Binaries in Never Let Me Go
New Class of Supergiant Binary Stars Discovered
(OK, I know I am not looking for that kind of binary. It was a nice picture anyway.)
I think binaries in the novel include:
Us & them
Humans & animals
Loss & recovery
Inside & out
Inside the novel & outside the novel (metafictive)
Us and them refers to clones and humans. It is clear that the clones are oppressed, although we are not sure how this came about. The clones know they are different and don't even try to emulate the humans. The clones are looked upon with disdain by their guardians. I would assume that the world in general is taking the same stance. The clones live by a clear, black and white, set of guidelines. Most likely these guidelines were imposed by "them."
"But what you must understand is that for you, all of you, it's much, much worse to smoke than it ever was for me. ... You've been told about it. You're students. You're . . . special. So keeping yourselves very healthy inside, that's much more important for each of you than it is for me" (63).
"You are not like the actors you watch on your videos, you're not even like me" (73).
"We had to behave like them" (76).
Humans and animals is a more subtle, yet equally powerful binary in the novel. The clones (at least Kathy) don't seem to acknowledge how they are being 'kept;' how they are often fenced in, literally or figuratively. Only once in the novel do they go through a fence. In one of the final scenes they go under a barbed wire fence to view the boat. By this point in the novel their life span is quite shortened: Tommy's completed, three donations, and Ruth, two donations. Ruth has a very hard time going through the barbed wire fence, but comes back under it without difficulty:
"When Ruth saw it, she came to an abrupt halt. 'Oh no', she said anxiously. Then she turned to me: 'You didn't say anything about this. You didn't say we had to get past barbed wire!'" (203).
"When we came to the fence, and I held up the wire, she hardly hesitated" (208).
The only other time a fence is breached is in a fantasy story about a girl who crossed a fence near the woods and was not allowed to come back onto the school grounds.
She kept hanging aorund the fences, pleading to be let back in, she wasn't allowed (46).
There are also subtle indicators of how the guardians perceive them as animal like:
"Your lives are set out for you" (73).
"By the time they came to consider how you were reared" (240).
The students even move into a barn after leaving Hailsham!
"The cottages were the remains of an old farm that had gone out of business years before. There was an old farmhouse, and around it barns, outhouses, stables all converted for us to live in" (106).
Tommy also draws animals throughout the novel. I found the following quite highly ironic.
"In fact, it took a moment to see they were animals at all" (171).
"Ruth...[talking to Kathy, referring to Tommy] Are you OK? Mad animal." (11)
Inside and out is a complex binary. In its simplest form it is the clones and the people outside:
"Unlike anyone else who came in from the outside" (30).
"It would have been odd not to mention how much more important this was for us than for normal people outside (75).
Inside and outside is included in the imagery as well. The inside of the clone's world is often bleak in description, although Kathy's point of view distorts these images.
"You went around with two, even three jumpers on, and your jeans felt cold and stiff. We sometimes kept our wellingtons on the whole day, leaving trails of mud and damp through the rooms" (107).
"Ruth's recovery center in Dover - the modern one with the white tiled walls" (195).
"An example of this unfinished atmosphere - the metal frame for the high diving board" (200).
"I think it had been a bathroom back in the holiday camp days, because the only window had frosted glass and was really high up near the ceiling" (217).
The outside in the novel is an unknown. Kathy has no frame of reference for this world. They peer into the building where they suspect Ruth's possible may be. They don't consider going in.
"We kept on staring, and it looked like a smart, cosy, self-contained world" (145).
Tommy assumes the clones would prefer to be inside:
"Look', Tommy said. 'It's their lunch break, but they don't go out. Don't blame them either (145).
I am going to save the last two for class! See you Thursday!