Brainwashing can be very subtle. This could be a little off-topic, but you might be familiar with Steven Stayner, a boy who was kidnapped in 1972 at the age of seven. His kidnapper (Kenneth Parnell) had told Steven that his parents could no longer afford to keep him, and that Parnell now had legal custody. Steven was renamed "Dennis" and lived with his kidnapper for seven years. Throughout those seven years Steven was repeatedly subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of Parnell. Yet he was given plenty of freedom to do as he pleased, he went to school, had friends, rode a bike, did all the things that other kids do. Steven had many chances to escape, but he didn't. He even went on a school trip to San Francisco at one point, but he still went back to Parnell, because he thought he had no one else. As Steven himself said: "Don't expect abducted children to come up and ask for help. They're totally dependent on their abductors." It wasn't until Steven was nearly 15 that he did something about it. Parnell kidnapped another boy, five-year old Timmy White, and told him the same lies he told Steven. After three weeks, Steven took Timmy away while Parnell was working a night shift. The two boys made it into town and Steven told Timmy to walk into the police station and identify himself. Steven was STILL going to go back to Parnell afterwards, but the police got to him first, Parnell was arrested and Timmy and Steven were reunited with their parents.
"Besides, these "clones" had pretty much a lot of freedom to go out into the world. Even the most brainwashed would have immediately seen that they were just as human as the normal people and would have consequently questioned the roles that were thrust upon them."
In the novel, when Kathy, Ruth and Tommy moved into the Cottages, Kathy tells us about fellow students from Hailsham who went on to other places:
Cynthia E. ... went on to Dorset with the rest of her crowd. And Harry, the boy I'd nearly had sex with, I heard he went to Wales. But all our gang had stayed together. And if we ever missed the others, we could tell ourselves there was nothing stopping us going to visit them. For all our map lessons with Miss Emily, we had no real idea at that point about distances and how easy or hard it was to visit a particular place. We'd talk about getting lifts from the veterans when they were going on their trips, or else how in time we'd learn to drive ourselves and then we'd be able to see them whenever we pleased.
In the novel there is no mention of "tracking bracelets". The Cottages were run by a grumpy old man called Keffers, who would come by in his van. Kathy said:
Of course, in practice, especially during the first months, we rarely stepped beyond the confines of the Cottages. We didn't even walk about the surrounding countryside or wander into the nearby village. I don't think we were afraid exactly. We all knew no one would stop us if we wandered off, provided we were back by the day and time we entered into Keffers's ledgerbook. That summer we arrived, we were constantly seeing veterans packing their bags and rucksacks and going off for two or three days at a time with what seemed to us scary nonchalance. We'd watched them with astonishment, wondering if the following summer we'd be doing the same. Of course, we were, but in those early days, it didn't seem possible. You have to remember that until that point we'd never been beyond the grounds of Hailsham, and we were just bewildered.
It's a bit like when criminals are released on parole - they still have to check in and report to their parole officer. The clones live at the Cottages for a couple years, having their movements monitored until it's time to start donating. Unless they become carers, that is.
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