Never Let Me Go: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Kathy notes that, during the year in which she turned 16 (her final year at Hailsham), things became “mixed up” and confused. Some of this she attributes to the fact that they were going to leave school soon, and their careers as carers and donors were not far off. Other parts, however, she attributes to their being teenagers, and now knowing too much about the world or themselves. Kathy tells that reader that, one day that year, she walked into a room and saw Miss Lucy furiously scribbling out what appeared to be a student’s handwriting, on numerous sheets of paper. Lucy did not stop when Kathy came in, and Kathy wondered, later, what Lucy could have been trying to black out (although she never actually learns).

Kathy mentions that other students begin having very obvious sex lives, and that Hailsham rules seemed rather ambiguous as regarded sex. Ruth and Tommy had become an “item,” although their relationship was somewhat tumultuous, and Tommy appeared more withdrawn than he had in years—almost as sullen as he was when he was throwing temper tantrums. Kathy resolved that she herself would begin having sex, and picked a boy, Henry, as her intended “mate,” not because she liked him, but because she might “practice with him.” Kathy also wondered how exactly the other students were having so much sex, since they couldn’t go into the other sex’s dorms, and since they had very little free time to be alone. Kathy wonders whether Hailsham students at the time weren’t exaggerating the nature of their sex lives to seem “cool.”