Never Let Me Go: Frame Story 1 key example

Trauma theorists postulate that traumatic experiences fracture the subjective perception of time, forcing a person to return over and over again to a single moment, or series of moments in the past. Trauma, in other words, interrupts the linear progression of time. The framing and flashbacks in Never Let Me Go comprise a trauma narrative, recapitulating ideas of time fragmentation, memory, and loss within the structure of the novel itself.

Kathy's flashbacks are fractured remembrances: she moves quickly between stories, almost unsure as to how she should interpret the events of her own life. These flashbacks do not cease, nor do they seem tied to one particular past traumatic event. In fact, time appears to fracture in reverse for Kathy. The trauma of nursing Ruth and Tommy as they "complete" the donation process upends her present reality, fracturing the memories Kathy holds of the past. Her life and existence as a human clone is itself the trauma, the fracture point—the inciting event that reaches into past, present and future, fragmenting time and self-perception.