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Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
Never Let Me Go is nebulously set in England, in the future (relative to the time of writing). Temporally, the novel could also be set in the present day, but in an alternate reality.
Several physical place settings carry symbolic significance in Never Let Me Go—Norfolk and Hailsham in particular. Both are fantasies in their own right, tied intimately to the speculation and musings of uninformed children. Hailsham, in many ways, is something of a fantasy or a dream. The school represents possibility, freedom, humanity—the aspirations of guardians and founders who intended to demonstrate to the outside world that cloned children have imaginations and experience human emotions. Never Let Me Go is unfortunately a tragedy, as well as a coming-of-age story. Hailsham's fantasy was never fated to last—a failed experiment.
Norfolk is yet another imaginative projection of Kathy and her peers, who believe that all lost things will eventually resurface in the coastal town. Like Hailsham, Norfolk represents childhood escapism—a juvenile solution to the inevitability of donation and death. In Norfolk, anything is possible. The city serves as a repository for Hailsham students' hopes and dreams, the place where lost things are discovered anew.
Related Themes:
