The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.
The fact that Mr. Summers, using the theory above, was able to even curve the minds of the mother's own child to follow the tradition against his mother shows how manipulative Mr. Summers can be, and how much of an impact he has on the children of the village's thinking.
The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program—by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.
The square dances, teen club, and halloween program all seem to be related to the younger generation. Does this mean he also does the Lottery for the newer generation? To pass on the tradition so as not to lose it and end up like the other village? Because he does not have a successor, he uses the entire village's children to continue the tradition? Why does he hate the socialist idea of stopping the Lottery? Is this a direct connection to politics in today's era, where one ruler curves the minds of others to get what they want, no matter how inhumane?
and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands.
In my opinion, today's children immediately switch to talking about summer plans and all of the fun activities that they will be doing over the summer with their friends instead of talking about their teachers and books. Is this a direct parallel to how this town looks and dwells on the past instead of embracing future ideals and morals? (Like the other town that stopped doing the lottery?).
We excused ourselves.
Another false reality that the janitors impose, but this time the readers are aware of it. The author does this on purpose to show that people may not seem completely innocent on the inside when opportunity, or spoils, are available to them. (Greed may take over)
We heard the lullabies, ones that had been sung to us and that we now sang, the melodies cleaving down to our bones.
The author uses incredibly morbid diction, purposely mentioning "cleaving down to our bones" to let the audience know the creepiness of the situation and the bad deeds that the Supper Club goes through. This quote may signify that the melodies, or unjust feelings, are crawling into them, therefore infecting them with the disease of evil.
We didn’t ask for much, much less than the members themselves, only that we might afford to behuman, and in this way, the pay, cash in hand, was hard to beat
The janitors believe that they are extremely humble, the author makes the readers think that they are kind, logically, and law-abiding citizens that only happen to be distantly associated with these evil activities, creating a false sense of security and safety for the reader (until later).
I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.
Is the narrator talking about shadows? creeping and crawling at night. Earlier it also mentioned that she was afraid of the moonlight. Is her mental health related to sunlight?
really have discovered something at last.Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.The front pattern does move—and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one,and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over
Has the narrator gone insane? Or is she speaking literally? She is suddenly happier and believes that she is getting healthier. The word choice of dizzy reminds something to do with hypnosis, and now the narrator genuinly believes that a woman on the wallpaper is moving the wallpaper around, crawling.
My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?"
What idea is he talking about? Why is it dangerous to her? What idea is false and fancy? Why are all the men in the story physicians, and the women not? There was notice of another person feeling that John was like this, agreeing that his physician ways were not working
But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew whata vicious influence it had!There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breaths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other
Not only does the writer talk about writing as a form of expression, but the writer excessively describes the wallpaper in her room, how they crawl, and jump off the paper. Lots of personification. What is the importance of the personification? Does this show her creativity in her head, and he has no way to express her ideas, which is making her unwell? Is there a deeper meaning to this personification and relation to "paper"?
I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind
What is the significance of this specification by the narrator? What is the meaning of a dead paper? Does she have no other way of expressing her mind to her relief except by writing? Is this the narrator's diary? Who is she targeting this to?
This she knew. How to make firm clay—something she was born to do. When the mix was just right, she added a handful of the ashes. Let this child be born in sorrow, she told herself. Let this child live in sorrow. Let this child not grow into a foolish, hopeful girl with joy to barter. Ogechi formed the head, the arms, the legs. She gave it her mother’s face. In the morning, she would fetch leaves to protect it from the rain.
Why is Ogechi so motivated to have a successful baby? Even after horrible experiences, she still continues to persevere in having a baby. What is her motivation? The jealousy she gets when seeing other babies get praise and glory? Is the story's purpose to explain how parents feel about their children, and they are desperate to do anything for the child, even if irrational?
Can I have a bit of that happiness?”
When Mama takes Ogechi's happiness? What is the author referencing to or comparing this action to in real life? Does she mean that she is taking away Ogechi's hope of having a successful baby? could Mama refer to as a doctor? Or a prayer?
elcome to the new motherI am welcomedWelcome to the new childThe child is welcomedMay her days be longer than the breasts of an old mother and fuller than the stomach of a rich man.
The blessing was the only thing that contained anything to do with a masculine figure, There is no other mention of masculinity or men in any other part of the excerpt. Why is the author excluding male characters and what allegory is she making by saying that mothers used physical materials to create their babies instead of reproducing?
She turned and bumped against a chair or something, hurting her leg, but she ran into the back room and picked up the telephone. Something roared in her ear, a tiny roaring, and she was so sick with fear that she could do nothing but listen to it—the telephone was clammy and very heavy and her fingers groped down to the dial but were too weak to touch it. She began to scream into the phone, into the roaring. She cried out, she cried for her mother, she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it were something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness. A noisy sorrowful wailing rose all about her and she was locked inside it the way she was locked insidethis house.
What does it mean that she was locked inside the house, and she was locked inside a "noisy sorrowful wailing" (16)? How is she locked inside the house? What about the irony of her shouting for her mother, when she had been talking about how "simple" she was and being disrespectful?
