken rule that we should never even raise the subject in the presence” (31).

There is a vague conflict arising within Kathy. Her conversation with Tommy brought up some curiosities that she has been developing. Kathy is questioning the idea of the Gallery, Madame, their futures (donations), and the guardians. These curiosities could get her into trouble.

Madame comes to collect the children’s artwork at Hailsham several times a year. Kathy describes her as French or Belgian, a tall, narrow, short haired woman. The children theorize that she is either snooty or scared of them because of her chilly look and the way she keeps her distance from them.

“Ruth had been right: Madame was afraid of us. But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. We hadn’t been ready for that. It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders” (35).

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“But I realise now just how much of what occurred later came out of our time at Hailsham, and that’s why I want first to go over these earlier memories quite carefully. Take all this curiosity about Madame, for instance. At one level, it was just us kids larking about. But at another, as you’ll see, it was the start of a process that kept growing and growing over the year until it came to dominate our lives” (37).

Miss Emily is the head guardian at Hailsham. Kathy described her as older, not very tall, and had silvery hair that she always tied up. The children were scared (intimidated) by her, but thought she was fair and respected her decisions. She also made them feel safe at Hailsham.

“‘All I can tell you today is that it’s for a good reason. A very important reason. But if I tried to explain it to you now, I don’t think you’d understand. One day, I hope, it’ll be explained to you’” (41).

“But the point was, I suppose, we’d all of us in the past found something at a Sale, something that had become special: a jacket, a watch, a pair of craft scissors never used but keep proudly next to a bed. We’d all found something like that at one time, and so however much we tried to pretend otherwise, we couldn’t ever shake off the old feelings of hope and excitement” (42).

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“The woods were at the top of the hill that rose behind Hailsham House. All we could see really was a dark fringe of trees, but I certainly wasn’t the only one of my age to feel their presence day and night. When it got bad, it was like they cast a shadow over the whole of Hailsham; all you had to do was turn your head or move towards a window and there they’d be, looming in the distance” (50).

The children’s favorite guardian was Miss Geraldine and they believed that there was a plot to abduct her. They would find guardians and children alike that were apart of this plot. The children wanted to keep her safe.

Ruth is described as a smart leader and someone that knew how to argue (justify themselves). It is shown throughout the story that Ruth can be controlling and that her word matters most of all over the girls. She has a tendency to abuse this power.

A conflict that arises Ruth expelled Kathy from the “secret guards.” She expels her because she knows that Kathy realized she didn’t actually know how to play chess. This expulsion caused Kathy to become irrational and to take her anger out on Moira.

“There could be no mistake about this because it had been building up for weeks. There was a certain smile, a certain voice Ruth would use - sometimes accompanied by a finger to the lips or a hand raised stage-whisper style - whenever she wanted to hint some little mark of favour Miss Geraldine has shown her…” (57).

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"Now, for much the same reasons I'd not been able to talk openly to Ruth about what I'd done to her over the Sales Register business, she of course wasn't able to thank me for the way I'd intervened with Midge. But it was obvious from her manner towards me, not just over the next few days, but over the weeks that followed, how pleased she was with me" (63).

“I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham the guardians were really strict about smoking. I’m sure they’d have preferred it if we never found out smoking even existed; but since this wasn’t possible, they made sure to give us some sort of lecture each time any reference to cigarettes came along…” (67).

There is an internal conflict for Kathy when Ruth dies. Kathy lost one of her good friends.

“But the reason the tape meant so much to me had nothing to do with the cigarette, or even with the way Judy Bridgewater sang - she’s one of those singers from her time, cocktail-bar stuff, not the sort of thing any of us at Hailsham liked. What made the tape so special for me was this one particular song: track number three, ‘Never Let Me Go’” (69-70).

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“The earliest years- the ones I’ve just been telling you about- they tend to blur into each other as a kind of golden time, and when I think about them at all, even the not-so-great things, I can’t help feeling a sort of glow. But those last years feel different. They weren’t unhappy exactly- I’ve got plenty of memories I treasure from them- but they were more serious, and in some ways darker” (77).

Kathy is beginning to become more curious. She is questioning their purposes, Miss Lucy, the Gallery, etc.

“‘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… None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars… Your lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you’re even middle aged, you’ll start to donate your vital organs. That is what each of you was created to do” (81).

Are adults honest enough with children about the reality of life?

