Q.1
"I wasn't in the best of moods because my own donor had just completed the night before"
  • Rather than describing her grief or shock, Kathy underplays her feelings by saying she "wasn't in the best of moods"
  • The words "night" and "before" and "best" describe the shocking event
  • Using the word, just, makes the action feel recent
  • Kathy's donor completed, which means that he or she "died"
Q.2
"And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night"
  • The terrible force of the wind threatens to "sweep" Tommy and Kathy "away into the night"
  • The wind represents the terrible forces of the world which will soon cause Kathy and Tommy to be "swept away into the night"
  • The wind "blowing and blowing" will "sweep" Kathy and Tommy away into the "night"
  • The wind "blows" and "blows", "sweeping" Kathy and Tommy "away into the night"
Q.3
"Ruth had been right: Madame afraid of us. But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. It had never occurred to us to wonder how would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders."
  • Kathy compares the students to "spiders"
  • Madame compares the students to "spiders"
  • The students realize that Madame is "afraid" of them
  • Kathy explains that Madame is not afraid of what the students might do, but is instead instinctively afraid of them "in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders"
Q.4
"All we could see was a dark fringe of trees, but I certainly wasn't the only one of my age to feel their presence day and night"
  • The students feel oppressed by the woods, even though they are barely visible as a "dark fringe"
  • "A dark fringe of trees" means that a forest surrounds Hailsham
  • By using the word "fringe", Kathy compares the woods to hair
  • Because they are a "dark fringe", the woods oppress the students
Q.5
"Some students thought you should be looking for a person twenty to thirty years older than yourself — the sort of age a normal parent would be"
  • "Students" do not realize that their search for their "models" is doomed
  • The "clones" use the word "normal" because they are not "normal"
  • The clones' reference to parents hints that the search for their models is also a response to feeling orphaned
  • The students believe "possibles" should be "twenty" or thirty years older
Q.6
"I was becoming genuinely drawn to these fantastical creatures in front of me. For all their busy, metallic features, there was something sweet, even vulnerable about each of them"
  • Kathy's emotional response to Tommy's drawings is demonstrated by her use of the words "sweet" and "vulnerable"
  • Kathy is genuinely drawn to Tommy's creations
  • Tommy's drawings are "fantastical" and "busy" and "metallic" and "sweet" and "vulnerable" and Kathy is "drawn" to them
  • Kathy ignores Tommy because she doesn't like his "fantastical creatures"
Q.7
''But these days, of course, there are very few donors left who I remember, and so in practice, I haven't been choosing that much."
  • Kathy doesn't "remember" many donors
  • Kathy's remark that there are "fewer and fewer" donors left whom she remembers leaves the reader wondering what has happened to them
  • "Fewer and fewer" donors are left for Kathy to "remember"
  • Kathy says "of course" there are not as many donors "these days"
Q.8
"I don't know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham the guardians were really strict about smoking"
  • "Smoking" was forbidden at Hailsham
  • Kathy reminds the audience that it was unusual for the guardians to be "strict"
  • Kathy assumes her audience to be clones too, often remarking, "I don't know how it was where you were"
  • Kathy's exaggeration with the word "really" indicates that she is being sarcastic about the "guardians"
Q.9
"It's an object, like a brooch or a ring, and especially now Ruth has gone, it's become one of my most precious possessions"
  • The reader is meant to understand that Kathy cares more for "possessions" than she does for "people"
  • When Kathy says, now Ruth is gone, she means that Ruth has died
  • Kathy believes that "possessions" are more "precious" than friends are
  • The reader understands for the first time that Ruth is dead when Kathy says, "now Ruth is gone"
Q.10
"Here was the world requiring the students to donate. While that remained the case, there would always be a barrier against seeing you as properly human"
  • The world "requires" "donations" from the "students"
  • The "barrier" to the world's "view" is mental
  • The world protects itself from seeing the students as "properly human"
  • The reason the world cannot see the students as human is because of a "barrier"
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