I've Got You Covered

The similarity between the covers is their vagueness. In 3 out of the 4 covers the images are very vague and could be connected to a lot of different things. This is so by the blurriness, the conventional scenery, or even the organs. The difference between the covers is that the top two depict people, while the bottom two depict places or things. This could be a difference to show the effect of the mystery of the place and people at Hailsham. The people are unidentifiable, they could be clones; but also the scenery and objects could show the mystery in the place and nobody really knows where it is. So the reason behind the different covers could be to show the magnitude of the lack of knowledge known about the place and people at Hailsham.

The two covers I will look deeper into are the blurred and the landscape covers.

1.     The first words that come to mind when I see these two images are: vague, mysterious, tranquil, appealing, and interesting. This makes me think of how little we really know about the location and people in Hailsham. We’ve been told that Kath doesn’t know where it is, but we also don’t know where the kids are from. They are clones but how did they get there and why were they there instead of somewhere else.

2.     If I had not read part of the novel already, then I would have thought the book was about a girl who was in the wilderness, secluded from the rest of society and she has a problem with her organs and needs to seek help. Now that I have read the novel, these images have a lot of relationships with the text, the top left image represents how Kath is not happy about her life and Hailsham. The second image shows how the kids are clones by not showing any unique features. The bottom left image could show the mystery of the location of Hailsham or even an important scene like when Kath and Tommy are at the pond. The final image relates the purpose of the kids, and how they are bread to donate their organs.

3.     Kath seems to be the one who is portrayed in all of the covers. The viewpoint is also seen from Kath. This is because the girls on the covers could show Kath’s displeasure or her being a clone with no unique features, or even by showing the pond and organs, because she is a donor.

4.     I don’t feel that these images show the cultural construction of the book because they do not show any part of the culture. They are all vague images and do not reveal very much.

5.     The type of person that would write this book is someone who is not happy with how society seems to have set out plans for people. They would write this book to try and show that people are not happy when they are forced into a direction for their whole life, this could be having to go to college to get a job that has to pay well. Additionally, a person who would read this would be someone who feels like they are being used. They feel like their only purpose is to be at the whelm of others.

The only thing that I don’t understand from these images is that two of them depict forests, and in the novel they said if you go into the woods then you will die and be found with removed limbs. So why would the cover depict this if it isn’t investigated in the book.