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Why does Ruth have such trouble with the barbed-wire fence?

Never Let Me Go - Themes

Never Let Me Go explores powerful themes of love, control and humanity. This quiz helps you revise how Ishiguro presents these ideas across the novel.

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Fascinating Fact:

Love and intimacy offer brief consolation, but the novel suggests that personal relationships cannot overturn a powerful system, only make life within it more bearable.

In GCSE English Literature, you are expected to track how themes develop across Never Let Me Go. The novel links love, memory and friendship to disturbing questions about control, power and who counts as fully human. When revising themes, focus on how settings, relationships and key moments all reinforce the same big ideas about dignity and choice.

Key Terms

Theme: A central idea that runs through a text, such as love, power, identity or memory.
Dystopia: A fictional world where society is deeply unfair, controlled or disturbing, often used to warn readers about real issues.
Ethics: Questions about what is right or wrong, especially in areas like science, medical treatment and human rights.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

What are the main themes in Never Let Me Go for GCSE?

Key themes include love and friendship, power and control, identity, memory, and the ethics of science. The novel asks how human people can be treated as less than fully human.

How does Ishiguro show the theme of love in Never Let Me Go?

Ishiguro shows love through Kathy’s relationships with Ruth and Tommy. Their tenderness, jealousy and regret highlight how love brings comfort but cannot save them from the donation system.

How can I write about themes in this novel in an exam?

Choose one clear theme, pick two or three key moments, give a short quotation for each, and explain how language, setting and character choices highlight that theme for the reader.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

The veterans at the Cottages pass on a rumour that couples who are truly in love might be granted a deferral. How do Kathy and Tommy believe love can be proved?

Through the testimony of friends

Through art

Through sex

All of the above

Kathy and Tommy intuitively understand that the ability to be creative is proof of their humanity, as is the ability to love. They are mistaken, however, about the purpose of the art, which is not to provide evidence for deferrals

2 .

"Tommy thought it possible the guardians had, throughout all our years at Hailsham, timed very carefully and deliberately everything they told us, so that we were always just too young to understand properly the latest piece of information." Tommy's theory relates to which of the following themes?

Fate and freedom

The impossibility of truly understanding others

The blurred distinction between truth and deception

The ineffective nature of education

The guardians attempt to simultaneously hide and tell the truth. The students are expected to know and understand their futures without fully comprehending the facts emotionally

3 .

Why does Ruth have such trouble with the barbed-wire fence when looking for the old boat?

Ruth likes to be the one to know everything first

Ruth despises getting dirty or being undignified

The fence represents her imprisoned life

Ruth likes to be in control of every situation

Although she is physically frail, she lacks the confidence, in Kathy's view, to tackle the fence. This might be because Ruth, like all the donors, has been imprisoned in the fate society has decided for her since birth

4 .

Which of the following events relates most closely to the theme of hope in the novel?

The students decide to get a closer look at Madame

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy accompany the veterans to Norfolk

Kathy challenges Ruth over the pencil case

Ruth "completes"

The trip to Norfolk is motivated by the hope of finding Ruth's "possible" and results in Tommy and Kathy finding a copy of the tape which is bound up both with Tommy's past hopes of locating the missing tape and Kathy's past sorrow over her own infertility (an enforced acceptance of a situation beyond hope)

5 .

Which one of the following is NOT a theme of this novel?

Social mobility

Friendship

Humanity and inhumanity

Memory

While the lives of the clones are mapped out for them, meaning that they have no opportunity to choose their own employment, social mobility is not a concern of this text

6 .

Seaside towns and villages appear frequently in Never Let Me Go. What might the sea represent to Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and the other clones?

Their terror of the outside world

Love and friendship

The past

Freedom

The connection between the sea and freedom becomes clear when the rumoured sighting of an old, decayed boat causes such excitement among the donors

7 .

What does Norfolk represent to the Hailsham students?

The possibility of recovering the lost

The power of art

The freedom of the outside world

The fear of death

The students joke about Norfolk as the ''Lost Corner'', but the idea also provides comfort to the students, who long to be able to recover all that they have lost

8 .

After Tommy "completes", Kathy takes a drive to Norfolk. While there, she stops her car near a field where rubbish blown from the sea has been caught in a barbed wire fence and she imagines that she sees Tommy in the distance. This episode is most closely related to which of the following themes?

Loss

The ethics of cloning

Fear of others

Freedom

For a moment, Kathy allows herself to grieve for all that she has lost: her friends, her future, her love, all of which matter to her even more than the loss of her physical self

9 .

Each donor reaches a point when he or she loses hope, becomes tired of waiting, and volunteers for the donation programme. What is the best explanation for their behaviour?

Clones have had hope programmed out of them

They have been well-trained into obedience

The clones have no feelings or emotions

They will be terribly punished if they rebel against the donation programme

Despite their reading and their cultural activities, the clones have been taught from an early age that their lives will take only one path. Although indulging in very small rebellious acts, such as unauthorised trips, the clones never seriously question the purpose for which they were created

10 .

Why is creativity so important to the guardians of Hailsham?

The sale of art makes money for Hailsham

Being artistic will save students from becoming donors

The guardians happen to like art

The creative work of students proves their humanity

If the school can prove the humanity of clones, they can more easily justify educating them and treating them with kindness while they grow up

You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Themes

Author: Sheri Smith (PhD English Literature, English Teacher & Quiz Writer)