NLMG - Pencil case scene

Question 1

pathetic confrontation

Answer 1

’ I think I said something pathetic like:..which hung stupidly in the air. Then after a few further seconds Ruth walked off into the rain’
‘ pathetic’ - which shows Kathy’s actions as low to describe her own behaviour shows the guilt Kathy feels
- ‘hung stupidly’ - the silence is contrasted to the fact Ruth is normally sociable and loud, presenting the damage done, ‘hung’ shows the effects lingered
- ‘walked off into the rain’ - pathetic fallacy intensifies the sadness felt by Ruth

Question 2

innocuous

Answer 2

This might sound a pretty innocuous sort of response, but actually it was like she’d suddenly got up and hit me, and for the next few moments I felt hot and chilly at the same time.’
- ‘innocuous’ has connotations of not being harmful or damaging which contrasts the fact Ruth is lying to be centre of attention even by doing bad things
- ‘hot and chilly’ - juxtaposition shows conflicted nature of Kathy as she does not know whether to believe
- ‘hit’ - aggresive and violent connotations presenting shocking nature of what Ruth is trying to do

Question 3

fibbed

Answer 3

‘So what if she’d fibbed a little about her pencil case? Didn’t we all dream from time to time about one guardian or other bending the rules and doing something special for us?’
- ‘guardian’ - euphemism and ‘special for us’ linked to show sad reflection of clone lives and Ruths desire for a parent
- ‘dream’ - as a present verb indicating continousness, and the want the clones have for normality is presented as a fantasy
- ‘fibbed’ - has connotations of being small and insignificant presenting Kathys guilt even if Ruths lies were not insignificant

After Kathy confronts Ruth, feeling guilty

Question 4

fantasies

Answer 4

‘’I’d said this staring out at the rain. Then I glanced at Ruth and got a real shock. I don’t know what I’d expected; for all my fantasies of the past month, I’d never really considered what it would be like
in a real situation like the one unfolding at that moment.’
- Pathetic Fallacy of ‘rain’ to present Ruth’s sad nature as she realises Kathy has tried to purposely undermine her
- ‘fantasy’ - has postitive dream like connototations contrasting the fact Kathy is trying to upset Ruth showing the perverted nature of what is happening
- ‘‘unfolding’ - shows Kathy’s lack of foresight as she only saw the first layer of what would happen

Question 5

refination

Answer 5

‘So I had the outlines of a plan, and I think I went on refining it for several days before it occurred to me it wasn’t actually necessary to carry out all the steps.’
- ‘refining’ - shows time and effort Kathy went to presenting her malicious intentions
- ‘all’ - presents the sheer number of steps showing the immense preparation

Kathy planning to confront Ruth

Question 6

fantastic scenes

Answer 6

just playing fantastic scenes in my head where I’d expose her and force her to admit she’d made it up. I even had one hazy fantasy’
- ‘fantasies’ and ‘fantastic scenes’ has positve connotation contrasting the fact Ruth is her best friend and she shouldnt be happy to expose her
- ‘force’ - strong verb showing the lengths Kathy would go to

Kathy dreaming before investugating pencial case

Question 7

virtually

Answer 7

’ trying over and over to think of some way out, while a heavy mix of remorse and frustration brought me virtually to tears.’
- ‘over and over’ - shows methodical process which Kathy is using to try and get a solution emphasisng her effort
- ‘tears’ - shows sadness
- ‘heavy’ - to describe emotions shows the intense weight of guilt Kathy feels

Kathy trying to repair after confrontation