Never Let Me Go 8

"As soon as I said this I realised I'd made a mistake; that until I'd mentioned these two, I'd had Ruth in a corner, but now she was out. It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you made..." pg. 124

There is a change made in part two. Eight of the Hailsham students arrive at the Cottages. I think the Cottage is designed as a place for maturing before entering the real world. However, as seen by the simile above, the new students need to mature much more before they are ready to venture on their own. The dynamics of the Cottage reminds me of the dynamics of high school. Kathy and her friends arrive at the Cottage as freshman. They are very insecure and scared, because they aren't used to the situation around them. They do everything that they can to prove that they have matured, even going as far as mimicking the upper class men, but it is very evident they are stuck in their middle school ways. Ruth and the rest of the eight are consumed with the child like mind games they partook in at Hailsham. I'm wondering if they, and anyone else for that matter, will ever be able to mature into adults. Or, is everyone truly a "child" deep down?