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In the novel Never Let Me Go, why do the students and Hailsham's administrators attach such high value to creativity?

Until the students learn the ultimate truth, i.e. that they truly have no future and that there are no "deferrals" for those who claim to be in love, there is a glimmer of hope that they might be able to change their situation and possibly prolong their short lives. Creativity is valued highly by students and the administrators because, despite the purpose of the experiment of Hailsham and the other schools being a pragmatic one for the purpose of providing a supply of organs for medical use, the cloning of human beings is still considered a somewhat mysterious enterprise, and monitoring students' creativity was a way of exploring whether they were similar to actual human beings born to natural parents.


Miss Emily, the headmistress during the time that  Tommy, Kathy and Ruth were at Hailsham, is part of the "old guard" who still believed in the humanity of the clones, and felt pity for them. Hailsham was eventually closed and clones were produced in breeding centers, with the need for schools disregarded. "You poor creatures," Miss Emily says to Kathy and Tommy when they visit her to ask for a deferral. She explains that the Gallery, where Tommy's many drawing were displayed, was not for looking into their souls, but "to see if you had souls at all." The acts of drawing and other creative pursuits were the students' way of clinging to their individuality, which is slowly eroded as the cloning practices become more utilitarian with time.

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