Escape from Reality

"I think of easy-going days drifting in and out of each other's rooms, the languid way the afternoon would fold into evening then into night.  I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.  I think about how I read them, lying on my front in the grass on warm afternoons, my hair - which I was growing long then - always falling across my vision.  I think about the mornings waking up in my room..."  Never Let Me Go (p. 119)

The Cottages seem like a pretty peaceful place to me.  I've been wondering if the Cottages are a little like college or if they are just like a nice camp before the students are shipped off to die.  This actually kind of sounds like the book series The Hunger Games.  Basically, children are choosen by the Capital to sacrifice themselves for the annual "Hunger Games" to keep the Districts from causing a rebellion.  However, before the tributes are sent off to fight to the death, they are pampered and treated like royalty.  (If you haven't read these books, I would highly suggest it)

The paragraph above contains a literary device called anaphora.  Anaphora basically means that two or more sentences begin with the same phrase or clause.  Each of the sentences in the above excerpt begin with "I think" and end with poetic imagery.  With the use of dramatic details, Ishiguro creates a dream-like state.  Maybe Kathy feels like this was the last place where she could escape from reality in her life.  At the Cottages, she was not forced to face the fact that she was going to die a slow and painful death.  When Kathy becomes a carer, she must accept her fate and struggle with it on a day to day basis.  Anaphora emphasizes Kathy's dream like state and the innocence of the entire place.

I'm not sure why, but the Cottages almost seems like an upscale concentration camp.  I mean, they are living on a "renovated" farm.  Why are the donors kept away from society?  In fact, where has society been all along?  

Oh, and I tried to find a song called "Never Let Me Go" by Judy Bridgewater, but apparantly, it doesn't exist.  What a disappointment...