Post A.

votress (213)- a woman who is votary

masectomy (235)- medical removal of the breast


Fig. Lang.

"I'm grand about it, Says Carmel. -but I'm going to be nicer.
Paula laughs.
F*** off, says Carmel. -I am."

I thought this was an amusing bit of irony. Hopefully, you can see it.

(237)


"I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, LUCKY,- and she held up John Paul a couple of inches so he'd be the same height."

Irony again. This is Paula before losing her son, and then gaining him back. I wonder if she knew then that she'd feel like that after losing him?

(251)



Nicola picks up her forms and papaers. She taps them on the table. She slips them into a plastic folder. She standus up. She stretches, a long time, her arms way up."

(256)


Imagery. Nicola is a very visual person, so I thought it was neat the way the author portrayed that through using imagery.




Theme:

Loss and gain. Paula's sister Carmel is diagnosed with breast cancer in this section. This both positively and negatively affects her. She knows she most likely has little time left since she is an aging woman, however, she gains a new respect for others and for life in general.




Quote:

"She's gorgeous. Her tummy there, where her blouse has come up out of her trousers. The little mark where she once had her belly-button pierced." (256)

Nicola shows beauty in change in this quote, and Paula accepts that the scars are there forever, and sometimes cannot be healed. However, they don't affect the beauty overall if you don't let them.


Post B.

I actually really liked this chapter for showing me another side to all the characters. Firstly, I noticed Nicola a lot more, who was once a character who just lounged in the background. She is a bit like a mother, a bit like a child playing grownup. But she’s good at both respects. She was never a child, says Paula, and this gives us some insight as to how things where growing up for her. Also, I liked the bit where Paula falls on her sister Denise, and they start talking about Denise’s ankle bracelet. Denise says that her husband didn’t buy it for her, and the reader doesn’t know what to assume. Denise is actually cheating on her husband, and this shows a bit of shadiness in her character, because as far as I know, none of the characters in the story are especially rich. I still want to know more about Jack. He is a background character, who is in the middle of everything. So it’s a bit hard to get a handle on Jack. What we do know of Jack is that he has a crush on his teacher, and is a ‘good lad’… not really enough to make much of any sort of assumption on, is it? So Paula has changed. We see that. She believes that other people notice that she has changed as well. However, we still see the side of Paula that is accepting things when she comments on how she is glad that people smile at her when she walks into a store because she is a customer and welcome there. I really liked this bit.