“Tommy sighed, 'I know,' he said. “Well, I guess we have time. None of us are in any particular hurry'” (178). None of us are in any particular hurry. I remember closing the book in frustration. How can these human beings remain so sedated, lazy and annoyingly indifferent in the face of imminent death? In Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Kathy H's reflections on the empathetic thoughts and experiences of clones leave no doubt about their humanity, but also reveal the disturbing absence of perhaps our most “human” ideal: the longing for freedom. Through self-propagating actions and mindsets, Kathy and by extension the clones in general trap themselves in the same dystopian society that marginalizes them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Although being a skilled caregiver may seem to soothe and benefit her fellow clones, Kathy's "care" actually supports and reinforces the inequalities of dystopian society. This becomes clear when revisiting Kathy's introduction at the beginning of the novel. Speaking of her donors, Kathy is proud that “almost none of them were classified as 'agitated,' even before the fourth donation” (3). In the context of the passage, “agitation” is the donors' frustration with the unfair sacrifice of their life only to prolong another. These feelings are the precious roots of unrest and revolution; every instance of organized resistance against an overbearing state has its origins, in one way or another, within a form of “agitation.” While becoming a care provider is mandatory, the extent to which they encourage passivity is based on their judgment, demonstrated by the lack of state interference or control over the care process. Clone labor maintains the donation program by maximizing profit for the state with nearly free labor, while exploiting relationality with the donor to ease tension and prevent rebellion. Therefore, examining the role of a caregiver in the broader context of the clone population, aspiring to be a “good caregiver” while calming potential revolutions is actually extremely harmful, supporting the structure of dystopia (282). The treatment process generates passivity not only in the donors, but also in the caregivers themselves. Kathy continues by reflecting on her personal attachment to her position: “Okay, maybe I'm bragging now. But it means a lot to me to be able to do my job well, especially the fact that my donors remain 'calm'” (3). In addition to dampening the flames of resistance with her steadfast focus on keeping donors “calm,” Kathy's commitment to pleasing her superiors also affects, albeit unconsciously, her ability to rebel. Kathy is clearly consumed with excellence in her work, evidenced by her admission to boasting, something we never see the humble, soft-spoken narrator do in the rest of the novel. It would therefore be illogical for Kathy to undermine her commitment to care with dreams of resistance, given the centrality of the position to her identity: she introduces herself with “I am thirty-one years old and I have worked as a carer”. for more than eleven years now” (3). People typically present themselves with the information they believe is most important to their identity. Furthermore, the pursuit of success as a caregiver reinforces complacency making it nearly impossible to work for anything else; Kathy constantly exhausts herself physically and mentally with persistent travel and donor care: “All this running around does it. I've been watching you. It's wearing you down” (282). A fair extrapolation of Kathy's and the great's experienceconsideration for his work on the general clone population reveals a cyclical and threatening trap. Because of their myopic perception of success, caregivers prioritize momentary comfort gained by taming resistance in themselves and their donors by supporting the structure of the donation program. While assistants impose passivity at the individual level, the clones' obsession and strict adherence to group identity lead to the repression of the resistance of the group as a whole. The importance placed on maintaining a collective identity, on belonging to a group, is clearly evident when Kathy encounters a threat to her association with Hailsham. When informed of the school closing, Kathy's immediate response is to ask "But what will happen to all the students?" (212). He shows a deep concern for “all the students who had grown up with me and were now scattered across the country, caregivers and donors, all separated now but still somehow connected by where we came from” (212). Although Hailsham's firing does not directly impact any of her former students, Kathy is deeply upset; Wondering “what next” implies that the closure makes it impossible for students to continue their lives as they are. Kathy speaks as if the bond shared by the former students is so crucial that its removal will cause the clones' core identity to cease to exist. This is because the value of being united by “where we come from” is much greater for clones than for non-clones; it fills to fill the void of unknown origins that is crucial to human identity. The lack of parents, family, or ancestral ties creates a permanent aura of ambiguity, forcing clones to cling to an alternative source of affection and belonging: the group identity provided by Hailsham. Alumni create and maintain this social construct to fill their insecurities and specify an origin, allowing themselves to achieve a sense of normalcy. Imagining the plight of these clones through this perspective forces us to understand why they clung so tightly to Hailsham; they would never risk losing their makeshift family by trying to rebel. Having established the clones' view of the Hailsham group's identity as family-like, the perpetual fear of being isolated from this social construct is clearly too great to consider opposing the donation program. Soon after being informed of the closure of her former school, Kathy recalls her encounter with a clown carrying a bundle of animal-shaped balloons in North Wales. As she watched the collection of balloons, Kathy “kept worrying that one of the strings would untie and a single balloon would float away into that cloudy sky” (213). Kathy's repeated anxiety, as she “kept worrying,” represents the deeply held fear of being separated from her metaphorical group of balloons, or from the identity of the Hailsham group. The single balloon represents an individual who severs his connection to Hailsham by opposing the group's social norms, thus becoming a defector. In the clones' childhood, "extrication" from the group could be found in taboos such as Marge K asking Mrs. Lucy to smoke or rejecting Tommy's creativity. These cases were met with punishment and community exclusion to restore compliance: “we chose to punish her by dragging her out of bed, holding her face against the window glass, and ordering her to look at the woods” (51). Likewise, the ultimate and most incongruous form of defection is resistance to the process of giving through rebellion. Whereas resisting in this way is much more radical than any other.