I was glad to finally hear the truth about Hailsham from Miss Emily towards the end of the novel, but I was a little troubled by the calm, nonchalant way Miss Emily acted about the whole situation. Madame was an emotional mess when talking with Kathy and Tommy, but Miss Emily on the other hand was very matter-of-fact when explaining her “project,” and she seemed kind of emotionally detached from Kathy and Tommy. For instance, it takes her awhile to remember who Kathy and Tommy were at the beginning, and throughout their conversation, Miss Emily kept mentioning how some men were coming to move her cabinet. This was a very important conversation for Kathy and Tommy, but Miss Emily didn’t seem to be giving it much of her attention at all.

Furthermore, Miss Emily claimed to not have any regrets about Hailsham being shut down since she succeeded in temporarily giving her students a happy life, but she didn’t end up making any lasting impacts on her students’ lives since they still will end up being donors all the same. This made me wonder what exactly was her goal for Hailsham. She said she wanted to improve living conditions for the clones and to show that they had “souls” like normal humans, but clearly she didn’t want to go so far as to make the clones actually equal in status to normal humans. She admitted to feeling disgusted by them so she does see them as inferior, and she doesn’t seem to be against donations. In fact, Miss Emily was in a wheelchair at the end so maybe we can assume that she benefited from receiving a donation recently. Looking back at it now, maybe Hailsham was just a way to more easily manipulate the clones by making them content so they have no reason to revolt. Miss Emily certainly was manipulative in the way she kept information about from her students about their doomed futures, and I’m not sure if it really was all for the benefit of the students.