“... I still feel ashamed I didn’t tell him then. But you’ve got to remember I was still young, and that I only had a few seconds to decide. And when someone’s asking you to do something in such a pleading way, everything goes against saying no” (86-87).

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“What I mean is, I couldn’t help thinking she represented what anyone with any distance on the subject would think. After all, I’d been Tommy’s friend for years until all this couple stuff has come up. It was perfectly possible that to someone on the outside, I’d look like Ruth’s ‘natural successor’” (100).

Kathy is still having an inner conflict about sex. Ruth and Tommy’s break up confused her and she did not go through with the plan to seduce Harry.

Kathy is having conflicts because of her feelings for Tommy. Her inner conflict about sex, her inner conflict about helping Ruth get him back, and her conflict with Miss Lucy. Kathy cares for him deeply and she just wants to protect him and for him to be happy. These feelings greatly affect her actions and interactions with others.

“‘Listen, Tommy, your art, it is important. And not just because it’s evidence. But for your own sake. You’ll get a lot from it, just for yourself’” (108).

Are adults honest enough with children about the reality of life?

Limited number of years on earth and how we use that time.

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“Once we got to the Cottages, though the essays took on a new importance. In our first days there, and for some of us a lot longer, it was like we were each clinging on to our essay, this last task from Hailsham, like it was a farewell gift from the guardians” (115).

The Cottages are a transitioning place. This is where the children go in between leaving Hailsham and becoming carers or donors.

Kathy is changing and becoming accustomed to the culture at the Cottages. She is learning how to drive, having more freedom, and reading more.

Ruth is changing and becoming accustomed to the culture at the Cottages as well. She is mostly changing how she interacts with Tommy. Ruth wants be like the other Cottage couples and to be accepted.

“‘So that’s it, that’s what’s upsetting poor little Kathy, Ruth isn’t paying enough attention to her. Ruth’s got big news friends and baby sister isn’t getting played with so often…’” (124).

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“As I watched, she went on scrubbing the pencil point over the paper, almost in the way we did shading in Art, except her movements were much more angry, as if she didn’t mind gauging right through the sheet. Then I realised in the same instant, that this was the source of the odd noise… She was lost in what she was doing, it took a while for her to realise I was there. When she looked up with a start…” (91).

There is a conflict between Kathy and Miss Lucy. Kathy is watching Miss Lucy very closely. She is curious and paranoid of the things that go on around her. She is mostly concerned with how she affects Tommy.

“Gay sex, incidentally, was something we were even more confused about. For some reason, we called it “umbrella sex”; if you fancied someone of the same sex, you were “an umbrella.” I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we definitely weren’t at all kind towards any signs of gay stuff” (96).

Kathy is having an inner conflict about sex. She wants to have sex, but she also wants to wait like Miss Emily said. She wants to get it over with so she can be experienced and understand for when someone special comes along. Kathy has her eyes set on a boy, Harry C., to have her first time with, but things get confusing.

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“I should explain why I got so bothered by ruth saying what she did. Those early months at the Cottages had been a strange time in our friendship. We were quarrelling over all kinds of little things, but at the same time we were confiding in each other more than ever” (126).

There is a conflict between Ruth and Kathy. They are at a weird stage in their friendship because of all of the changes happening around them. Their friendship is remaining strong because they are trying to survive these changes together, but it is weakening because they are fighting and beginning to grow apart.

Kathy continues to prove that she is a reliable narrator. She is objective, critical of herself, and able to see others point of views.

“I suppose, in general, I never appreciated in those days the sheer effort aruth was making to move on, to grow up and leave Hailsham behind” (130).

The people in the Cottages don’t talk about their “courses”, carers, and donors. The culture is much like Hailsham in this way. It creates the same inner conflicts within the children and the ideas of the their futures.

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“Since each of us was copied at some point from a normal person, there must be, for each of us, somewhere out there, a model getting on with his or her life” (139).

“In fact, to be honest, my guess was that Chrissie and Rodney had made the whole thing up. I don’t really want to suggest Chrissie and Rodney were bad people- that would be unfair. In many ways, I actually liked them. But the fact was, the way they regarded us newcomers, and Ruth in particular, was far from straightforward” (141).

Ruth decides to act on this new information regarding there “possibles” (clones). She goes to Norfolk to look for her.

There is a potential conflict with the clones and their “possibles.” Going to look for their possibles could cause issues. They don’t know if their “possibles” know about them or not.

