I'm thirty-one, and I've been a carer now for eleven years" (3).'s life has given her wisdom beyond her years. As the novel begins, she is trying to make sense of her past and does so by pouring out every thought in her head in a vain attempt to connect the pieces. Though her focus is trying to understand her own life, she is also trying to tell the story of her friends Ruth and Tommy. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro can be read as a trauma narrative of Kathy H. because of her secretive past. Her purpose in life is to die in order to save the life of someone else, and that purpose is completely out of her control. Kathy H. presents her story in a way one would expect a traumatized or confused individual to tell his or her story because she is facing an event that will take not only her ability to remember things but also her very life.
Ishiguro tells the story in Kathy H.'s point of view almost like a journal. She is at the end of her years as a carer and will become a donor in a few months' time. The reality is that she is at the end of her life, and she has an "urge to order all these old memories" (37). She mainly wants to figure out the things that happened between Ruth, Tommy, and herself. She does so by analyzing memories of the stages in their lives which is how the story is divided. Part one covers Hailsham, part two covers the cottages, and part three covers being a carer. Though Kathy H. is only thirty one, her recollections of her past are extremely episodic and fragmented. She jumps from one thought to the next with almost no connection. For example, she remembers assuming "Ruth was something of a chess expert" which leads to a "secret guard" memory and the pencil case and "the time I lost my favourite tape" (52-64). Each event causes her to jump to something else such as when Polly T. asked the question about the art and Madame, and Kathy says, "while we're on the subject of tokens, I want just to say a bit about the sales" which leads to more memories and more questions (41).
