Deep Questions

"You can imagine what a shock this was.  Before Miss Lucy's reply, we'd all been glaring at Marge, really furious she'd asked such a rude question - to us, she might as well have asked if Miss Lucy had ever attacked anyone with an axe."  Never Let Me Go (p. 68)

This is my theory so far in the book:  Madame is scared of all the children because they are all secretly her clones and that's how she knows what they are thinking.  Pretty sure that is a legit theory. 

Anyways, the excerpt above exemplifies how the average 8-year-old's brain works.  Someone colors out of the lines, and suddenly, he is the kid who no one likes.  Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.  The narrator, Kathy, uses an exaggeration (or hyperbole) to show how the question really bothered everyone.  Honestly, I can imagine a normal child asking a question like this... I mean after all, even I can remember being curious about things I wasn't really supposed to know about.  Since cigarettes were obviously a "no-no" topic, I'm sure questions were on all of the children's minds.  Kathy exaggerates by comparing asking if Miss Lucy had used cigarettes with asking if Miss Lucy was ever a murderer.  Pretty extreme, I'd say. 

I thought this quote was a little ironic as well.  The children obviously equate cigarettes with murder and death.  I think this is no misprint of the author.  Just as Brave New World warned people of alcohol and drugs, Ishinguro is warning modern day people of the danger of cigarettes.  It is ironic in the fact that passage really has a double meaning - 1) asking questions about banned topics is unforgivable and 2) cigarettes are a dangerous thing.