The Liar's Club is an emotional roller coaster that sends very discrete messages to the reader. Mary Karr uses a lot of different writing tools to capture the reader’s attention. In pages 140-273 Karr's life completely breaks down. Her mother has become a drunk, her parents became divorced, her mom remarried and moved the family to Colorado. I believe that Mary's mother has gone from a person Mary can count on to a liability.
One example of Mary’s mother showing bad judgment is on page 235. "He'd shoved her face through the back-door glass, it turned out. But that scene has melted from my head. We must have rushed in and found her bleeding and screaming, and the babies must have hollered something awful. Still, I only keep a picture of Purty very patiently explaining to the red-faced highway patrolman exactly how her husband had choked her throat, then smacked her face into the glass, so she'd heard shattering around and felt the rush of cold air from outside"(235). In this passage, Mary Karr is under a bed with three others trying to keep quiet from her aunt's ex-husband. Her ex-husband wants his kids back and tries to use force to get them back, but is unsuccessful. Mary's mother left her two children with an unstable family. She has become so irresponsible with her children that she left them with people who haven't been introduced in the book until now, so we're unsure of how well she knows them. Her drinking and Nervousness habits have completely destroyed her judgment. In the Liar’s Club though, Mary still sees her mom as someone she can rely on. An example of this is, “Still, I only keep a picture of Purty very patiently explaining to the red-faced highway patrolman exactly how her husband had choked her throat”(235). Shes trying to block out the image of the beating, which if Mary’s mom left them with someone else, she wouldn’t have seen the beating.
One other example is of how Chelsea acts in front of her kids when she is drunk. "Lecia begged her not to pull the trigger, while I draped the length of my body down his front like a lobster bib. And move did draw her up short. She squinted at me as if I were a long ways off. When she waved the gun sideways to motion me out of the way, her arms looked boneless and wiggly as an eel. Scoot over, she said"(251). Mary Karr's use of imagery helps the reader really understand what Mary is going through. This event obviously had a strong impact on Mary. She is hanging on her stepfather's neck trying to shield him from her mother's drunken actions. Once again her mother is the problem in this passage. Her "Nervousness" and drinking have collided together. She is actually considering murdering her husband. Also murdering her husband in front of her kids. When she was still with Pete, this never would have happened. He knew how to calm her down and helped her with her problems.
Before I get into analyzing the text, I just want to mention that you left out a word in the quote on page 251. It should say, "And THE move did draw her up short."
ReplyDeleteAlright, now on to more. I think that in the first quote either don't say what page it is on if you're going to cite the page after the quote, or perhaps introduce the quote in a different manner.
While I do like the examples that you picked, I think an even better example would be when Mary's mother left her with the sitter that ended up violating Mary. From the text, I get the impression that it was almost a random guy that walked by the house when Mary's mother was looking for a sitter.
I'm not sure if I agree with the quote you used for explaining why Mary still trusts her mother. The quote to me just seems like Mary's blocking of the fight from her memory instead of her still believing in her mother.
In terms of your thesis, I think that while the majority of your post supports it, the last few lines bring up a counter point, or another tangent you could lead into. That would be the fact that perhaps Pete was the force keeping the family stable. Perhaps Mary's mother was always this way, but with the strong figure of Pete being there, her true "Nervousness" showed.
Well, in that case, it seems like your thesis doesn't really address the images aspect of assignment. Maybe you could say something along the lines of "Mary Karr uses such image to show how her mother is irresponsible" or something of the like.
That should be all for now. Overall it was a good read.
In the comment about the aunt watching Mary and Lecia I have to disagree. Yes, her mother is getting out of control, but I feel that she didn't know that the drunk husband was going to be coming to the house that night. She was going away and the aunt was the closet person that they could leave the kids with. Maybe the aunt is a little unstable but if the drunk husband didn't show up I think the kids would have been fine. The author didn't mention the aunt before because she is related to Hector and Hector just came into the story. You do have a point though.
ReplyDeleteThe second point is a great example of how Mary's mother is very unstable with her kids around. It is however the first time she has stuck up for her kid. The "nervousness" is kind of getting off track, but overall very good. Go a little further on the first example.
1. Find a connection between specific imagery in the book and explain how the utilization of that imagery shows how Mary's mother has become a liability.
ReplyDelete1b. Make it clear that Mary Karr is the author.
2. These quotes seem very obvious in explaining how Mary's mother is a liability. Dig deeper, and find more subtle images to enhance this change in her mom. Don't say "on page..." Transitions could be better.
3. Give more background information on the scenes from which the images come from, so we can further understand how these quotes are relevant to your thesis.
4. You did address a counter-argument, that Mary can still count on her mother. However, you kind of left it hanging there. Counter that statement to explain how, although that may be true, your thesis overrides it.
5. Reorganize your paragraphs. Show distinction between intro, first example, second example, and conclusion (you don't really have one.) Grammar is a little shaky.
6. You did a good job of making it evident that this is your opinion. I think using "I believe" in your thesis, however, weakens your stance.
7. The way you introduced your counter-argument didn't seem relevant to your thesis. It is a good point, so show how one might argue that against you but make sure to explain why that is not the case. You might want to include this in your conclusion because it doesn't seem to flow very well where it is now.
Yep. Seems like your thesis about her mother being a liability isn't argumentative enough.
ReplyDeleteKeep working.