Parallelism: Never Let Me Go

"But Ruth didn't get my point- or maybe she was deliberately avoiding it. Maybe she was determined to remember us all as more sophisticated than we were. Or maybe she could sense where my talk was leading, and didn't want us to go that way" (18).

This parallelism not only shows Ruth's reluctance to discuss something as innocent as the student's appreciation for poetry, but it also reveals a part of Ruth's character. When Kathy questions the students' understanding of poetry, Ruth changes the subject. Perhaps this subject was not innocent; this could relate to how the students really did not understand much at Hailsham. Somehow they came to believe that poetry was important, so they respected it without understanding or even caring much about it. This blind following could apply to many aspects of their life at Hailsham; they pretended to understand life, but it was an illusion. Ruth may have understood the implications of that conversation which is why she changed the subject. Kathy gives various explanations for Ruth's reluctance, and it shows that Ruth puts on an act. She pretends not to see Kathy's point, and throughout the novel, Ruth plays the part of the pretender. While Kathy and Tommy struggle to understand their situations, Ruth avoids analyzing their life at Hailsham. The parallelism is effective because the reader sees how Ruth's reasons for changing the subject all relate to her personality and shows the larger implications of the conversation.