Sasha hesitated. She and Coz had talked at length about why she kept the stolen objects separate from the rest of her life: because using them would imply greed or self-interest, because leaving them untouched made it seem as if she might one day give them back, because piling them in a heap kept their power from leaking away.
The author almost is playing with the idea of sasha needing help, she seems like a reliable narrator becuase of the honesty about the objects she stole.
the child’s scarf, which she’d lifted simply by not returning it when it dropped from a little girl’s neck as her mother led her by the hand from a Starbucks.
Sasha does not steal becuase she needs the items she does it beucase she needs to just have the object. This stentence talks about her need to "steal" not her need for the items themselves.
“Everything’s there, I swear,” she said. “I didn’t even open it. It’s this problem I have, but I’m getting help. I just—please don’t tell. I’m hanging on by a thread.”
I enjoyt the way the author creates this character to admits her faults by having her admit she needs help. This is a dynamic character.
The bathroom door opened, and the woman walked in. Her frantic eyes met Sasha’s in the bathroom mirror: narrow, green, equally frantic. There was a pause, during which Sasha felt that she was being confronted; the woman knew, had known all along. Sasha handed her the wallet. She saw, from the woman’s stunned expression, that she was wrong.
Was she wrong about stealing the wallet? or was she wrong about believeing the women knew all along sasha stole the wallet? I think this paragraph answers both questions at once.
She’d glimpsed the wallet, tender and overripe as a peach. She’d plucked it from the woman’s bag and slipped it into her own small handbag, which she’d zipped shut even before the sound of peeing had stopped. She’d flicked open the bathroom door and floated back through the lobby to the bar. She and the wallet’s owner had never seen each other.
Flashback of Sasha stealing the wallet. The sentences seem structered in a way to explain to the reader how casual she steals from people.
The couch where she lay in his office was blue leather and very soft. Coz liked the couch, he’d told her, because it relieved them both of the burden of eye contact. “You don’t like eye contact?” Sasha had asked. It had seemed like a weird thing for a therapist to admit.
First Person Limited
But on the magic metal, the magic and metallic stranger never struck but that one stroke, drove but that one nail, served but that one clasp, by which Bannadonna clung to his ambitious life.
Bannadonna clearly was anxious for a positive outlook on his invention
Nevertheless, in his initial step, so far as the experimental automaton for the belfry
Experimental gives the notion that int he end something will go wrong.
Upon its disinterment, the main fracture was found to have started from a small spot in the ear, which, being scraped, revealed a defect, deceptively minute, in the casting, which defect must subsequently have been pasted over with some unknown compound.
why does the Narrator constantly uses certain words multiple times; "defect"?
In his unhappy end, not unmindful of the rare genius of the mechanician, the republic decreed him a stately funeral. It was resolved that the great bell — the one whose casting had been jeopardized through the timidity of the ill-starred workman — should be rung upon the entrance of the bier into the cathedral. The most robust man of the country round was assigned the office of bell ringer.
I find it interesting the way they the narrator ended the bell tower with just pointing out a funeral and the new assignment of the owner for the bell.
the Bell-Tower, built by the great mechanician, the unblest foundling, Bannadonna.
Throughout the text the narrator constantly refers to Bannadonna as the Great "Mechanician".
Time for the shadows to lengthen on the grass, time for the tethered dog to bark at the flying ball, time for the boy in right field to smack his sweat-blackened mitt and softly chant, They is, they is, they is.
Maybe he rememebrs this point in his life becuase maybe this is the moment where he realized what he liked alot as a youth which was "Language".
He did not remember a single line of the hundreds of poems he had committed to memory in his youth so that he could give himself the shivers at will –
Poems he tried to memorize as a youth, this is significant to the idea that Anders has forgot a habit he commited to as a youth. Poems that were very important to him.
He did not remember his first lover, Sherry, or what he had most madly loved about her, before it came to irritate him –
It seems as if he is not remmebering the most significant parts of his life that possibly could of changed his perspective on his life.
