There are still ten feet between her and the echoing sound of her own voice, telling her she can still be anybody she wants to
Claire seems like she wants a fresh start in live but is still being held back. The tie that she has to her past may be due to her lack of expression and grievance towards all of the factors of her situation.
I killed someone. I loved him. I walked away. A warped version of that icebreaker game. Two truths and a lie, or two lies and a truth
The guilt Claire has from the accident is what caused her to feel less inclined to clarify the depth of her and Aarons relationship when people initially asked. She minimized their relationship to "just a friend" but knew deep down in her heart that their relationship was way more significant.
Claire tells the reporter Aaron was a friend, that she was drunk and he was tak-ing her home, but the bones of that story don’t convince anyone it wasn’t all, at best, a tragic misunderstanding; at worst, a danger she didn’t see coming. Claire tells the reporter some innocuous nice thing about Seraphin’s boyfriend, and the paper calls him one of her best friends, after which she stops trying to explain
The fact that Claire does not event try to solidify the facts about her relationships with Aaron and Seraphin's boyfriend bothers me. This allows them to paint Aaron as a danger and Serephin's boyfriend as a hero
Mrs. Hall will tell the reporter that a black boy doesn’t get out of the car at night in the woods for a car full of angry white boys in Virginia. Claire’s father will read the paper and say it’s not the 1950s.
Here we see that Claires father is dismissive of the that racism is still very present in our society and he sees no wrong in the actions of Seraphin's boyfriend.
There is something firm and brotherly in his tone and it infuri-ates her. She shakes her head, but he ignores her and comes close enough that he could touch her if he stretched out his arm. Claire lets out a scream that startles him into momentary retreat, a bestial noise she has been holding in for months
Claire has an issue with being told what to do even if it will benefit her. She is stubborn and does not want Aaron to take her home, despite her current mental state.
Aarons she has known, from rotten rotten rotten Jupiter Jupiter Jupiter through last year in the basement, the grip of his palm on her hip.
Claires relationship with Aaron has taken a turn for the worst and they are now very distant. Aarons new girlfriend causes the romantic relationship between the two to shrink to only a memory.
The article only has pieces of the story. Claire reads it to see if the Halls—any of them, all of them, Angela—have made any comment.
This shows that the conflict between the two is very personal. Claire skims through the content of the article but deeply analyzes it to see id Angela contributed in any way.
He is a perfect gentleman, but one with a mother, and Angela is a friend with a mother, and already they are galaxies away from Claire, alone in her grief
Something that once brought them all together has now divided the group. Claire feels isolated now that her mother is the only one who has passed. She does not relate to the group anymore
Claire turns to Angela. It is a love that requires touch, and so Claire snuggles against her, nuzzles into her neck to say it out loud against her. Love love love. Angela is her best friend, her other self.
This type of intimacy requires a deep bond between two people. When Claire embraces Angela it shows the connection between the two and makes me wonder if they were ever more than friends.
She prints out a copy of the flag and tapes it to her dorm window. She calls the reporter from the student paper back and tells him she is simply celebrating her heritage, like any number of groups on campus encourage students to do. She affects a lilt to say so, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth she realizes that the affect is a mistake. She doesn’t sound like herself.
Initially, Claires involvement with the flag was unintentional. As the issue began to develop, she has changed her stance on her involvement with the flag and is now claiming that it is a significant part of her heritage. Had this incident not happened, Claire would not have been so passionate about the confederate flag and what it represents.
“Don’t take this personally,” Claire says, “but unless you’re here in support of my right to go to bed early, I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this. It was just a stupid picture.”
Claire complete disregards the severity of her actions and choses to ignore the backlash that it has received. Her privilege blinds her from seeing the wrong she has done and the depth of the history that her actions provoked.
You look like white trash,” Puppy says to her the first time she sees the bikini.“You would know,” Claire says back
Puppy and Claires relationship is not the average mother-daughter type of bond one may wish to have with their step child. There is tension present between the two.