Monday, August 1, 2011

I like polo shirts, too.

"Laura kept up her performance all through the team-picking, doing all the different expressions that went across Tommy's face: the bright eager one at the start; the puzzled concern when four picks had gone by and he still hadn't been chosen; the hurt and panic as it began to dawn on him what was really going on" (Never Let Me Go, 9).

Never Let Me Go in your pants, and I'll never let you go in mine.

I think what's going on in this quote is a bit of imagery -- I can fairly well picture the expressions on both Laura's face and Tommy's face. First, the images characterized Laura and Tommy for me. Laura is a girl who has the nerve to sit inside of a safe pavilion and make fun of somebody else. Tommy is a boy who has a fairly malleable temperament.

The imagery also showcased the pretty quick progression in Tommy's mood as he realized what was going on. At first, I was thinking, "Hey! He has a polo shirt. He must be cool." But then he started playing football and had a huge tantrum, so I couldn't relate to him much after that.

I haaave two comparisons to make. First, the sports pavilion reminded me of the humming pole at St. Mark (the place where people like me would go to, you know, observe recess rather than take part in it). Also, the part where Kathy said, "At first I thought this was just the drugs . . ." reminded me of soma. I worked hard to find a Brave New World connection, and that's all I got so far. I mean, the first part of chapter one left a lot of questions in my head, and that happened a lot in Brave New World, too.

No comments:

Post a Comment