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“Both veterans were now standing in the middle of the pavement, letting people with pushchairs move around them, waiting for us to put up a challenge. I could tell Ruth was furious, but without Rodney’s co-operation there wasn’t much that could be done anyway” (157).

There is a conflict between Ruth and Kathy. Kathy knows how Ruth is lying about knowing about how Hailsham people defer. She knows that she is just trying to impress the Chrissie and Rodney.

"Actually, preoccupied though I was with Ruth' s possible, I did begin to enjoy the paintings and the sheer peacefulness of the place” (162).

Ruth is upset about not finding her possible. She blows up and starts yelling about how they are cloned after junkies and prostitutes.

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“‘It’s not worth getting upset about,’ Tommy went on. ‘Ruth’s always doing things like that now. It’s just her letting off steam. Anyway, like we were telling her, even if it’s true, even a little bit true, I don’t see how it makes any difference. Our models, what they were like, that’s nothing to do with us, Kath. It’s just not worth getting upset about’” (168).

Tommy continues to be a genuine, nice, and sympathetic guy. He is comforting Kathy after her fight with Ruth. He also wants to find Kathy the tape that she lost. Tommy hasn’t changed much, but he has matured (he acts his age).

“... when we were back at the Cottages and I was alone in my room, that I really appreciated having the tape- and that song- back again. Even then, it was mainly a nostalgia thing, and today, if I happened to get the tape out and look at it, it brings back memories of that afternoon in Norfolk every it as much as it does our Hailsham days” (173).

“‘What she had told Roy, what she let slip, which she probably didn’t mean to let slip, do you remember, Kath? She told Roy that things like pictures, poetry, all that kind of stuff, she said they revealed what you were like inside. She said they revealed your soul’” (175).

Tommy and Kathy reminisced over the theories and questions they had about the Gallery and their art. They addressed a past conflict and a current conflict. It is a current conflict because Tommy believes that Ruth will want to try and get deferred from donating their organs.

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“Until then, she'd been making out the whole thing was a bit of a joke, that if anything she was going along with it to please Chrissie. And she'd talked a lot about how we weren’t exploring our freedom nearly enough since leaving Hailsham; how anyway she'd always wanted to go to Norfolk to “find all our lost things.” In other words, she'd gone out of her way to let us know she wasn't very serious about the prospect of finding her ‘possible’” (146).

There is a conflict between Ruth and Kathy. Ruth is trying to be accepted and like by the veterans. She gets mad at Kathy and believes that she is keeping her from looking good. Kahy realizes and adjusts accordingly.

Even after Hailsham and the Cottages there are still rules and expectations. They do not allow people to visit donors. Do the outside people know of this cloning, the carers, and the donors?

“What they were saying was that some Hailsham students in the past, in special circumstances, had managed to get a deferral. That this was something you could do if you were a Hailsham student. You could ask for your donations to be put back by three, even four years” (153).

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“I’m not sure what our feelings were, witnessing these departures. I suppose to some extent we envied the people leaving. It did feel like they were headed for a bigger, more exciting world. But of course, without a doubt, their going made us increasingly uneasy” (185).

Kathy continues to show real care for Tommy. She encourage him about his drawings. Kathy and Tommy’s feelings for each other and relationship are growing. Will this affect his relationship with Ruth? Will Kathy and Tommy take things to the next level?

Kathy is having an inner conflict. As more time passes, her memories of Hailsham are seeming farther away. She is not happy about how the other Hailsham students are distancing themselves and forgetting about Hailsham, especially Ruth.

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“It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a thing like that. But the fact was, I suppose, there was powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task” (197).

After the thing in the churchyard there is an obvious conflict between Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, They are distancing themselves from each other. I think that the underlying cause for this conflict is Tommy and Kathy’s feelings for each other and how Ruth knows, but doesn’t care. This conflict has always been there, but this fight has broken their friendship.

“‘... We’re not about to split, don’t get me wrong. But I’d think it was completely normal if you at least wondered about it. Well, Kathy, what you have to realise is that Tommy doesn’t see you like that’” (200-201).

“It wasn’t long after that I made my decision, and once I’d made it, I never wavered. I just got up one morning and told Kefferes I wanted to start my training to become a carer” (202).

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“For the most part being a carer’s suited me. You could even say it’s brough the best out of me” (207).

