Dear Mary Karr,
I still haven't finished The Liars' Club but I'm really close! I just read about how your mom and dad got a divorce and you had to choose who to live with. I don't think I would ever be able to choose between my parents. Even if I was in your situation I think it would be hard. Especially since your mom needed you. I think it's really cool how you and your sister helped your mom after her mother died. I'm really sorry you didn't get to see your dad for such a long time though. That must have been really hard. It was really thoughtful of you to want to send him your prize from collecting green stamps! Your mom even thought so and I was glad that she fought with the lady working there about it. Doing that really showed how much she cared for you.
Since this is going to be the last time I will write to you, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed The Liars' Club. In the section that I just read though you talked about how you liked how it felt when you hurt your babysitters' baby. "...I reached down my free hand and pinched it on the thigh, pinched it with all my might, which amazingly enough, made it fall quiet lying under me" (234). This quote really disturbed me. The first time I read this sentence, I thought the baby had died from you pinching it so hard. I know that's not possible but then you went on to say, "... having hurt a baby was deep pleasure at such blatant meanness, the soft flesh giving way between my fingers like Play-Doh" (234). So far, I have read a lot of disturbing things that either you, your mother, your grandmother or anyone else in the book have done and I have got to say, I think this is definitely one of the cruelest things done. I'm really glad that right after you wrote those two lines, you said that you felt guilty and you promised to never do it again.
Anyways, I can't wait to finish The Liars' Club! I only have a few pages left!
-Anna
October 23, 2007
Final Post A
Vocab.
Blatant (234): Offensively noisy or loud.
Existentialism (230): A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.
Appeals
1) When Karr talked about her mothers drinking and smoking problem she said, "...If anything, we found comfort in them, for they kept Mother safe in bed. The diet pills took those days from us" (229). Here, she is trying to make the reader understand that she would rather have her mother drink and smoke than take diet pills. This makes the reader feel really sorry for her so it is an emotional appeal.
2) "...because I almost couldn't bear to look at Mother. She'd become the picture of somebody nuts" (223). This quote also makes the reader feel bad for her so it is an emotional appeal.
3) After she and her sister chose to stay with her mother (to keep her safe) her father got into a car and drove away. Karr writes, "I finally stopped watching for glimpses of the truck to break through the dark spaces between trees and put my head down and ran hard down the dirt road. I kept running till the dust gave way to asphalt, even though that vehicle had long since disappeared" (194). This is another emotional appeal because it make the reader sad about what happened to her.
Quote
"They point-blank asked us who we wanted to live with. Mother was staying in Colorado; Daddy had to go back home" (192). This really influenced the authors life. She finally chose to stay with her mother just to keep her mother out of trouble but she had really wanted to go with her father. In The Liars' Club, she talked about all the times she thought about her father. One time she even tried to save up enough coupon things from the grocery store to win a prize so she could give it to her father on fathers day. When she found that there weren't any prizes left, it crushed her.
Theme
Sometimes the best things to do in bad situations aren't always the easiest.
Blatant (234): Offensively noisy or loud.
Existentialism (230): A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.
Appeals
1) When Karr talked about her mothers drinking and smoking problem she said, "...If anything, we found comfort in them, for they kept Mother safe in bed. The diet pills took those days from us" (229). Here, she is trying to make the reader understand that she would rather have her mother drink and smoke than take diet pills. This makes the reader feel really sorry for her so it is an emotional appeal.
2) "...because I almost couldn't bear to look at Mother. She'd become the picture of somebody nuts" (223). This quote also makes the reader feel bad for her so it is an emotional appeal.
3) After she and her sister chose to stay with her mother (to keep her safe) her father got into a car and drove away. Karr writes, "I finally stopped watching for glimpses of the truck to break through the dark spaces between trees and put my head down and ran hard down the dirt road. I kept running till the dust gave way to asphalt, even though that vehicle had long since disappeared" (194). This is another emotional appeal because it make the reader sad about what happened to her.
Quote
"They point-blank asked us who we wanted to live with. Mother was staying in Colorado; Daddy had to go back home" (192). This really influenced the authors life. She finally chose to stay with her mother just to keep her mother out of trouble but she had really wanted to go with her father. In The Liars' Club, she talked about all the times she thought about her father. One time she even tried to save up enough coupon things from the grocery store to win a prize so she could give it to her father on fathers day. When she found that there weren't any prizes left, it crushed her.
Theme
Sometimes the best things to do in bad situations aren't always the easiest.
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