Never Let Me Go Chapter 22 Quotes

Never Let Me Go Chapter 22 Quotes

How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)

Miss Emily

Quote 1

"Whatever else, we at least saw to it that all of you in our care, you grew up in wonderful surroundings. And we saw to it too, after you left us, you were kept away from the worst of those horrors. We were able to do that much for you at least." (22.24)

To Miss Emily, ignorance is bliss. So she makes sure that even after the students leave Hailsham they're still wearing blinders. Miss Emily sure does seem like a powerful woman. But her tone here also sounds sad, like she wishes she could've protected the students more.

Miss Emily > Tommy D.

Quote 2

Finally she said: "She was a nice enough girl, Lucy Wainright. But after she'd been with us for a while, she began to have these ideas. She thought you students had to be made more aware. More aware of what lay ahead of you, who you were, what you were for. She believed you should be given as full a picture as possible. That to do anything less would be somehow to cheat you. We considered her view and concluded she was mistaken." (22.49)

Miss Lucy has the minority opinion at Hailsham. She wants to tell the students the truth (gasp!). In contrast, Miss Emily firmly believes that curiosity kills the cat (or, ahem, clones). So she tells Tommy and Kathy just how wrong she thinks Miss Lucy is. Sure, she may have their best interests at heart, but we're not sure Miss Emily is making the right call here.

Miss Emily

Quote 3

"You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn't. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you. I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. […] You wouldn't be who you are today if we'd not protected you" (22.51)

Here we get the campaign platform for Team Miss Emily: keep the kids in the dark as much as possible. Take a look at the verbs Miss Emily uses here: shelter, lie, fool, protect. Does she seem to think all these verbs mean the same thing? Or does the end justify the means?