Kathy is conflicted with her feelings of being a carer anymore. She thinks it will be nice to have time with a companion and away from the hospitals. However, she also feels like she will miss it and doesn’t know what she will do after.

“She shrugged, ‘It wasn’t any big deal. You remember the way she was back then. If anything, after you left, she got worse. You know, always telling everyone what to do. So I was keeping out her way, that was all” (210).

Kathy is conflicted about whether or not she should become Ruth’s carer. Their fall out and the time apart is making her hesitant. Later in the chapter she decides to become Ruth’s carer.

Kathy is upset when she hears Hailsham closed down. She believes that it closing is disconnecting all of the people that went there. There is no longer anything linking them to each other. She doesn’t like that and it seems to scare her a little.

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“I was like you, Tommy. I was pretty much ready when I became a donor. It felt right. After all, it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it?” (227).

Ruth knows she is going to complete soon and so she tries to make amends with Tommy and Kathy. She apologizes for how she was in her earlier years, says she knew they loved each other, and tells them how to get a deferral.

Kathy gets very emotional over the idea of being able to get a deferral with Tommy. She actually begins to cry. This is very uncharacteristic of her.

“But just once, as she was twisting herself in a way that seemed scarily unnatural, and I was on the verge of calling the nurses for more painkillers, just for a few seconds, no more, she looked straight at me and she knew exactly who I was. It was one of those little islands of lucidity donors sometimes get to in the midst of their ghastly battles and she looked at me, just for that moment, and although she didn’t speak, I knew what her look meant” (236).

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There is a conflict between Tommy and Kathy. Tommy is coming up on his fourth donation and doesn’t want Kathy to be his carer anymore. He doesn’t want her to see him in the end. Kathy gets very upset by this.

“Then he said: ‘I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how I think it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever’” (282).

Tommy completed.

“I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don't go along with that. 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).

“I found I was standing before acres of ploughed earth. There was a fence keeping me from stepping into the field, with two lines of barbed wire, and I could see how this fence and the cluster of three or four trees above me were the only things breaking the wind for miles. All along the fence, especially along the lower line of wire, all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled” (287).

Did their short lives mean anything? What was the purpose in educating and guiding them?

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“I don’t know if she recognised us at that point, but without doubt, she saw and decided in a second what we were, because you could see her stiffen- as if a pair of large spiders was set to crawl towards her” (248).

Kathy and Tommy explain to Madame why they are there. They talk about the art, the Gallery, their love, and the deferrals. She seems to be confused by this and doesn’t know what is meant by the Gallery.

“For a moment they were both looking at me. Then Madame said, barely audible: ‘Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans’” (254).

At the end of the chapter Madame is asking “Do I got too far?” and“Do we continue?”. Kathy is confused until she realizes that Madame is talking to someone else. Then, Miss Emily enters the room. Kathy and Tommy are in aw at this discovery.

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“For the first few weeks after I arrived, we hardly brought up Madame or that conversation with Ruth in the car that day. But the very fact of my having become his carer served as a reminder that we weren't there to mark time. And so too, of course, did Tommy’s animal drawings” (240).

Kathy and Tommy are realizing how their time together is limited. They begin to choose what art to take to Madama and try to go see her.

Kathy and Tommy are facing a conflict. Their time together is getting shorter and they know it would have been longer if Ruth hadn’t have been so selfish.

“Tommy gave a sigh and put his head into my shoulder. Someone watching might have thought he was being unenthusiastic, but I knew what he was feeling. We’d been thinking about the deferrals, the theory about the Gallery, all of it, for so long- and now, suddenly, here we were. It was definitely a bit scary” (244).

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“‘Within Hailsham itself, whenever this talk started up, I made sure to stamp it out good and proper. But as for what students said after they’d lft us, what could I do? In the end,... I came to believe that this rumour, it’s not a single rumour. What I mean is, I think it’s one that gets created from scratch over and over. You go to the source, stamp it out, you’ll not stop it starting again elsewhere. I came to this conclusion and ceased to worry about it” (257-258).

"’Whatever else, we at least saw to it that all of you in our care, you grew up in wonderful surroundings. And we saw to it too, after you left us, you were kept away from the worst of those horrors. We were able to do that much for you at least’" (261).

"You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you. I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. […] You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you"(268).

Miss Emily and Madame used the gallery to try and prove that the clones had a soul. They tried to get improvements and other things for the children. They wanted to protect them and that is why they kept them ignorant.