Professor Josephs telling his class how Athenian prisoners in Sicily had been released if they could recite Aeschylus, and then reciting Aeschylus himself, right there, in the Greek. Anders did not remember how his eyes had burned at those sounds.
Thought this was a interesting story to add. This seems like a insignificant part but I think the professor represents a sense of survival although it is not mentioned whether he was a prisoner or not.
Anders burst our laughing. He covered his mouth with both hands and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” then snorted helplessly through his fingers and said, ” Capiche – oh, God, capiche,” and at that the man with the pistol raised the pistol and shot Anders right in the head
One of my favorite momments becuase the reason he was shot was because Anders could not stop being a critic.
Then, nursing the youngest child, sits staring at her feet. To the wind she says, “They have eaten me alive.”
The last lines of this poem focuses on how her children who she has been taking care of are sucking the life out of her becuase she gives them everything.
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date. Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
The narrator mentions her clothes to point to the fact that she seems like a signle mother who does not have a lot of money.
I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me
the narrator emphasizes how Love happens in the summer and it comes and goes as fast as the seasons
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain
Narrator reflects on what it is like to have a significant other in her life.
boys are beery, laying plots to score, Exhibiting heroic abs and pecs, The showy animality of sex,
The poem int he first stanza does not have a specific ryhmn schem. The description of the boys emphasizes the freedom of them finally being on vacation.
When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels,
The narrator is using the bike as a metaphor for the young girl beginning her life in the real world. The narrators interpretation of what it feels like from the parents point of view is portrayed throughout the poem.
O find me a dead-end road I have not trodden A logging road that leads the heart away Into the secret evergreen of cedar roots Beyond the sun’s farthest ray
The narrator prefers to be alone, connecting this the constant line in the poem "Men prefer an island". I can conclude that that narrator is a man who clearly in not interested in relationships.
Men prefer a woman Limpid in a sunlight
Limpid means free of anything that darkens; completely clear. i think this line is saying that Men prefer women who are "perfect". However, no women is perfect.
Men prefer an island
This reminds me of the stereo type about men becuase generally they prefer to be alone, oppose to women who look for relationships and also cling to the idea of marriage.
2
I find it generally interesting that Livesay broke the poem up into two parts. It projects the question of why would livesay write the poem this way?
She must have entered from the garden through the torn screen, looking to calm a need of her own
enjambment
clamor we wanted to be song— and how much we love it, and with what sadness, knowing we have to turn away and enter the dark.
The narrator gives the lullaby so much meaning, the characters fear lingers throughout these lines.
even if it was never meant for us or never anything b
I love this line, this poem has a very honest tone.
for if I stop trying, I will be deaf when my children need my help. Share this:
The entire poem seems anxious because she seems to be constantly worried, yet in the end she is sacrificing for her children.
Sometimes I take my English book and lock myself in the bathroom, say the thick words softly,
In the poem the women shows a sense of strength by taking initiative, learning the language becomes very important to her.
My husband frowned, drank more beer. My oldest said, “Mama, he doesn´t want you to be smarter than he is.”
The narrator adds a second layer to the issue of the language barrier, the husband despises her for wanting to learn English, the narrator becomes isolated.
But that was in Mexico. Now my children go to American High Schools. They speak English. At night they sit around the kitchen table, laugh with one another. I stand at the stove and feel dumb, alone.
The tone to which the narrator creates switches from being comforting to then being anxiously insecure about her language barriers.
He remembers himself, A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved Music. There is no time for that now.
A man once full of life, now does not have the time to live it.
The first Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who This woman is, this old, white-haired woman Standing here in the doorway,
These lines essentially bring the poem together. I find these lines extremely important. The poem reflects on the life of this old man who has Alzheimer. Clearly in his past life he was independent, self aware, and full of life. To later on discover his biggest problem consists of his struggle with identifying others is a complete plot twist. The title is perfect.