Hubris: Never Let Me Go

"...They tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human...Here was the world, requiring students to donate" (263).

Although the characters' tragic flaw was not revealed until later in the novel, the reader easily sees that the flaw that will lead to their downfall is the fact that all of the students at Hailsham are clones. The hubris is very effective in establishing the mood of the novel. Even though the clones are restricted to a single life path in which they donate their vital organs, Tommy still struggles to escape the fate set for him. The reader follows the lives of Ruth, Tommy, and Kathy as they either accept their fate or try to change the life chosen for them. This is an emotional journey, and the reader senses the desperation the characters feel. All of their frustration, anguish, and eventual resignation stems from their lives as clones and how that world, the "normal" people, prefer to cast them into the shadows. The students could not escape their downfall as they were required to donate and then complete. They struggled to understand their fate and their place in the world, and this was because of their fatal flaw. The purpose of the hubris is that the novel revolves around the characters coming to terms with their lives as clones and their struggles in life before their inescapable donations.