"My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years old, and I've been a carer for over eleven years... But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying 'calm...' There's no way I could have gone on for as long as I have if I'd stopped feeling for my donors every step of the way" (pg 3-4).
While I am still not positive on what a carer is, this direct characterization on Kathy H. portrays her as a very good one. The use of "I" and "my" also show that this is a first person point of view narrative. I feel as though Ishiguro directly tells the reader that this story is in this point of view so that we realize right away that there will be bias and emotion that an omniscient point of view would lack. This is expounded on in the flashback to Kathy's childhood which are later in the chapter. For possibly the first time in my life, I found the first chapter of a book to be fairly straight forward and a good basis to what the novel will be about (which is a nice change after Brave New World's first chapter). The direct characterization early on seems to be very important in setting the stage for how she is different than the others. She was clearly very similar to Ruth and Tommy in her childhood life, but her demeanor seemed to be very unlike any of the others in her childhood, which may explain why she is a carer now while they are donors (I think?). The one thing that seems very evident by the memories Kathy tells the reader (whom she refers to as "you") is that being a donor seems to be a very bad thing. All I think of when I hear donor is an organ donor, but if they are alive then is that really possible? Please do not let this be another twisted morals book; that would just be mean.
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