NLMG in Four Ways

The first cover is a picture of a girl sitting on the ground surrounded by plants. She is wearing a red shirt and a black skirt. The color of her clothes is a good contrast to her environment; they represent how Kathy and her peers are different compared to the outside world. It makes it seem like she is the only thing in the picture that is not natural. The intended purpose of the picture is to draw the audience's attention to the girl and to show that the book is focused on her.

The second cover is a picture of a boat leaning on a tree in shallow waters. The color gives off a feeling of serenity and calmness. The picture also makes me think of something being lost and found. Despite this, the purpose is to make the audience think that the book is about someone moving away against their will and leaving those they care about behind.

The third one is barbed wire, in the shape of an upper body, surrounding organs. The color gives off a dark vibe, one that I would associate with death and sadness. The trees and the barbed wire makes me think that the barbed wire is keeping something out. This cover makes the audience think that the book is about someone suffering from a medical condition and not wanting their life to end.

The last one is a blurry picture of a girl in a sky blue dress spinning around holding her arms as if she was holding a baby. The blurriness of the picture gives the cover a nostalgic feeling, as if the book was about holding onto a memory and not letting it go.

Some similarities I've found in these covers were that they all relate to different important events or things in the book. In the first one, we see a girl and the audience can assume that she is the narrator
or who the book is focused on. In the second one, it is a visual of the boat in the marsh that Ruth, Kathy, and Tommy visit when they are in their 20's. In the third one, the barbed wire is a reference to the barbed wire fence that Kathy stands in front of at the end and the organs in the picture are the vital organs that the students at Hailsham have to donate. In the last one, the girl is a visual of what Kathy would've looked like when she was "dancing" to her tape when Madame saw her. The differences in these covers and the reason for having various covers is that it keeps the audience wondering exactly how the covers relate to each other and what the book is actually about.

When I look at the second cover, the first words that come to mind are "washed up" which could mean a lot of things when it comes to the book. It could describe the trash that Kathy sees in the barbed wire at the end of the book; she describes it as "the debris you get on a sea-shore". Norfolk is is supposed to be the place where everything that is lost gets "washed up".  If I hadn't read the book, I would've thought that the book was about the main character having to move away from their home against their will and trying to prevent it. I think this specific picture represents the friendship between Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy because this is something they wanted to see together. I think that this cover is from Ruth's point of view because she is dying and one of the last few things she wanted to do was see the boat in the marsh. I also think that the color scheme of the cover makes it seem like we are looking at a sunset, which relates to Ruth because if we were to make an analogy between the stages of life and the stages of a day, she would be in sunset or the last few moments of her life.

When I look at the third cover, the first words that come to mind are "its what's on the inside that counts" because the barbed wire reminds me of the trash caught in it that Kathy talks about and the trash reminds me of what Ruth. She may think that they come from "trash" but the things is that what is inside them is what is valuable to the outside world. Even if they did come from "trash", no one would care because the outside is not what is important to them. The barbed wire also makes me think of trying to keep something out of the body, some sort of protection. This could represent Hailsham and their duty to protect the students so that they may grow up to donate. It could represent the different lectures they get about sex and smoking and how they have to be careful in order to keep their organs in perfect shape for donating. If I hadn't read the book, i would've thought that it was about someone suffering from a disease and is dying from it, yet they're fighting to stay alive. This cover portrays all of the students at Hailsham and even those at schools like Hailsham since their sole purpose id to donate organs.