Comparative Study Never Let Me Go


Kathy ultimately falls into another female stereotype: the nurturing mother figure. Although she cannot have children, Kathy channels her maternal instincts into caring for others, even Ruth, through their donations. Kathy does not feel restricted by this traditional female role; in fact, it allows her to rekindle her relationships with her old friends from Hailsham. Overall, therefore, gender roles do not have a particularly negative impact on the lives of the characters in the text.


Brooklyn


Eilis’s fellow boarders, like her friend Nancy in Enniscorthy, feel societal pressure to marry well in order to secure a good future. Nancy does all she can to attract the attention of the eligible and well-off George Sheridan from the rugby club. The rugby club boys appear to feel entitled to pick and choose, and they look at Eilis with distaste when she refuses to dress up to the nines for the local dance. Eilis, however, does not feel the same pressure as Nancy and is more interested in making a future for herself than relying on a man to provide one for her. Her view is not shared by her fellow boarders in New York; Sheila tells Eilis that she would rather marry an unattractive man than live in a boarding house forever. The implication is that a woman on her own is destined to a life of relative poverty. However, Eilis represents a more modern view of gender roles in that she is ambitious, strong-willed and independent. The fact that she is a woman does not restrict her life in any significant way. Although there are gender stereotypes in the novel and the film, neither shows them being a dominant influence on the central characters’ lives.


Lifelong love and marriage are presented as unachievable goals in Never Let Me Go. The characters in the novel are fated to die once they have ‘completed’ their donations. Therefore, they are raised to believe that they cannot have normal lives and will never be able to marry or have a family. Despite this, the young people have close bonds of friendship and romance, and it is these relationships that make their short lives worth living. The characters’ love for one another adds to the sadness of their situation. Tommy and Kathy are given false hope that if they can prove they are in love, they will be granted a deferral and allowed


The view of love and marriage in Brooklyn is far more positive and life-affirming than that in Never Let Me Go. From the moment Eilis meets Tony, her life begins to change for the better. Her manager in Bartocci’s comments that Eilis is ‘like a different person’ since she began dating the charming young Italian plumber. Unlike Kathy and Tommy, Eilis and Tony have every chance of a future together. The expectation for young couples in the world of the text is that they will marry and set up home together, something the couples in Never Let Me Go are unable to do no matter how deeply


Philadelphia, Here I Come!


choices in life. Her father has her life mapped out for her and succeeds in his plan to have her marry Dr Francis King. Senator Doogan tells Gar that ‘any decision she makes will be her own’, this is not really the case. Kate, unlike Eilis, has no income of her own and must rely on a man to support her. Therefore, her choices are severely limited. The same was the case for Gar’s mother, who married S.B. because he owned his own shop and seemed to be a fine gentleman. Certainly, there are some women in Brooklyn who represent this old-fashioned view of a woman’s role, but Eilis represents the new type of Irish woman: independent and determined to make her own way in the world. The gender roles in Philadelphia, Here I Come!, therefore, are far more detrimental to the characters’ chances of fulfilment than in the other two texts.


The three texts present us with different views of love and marriage.


Although love does not conquer all in Never Let Me Go, it still provides the central characters with memories to cherish. In Brooklyn, love is a wonderfully positive force and marriage is seen as the final affirmation of that bond. In contrast, the view of love and marriage in Philadelphia, Here I Come! is entirely negative. It is a story of longing, lost love and regrets. At the end of the play, the memories Gar has of Kate Doogan do not provide him with the same solace Kathy, at the end of Never Let Me Go, derives from her memories of Tommy. Instead, Gar is tortured by the knowledge that he could let Kate slip away because he was too much of a coward to stand up to her father. In the


414 King Lear and Comparatives


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