10the tight jeans that showed his thighs and buttocks and the greasy leather boots and the tight shirt, and even that slippery friendly smile of his, that sleepy dreamy smile that all the boys used to getacross ideas they didn't want to put into words. She recognized all this and also the singsong way he talked, slightly mocking, kidding, but serious and a little melancholy,
What is she recognizing about him? How come his actions remind Connie of something, and why is she remembering them? Does this remembrance mean something in particular for Connie? Has she had a similar experience before?
He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himself. He wasn't tall, only an inch or so taller than she would be if she came down to him.
The suspicious diction that the narrator uses help signifying what kind of character the reader is currently meeting. Using words like "strange way"
“Did you hear that?” Anders said. “‘Bright boy.’ Right out of ‘The Killers.’
Anders laughs at the lack of maturity of the robbers, the lack of literary development in use of an appropriate time. Being the book critic Anders is, words became the very thing that got Anders shot and killed, further explaining the author's reasonings for showing his only remembered memory.
Then the last two boys arrive, Coyle and a cousin of his from Mississippi. Anders has never met Coyle’s cousin before and will never see him again. He says hi with the rest but takes no further notice of him until they’ve chosen sides and Darsch asks the cousin what position he wants to play. “Shortstop,” the boy says. “Short’s the best position they is.” Anders turns and looks at him. He wants to hear Coyle’s cousin repeat what he’s just said, but he knows better than to ask. The others will think he’s being a jerk, ragging the kid for his grammar. But that isn’t it, not at all—it’s that Anders is strangely roused, elated, by those final two words, their pure unexpectedness and their music. He takes the field in a trance, repeating them to himself.
What is the significance of this scene? Why does the author include his memory of a baseball game as his last memory before he dies? Is this the author's way of telling Anders' life story? Could the author mean that childhood is very important, and one's entire life is affected during childhood? Coyle's cousin saying "they is" sparked an interest in words to Anders, and as the readers know, Anders became a book critic (a savage one at that).
murderous temper
He was in a bad mood
Dead meat
Lots of morbid diction including oddly descriptive information on weapons and guns. Perhaps Anders is knowledgeable in combat as well, explaining is fearlessness on the situation.
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits
Updike starts the short story with a bang, representing his surprise when he saw three girls in bathing suits at a local store
prim look
Trying to appear as formal as possible while wearing a bathing suit suited for the beach?
and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.
Another animal comparison, and he is instantly feeling regret on his decision.
like scared pigs in a chute.
Numerously referring to the customers with carts to animals like sheeps and pigs.
We are decent," Queenie says suddenly, her lower lip pushing, getting sore now that she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy. Fancy Herring Snacks flashed in her very blue eyes.
Signifying class difference? When he states, "a place from which the crowd that runs A & P must look pretty crummy," does he mean that the people that own A & P are a higher class from where the girl is presumably from? If so, social tensions are high if both the narrator and the girl can bluntly feel that. The girl "remembers her place."
All of a sudden I slid right down her voice into her living room. Her father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them. When my parents have somebody over they get lemonade and if it's a real racy affair Schlitz in tall glasses with "They'll Do It Every Time" cartoons stenciled on.
The narrator is daydreaming being with the girl at her house
cat-and-dog-food-breakfast-cereal-macaroni-rice-raisins-seasonings-spreads-spaghetti-soft drinks-crackers-and-cookies aisle
The many dashes that are connecting different words represent the narrator's mind racing and his adrenaline racing from this interaction with the girl.
it made a frail jellyfish of light, pierced by the stripe from the door. Walking the beach at sunset,
She likes the ocean. The ocean stole her father however. Is this why Louisa steals?
Even Dr. Brickner, who presumably wasn’t new here, seemed surprised by it and gazed out the window for a moment before sitting back down in his desk chair to face her
Perhaps Mr. Brickner is seeing the light, the answer, or an opening to Louisa's world / open door.
n electric shock isn’t frightening,” she countered blandly, fixing her eyes on his tiepin. It looked like a paper clip holding his tie to his shir
Increasing amount of dialogue, noting that the conversation was speeding up and the room was becoming more intense.
“Normal life turning strange—didthatfeel really real? Are there things in your own life that might feel that way?
Reminder of her father and her current state
She’d let the door open a crack, but he was too large and slow to slip through; she had already closed it. She almost felt sorry for him. The hidden side of her contempt for adultswas this pity: that they imagined they understood her and then blundered so proudly, while she had to pretend to be caught. She sang the alien greeting again, conducting with the flashlight to make a five-pointed star in the air
A reference to her scene with her mother. Like her mother, she metaphorically shut Mr. Brickner out.
Wrong
Flashback to a fond memory she had with her father, representing how she is constantly reminded by her father's absence.
They behaved toward her the way all adults had since her father had died: with a combination of hearty attention and squeamish discomfort.
Very blunt and sudden confirmation to the subtle hints of his death in the previous "scene." This also explains her discomfort when adults treat her more specially.
s if Louisa were still five years old
Louisa is not old enough to be a grown up but does not like to be represented as a young child. Her anger towards her mother is most likely empowered by none other than puberty and adolescence.