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Never Let Me Go Ambiguity

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Kazuo Ishiguro paints vivid pictures of scenes from Kathy’s life in his novel, Never Let Me Go, with an unrestrained level of detail, yet it he reveals little to the reader concerning the geography of the world of the novel. The geographical specificity or lack thereof in many cases in Never Let Me Go reflects the sense that Kathy and the characters in the novel don’t have a place on a map or in their hearts that they can feel they belong.
The primary manifestation of this idea is Hailsham, where the characters grow up and go to school. Kathy describes Hailsham richly to the reader through minute details which creates a specific vision of the grounds of Hailsham and Kathy’s feelings associated with it. She does this when she describes …show more content…
As a carer, she spends extended periods of time driving all across the English countryside to get to the various donors she looks after. Kathy’s life of roaming the country embodies the effect of geographical ambiguity in the text because she has no home calling for her. Although she details the “rows of furrowed fields, the sky big and grey and never changing mile after mile” (102), Kathy never elaborates on where she is or where she is going. The imagery of the grey yet peaceful scenes of quite landscapes created by the languid diction disorients the reader and conveys the feeling of aimlessness. To many, this ceaseless driving may be monotonous, yet Kathy enjoys it; "I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I'll have only the roads, the big grey sky and my daydreams for company” (136). The comfort Kathy finds in driving rather than a specific place points to her lack of sense of belonging in the world. Furthermore, driving down unspecified roads and unchanging scenery is when Kathy is able to reflect on her home at Hailsham the most deeply; "Even now, if I'm driving on a long grey road and my thoughts have nowhere special to go, I might find myself turning all of this over” (9). Kathy’s distant and neutral tone she uses in instances like this show her desire to reconnect with a home that is more concrete and palpable which leads her to think of …show more content…
Norfolk is the singular known landmark in the novel yet, to the characters, it embodies being lost. The children at Hailsham learn about the geography of England, however the only place they latch on to is Norfolk because Miss Emily describes it as the “lost corner of England”. This becomes a reoccurring idea in all the character’s lives, as Kathy describes the way she and her friends felt about Norfolk; “When we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk” (57). Kathy’s passionate tone when talking about Norfolk illustrates how it was a place that gave everyone hope when they lost something or felt lost themselves. After Kathy hears of Tommy’s “completing”, she indulges herself and drives specifically to Norfolk. While in Norfolk she says, “…I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave,

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