Never Let Me Go: 1

"On the particular afternoon I'm now thinking of, we were standing up on stools and benches, crowding around the high windows" (7).

The first chapter of Never Let Me Go embraces the technique of flashback. Kathy's flashback to an incident at the exclusive boarding school of Hailsham is appropriately situated after a patient of hers is thoroughly intrigued by her past (even if he is only intrigued because he wants to forget his). The patient's interest brings back her memories of the place she just cannot leave behind. She flashes back to an instance that provides a connection to one of the attributes she used when describing herself at the beginning of the chapter. "But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying 'calm' " (3). The flashback elaborates on this characteristic and shows that even as a teenager she possessed the trait of being able to keep people calm in the face of difficult times. In the flashback, Kathy is able to calm Tommy, a boy who is commonly picked on, after he has just been humiliated once again when he was not picked for a football team even though he was the best player there. The flashback is very effective in providing an anecdote to show how Kathy has used her ability to calm people in the past. In the main storyline, Kathy calms people before and after a donation. The flashback provides a comparison of how Kathy has grown yet remained the same throughout her life. Also, it shows how her characteristic traits have developed as Kathy has gone through her life.