Kathy H. is a care-giver assisting patients during organ transplants. In a long flashback she recalls her childhood and adolescence spent at an English boarding school, Hailsham, her friendship with Ruth and love for Tommy. During those years the students learn from a guardian that their destinies have already been decided. Kathy introduces herself with the initial of her last name, “H”. This excision of her surname (as well as citation of Kafka) prefigures her deprivation of identity. The three protagonists never allude to their origins or kin. They live as orphans in the grim and silent cruelty of Hailsham, a Mengelian boarding school where students are raised like poultry farmed in the name of scientific progress. They are creatures who will never say “I”. |
