Sunday, May 8, 2011
My Name is Kathy H.
Ishiguro is noted for certain types of characters. Louis Menand of The New Yorker compares Kathy H. to Stevens of Ishiguro's most famous novel, The Remains of the Day. In this review he classifies Kathy as being "ingenuous, but keenly desirous of telling us how it was" (Menand 78). Honestly, I had to look up the word ingenuous in order to understand this description. It means showing child-like or innocent simplicity and candidness, but it also means lacking craft or subtlety. I can see both of these ideas in Kathy, and at the same time neither. And what is more human than that?
Humanity asks questions about existence and why are we here, yet Kathy doesn't struggle with these notions. She knows who she is and why she is and has accepted it. Kathy displays an uncanny ability to rationalize her world and accept it for what it is. After she and Tommy have the entire story of Hailsham explained to them in part three of the novel, it is obvious that Tommy is quite rattled and confused, while Kathy understands, accepts, and prepares to move forward. On the drive home Tommy has one final temper tantrum, and who can blame him once he finds out his life will soon be over when he makes one or two more donations and nothing can stop his fate, and it is once again Kathy, as in the beginning when he wasn't picked for a soccer team, consoling Tommy and trying to help calm him down. This is not a very human-like characteristic. Tommy behaves in a very human way, while Kathy behaves more like a robot. Tommy fights to understand why all of this was given to them in their childhood only to be taken away as adults, while Kathy has apparent perfect perspective. But this is not actually the case. Kathy has essentially been conditioned by Ruth to always get second best and to never find true happiness. However, while Kathy tells these stories, she never fully explores how they have affected her.
The Ponies
The first story we hear about Ruth and Kathy is that Ruth is playing with imaginary horses and invites Kathy along. She won't let Kathy ride the best horse. She's not good enough. She can have a lesser horse. Children in their imaginative playgrounds reveal much about who they are, what they believe, and where the margins stand right and wrong. Ruth is a control freak, demanding, commanding, and terrified of being alone. Kathy, on the other hand, is submissive, easy to get along with, and what some people might mistake as passive but is actually more along the lines of gracious. Essentially, Kathy is the perfect child! She never challenges Ruth in the game of ponies, and because of it eventually gets to ride the best one. However, this should not be seen as Kathy's ingrained personality, since it will change as the novel goes on.
Kathy and Tommy and Ruth
It is obvious early on that Kathy is interested in Tommy but, seeing this, Ruth makes the first move and Tommy and Ruth are together almost all of their time at Hailsham. So now Ruth has not only told Kathy that she isn't good enough to ride the best pony, but she has shown Kathy that other girls will get what she [Kathy] wants. Kathy has a number of memories she shares about conversations and wonderings between her, Tommy, and her imagination, but a very notable story is how Kathy is trying to decide who to lose her virginity to. She picks a boy and begins to flirt with him, but then Ruth and Tommy break up. It is obvious that Kathy would prefer it to be Tommy, but this will not happen until the final section of the novel. Thus Kathy completes her high school equivalent years as virgin, gaining pleasure neither from the man she desires or the one she'd simply like to have sex with.
Ruth and Kathy
At one point in the story of their friendship at Hailsham Kathy and Ruth break up. Kathy says something that offends Ruth and Ruth kicks her out of their club designed to protect their favorite guardian. This is a catastrophe for Kathy who doesn't really have any friends outside her relationship with Ruth. She spends her time trying to find ways to get back into Ruth's good graces, further wedging herself under Ruth's thumb. Especially as a child, this is devastating to your psyche and sense of self-worth. The score is now that Ruth has told Kathy she isn't good enough, taken the boy Kathy likes, and alienated her. Honestly, by the time Kathy learns the truth about Hailsham, clones, the world and their view of clones, and that there is no deferral process to allow couples in love to spend a few years together before becoming part of the donations process, she has to be in place of, "Of course this is how it would be. Why should anything ever work out for me?"
Because of this, Kathy can seem very naive and simple, when in fact she is very intuitive and discerning. The only problem is she's a pessimist. Additionally, it can seem as though she lacks subtlety since she describes things in such vivid detail in a calm and rational manner while the reader recoils at atrocious behavior and horrors at the mistreatment of the clones. As my professor noted, "It's a lot like they are animals and makes me want to be a vegetarian" (qtd in Olivier). Yet Kathy continues, calmly and with the perfect balance that can only come from braving disappointment after disappointment. She doesn't lack subtlety. She is extremely tactful and has meaning in everything she reveals and doesn't reveal. While Ruth and Tommy show different sides of overreacting emotionally, Kathy stands as the commentary on those of us who let the emotion go out of our lives because we've become so jaded. Kathy will meet death with a smile on her face, as one greets a friend they haven't seen in a while and have been waiting for to arrive. It is a place I believe most of us live, making Kathy the most human of all.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage International, 2006. Print.
Menand, Louis. "Something about Kathy." Rev. of Never Let Me Go. The New Yorker 8 Mar. 2005: 78. Literature Resource Center. Tarrant County College District, Fort Worth, TX. Web. 8 May 2011. <http://ezp.tccd.edu:2255/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRC&userGroupName=txshracd2560&tabID=T001&searchId=R3&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=5&contentSet=GALE%7CA130944960&&docId=GALE|A130944960&docType=GALE&role=LitRC>.
Olivier, Leeann. "Never Let Me Go." British Literature since 1800. TCCD - Northwest Campus, Fort Worth. Lecture. April 2011.
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