Post B

So far, The Welsh Girl has been really depressing. In my last post I talked about how annoying Rutheram was because he was so cruel. Then the narrator started talking about a man named Karsten who's a German corporal. It was really sad to hear about what was going on in his life because he and his men surrendered to the Tommies and now they're paying for it. All of his men where blaming him when it said, "This is what it is to be the first; all the rest can blame them. And they, in turn, can blame him, who led them in surrender" (67). I feel really bad for him because if he hadn't surrendered, he would've been dead and now all the men are mad at him for wanting to live. It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, yeah, it would be horrible to not have a meal whenever you want one but I think it's a lot better than dying, especially when there's the possibility of escaping or the war ending.

Another new main character is Esther who is a waitress in a bar. Because of the war, there have been a lot of Americans coming in recently. One of them is her boyfriend, Colin. Unfortunately, her life is depressing also. On one of her dates with Colin, he raped her and now she doesn't know what to do. She really wants to tell her father, Arthur, but at the same time she thinks that he won't understand why she's so upset about it. "The moral of Arthur's story, she supposes bleakly, is that there's no reason to fear the English, at least not when the Welsh can do worse, and she knows, as if a door has closed in her face, that she'll never be able to tell Arthur about Colin now" (94). Before Colin came along though, she was involved with another guy named Eric. She believed he was her first love but they ended their relationship because he needed to go back and live with his mother. "Two months and six letters later, she heard from an aunt of his that he and his mother had died together-- their shelter had received a direct hit..." (73). I thought it was even worse though when she ended that sentence with: "...and more than anything she had envied them."

Post A

Vocab
Perfidious (92)-deceitful.
Melee (94)-a confused hand-to-hand fight or struggle among several people.

Figurative Language
1) "It looks as if it's standing on tiptoe, shrieking, and she thinks, If I can stand it, so can you" (82). This is an example of a simile because it describes something by using the word as.
2) "... her hands red as berries..." (82). This is another simile because it describes her hanbds with the word as.
3) "The cold corners of the damp tablecloth lick her ankles in the breeze..." (82-83). This is an example of personification because the tablecloth is described with a human characteristic.

Quote
"But then, the loaf still clutched in her hand, a slice half sawn, she has to sit, her legs rubbery, shaking. It must be the unaccustomed exercise of the bike ride, she thinks, suddenly breathless" (80). This quote is important because it shows how much Colin had affected her.

Theme
Don't blame yourself for something you can't help.