Mary Karr's view of her own sister has grown towards a positive light from the mixed feelings she first had about Lecia in the beginning of the memoir. Through the traumatic events that occur, Lecia becomes prevalently an adult figure to take care of Mary and herself when neither parents could.
Lecia was the one who has to show no emotion when their Mother started the bonfire of all of their belongings behind the garage. “Lecia’s hand clamps on booth my shoulders to stop my rising, (150)” as Mother lights a match to burn all the toys, books, and furniture. Mary’s sister “could be watching the weather on TV for all the feeling her face shows (150)” because she knew that Mother burning their things wasn’t the main problem to her; it was to make sure they will survive. Lecia is the one who takes them out of their reverie to settle on the quilt that Grandma made out of male suit samples. This calmed Mary down by concentrating on hop scotching “from square to square in finger tag--black gabardine to charcoal flannel to gray pinstripe (154).” Because of her seriousness in concern towards their survival, Lecia tries to figure out why Mary was grinning when they were trying to hide away from their knife-bearing Mother. Lecia makes sure she is aware of everything surrounding her such as Mary’s state along with knowing how to react when Mother walks in with the knife by telling Mary to be quiet with one single movement of a finger to her lips.
When in Colorado, Mother decides one night after drinking, of course, decides to pull out a gun she thought she needed to protect herself in the disgusting town of Antelope. This drinking spell made Mother threaten to shoot Hector, the step dad, after he himself had been drinking and was trying to pay Lecia to play “America the Beautiful,“ but refused. This made Hector call Lecia a “bitch;“ Mother’s nervous came to the point where she really wanted to kill Hector, but because Mary blocked him with her body, somehow stalled the murdering mind. Lecia’s valiant efforts were focused on saving Mary and herself by staring “up with an expression that struck me [Mary] as lawyerly, like Perry Mason’s at the jury box (251).” And once that didn’t work the following quote struck me as valiant:
“She was off on another tack. The look in her brown eyes under the shiny blond shelf of bangs was no longer set. It was weary. And the accent she used next was pure Texan… She was buddying up, appealing to Mother’s fury, which she’s apparently adjudged immovable (252).”
Lecia then offered herself to help cover Hector up, but instead of doing it with Mary, she did it for her. “When Lecia took her place beside me looking wholly empty of herself. She was telling me to run. But in her pass-the butter voice (253).” This “pass-the-butter voice” was Lecia’s way of concentration as she was trying to be calm through the whole situation with their Mother’s gun pointed towards them; her goal was to make her to go get help and wasn’t noticed when she ran towards the Janisches’ house.
Furthermore, Lecia stuck out as the strong, static character that Mary need for support. “Her sudden solidity and power, the sheer force of her will (257)” was pronounced and concludes Mary’s want of a relationship as to the lonesomeness her parents made her feel throughout the divorce. Lecia became the adult she needed at such a young age that never would again be viewed as a child through Mary’s eyes.
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Thesis:"Through the traumatic events that occur, Lecia becomes prevalently an adult figure to take care of Mary and herself when neither parents could." Good Thesis. You support it well.
ReplyDeleteYou don't identify the book, you do mention the author though.
good supporting details. A couple other images I think would do well to support your thesis are when Lecia calls their dad to get them plane tickets, and when she makes the decision to stay with their mother. (The divorce image of Lecia making the decision is on pg. 192 and the phone call is pg. 257)
Counter argument: Y that Lecia is just as much a child as Mary is. Supporting this with scenes like when they try to call their dad during the hurricane. and when she corners Mary for having made a rude comment about their grandma and is going to spit on her. The first thing that caught my eye as I read your post was this sentence, "Mother’s nervous came to the point where she really wanted to kill Hector, but because Mary blocked him with her body, somehow stalled the murdering mind." It's awkward, try changing the wording around. It stopped me, and I had to re-read it.
"Lecia makes sure she is aware of everything surrounding her such as Mary’s state along with knowing how to react when Mother walks in with the knife by telling Mary to be quiet with one single movement of a finger to her lips." Here I think you're missing some commas.
In the last sentence of the post, try changing she to Mary, and changing Mary to her.
1. Rebecca finishes her introduction paragraph with a strong argumentative thesis that goes like this:"Through the traumatic events that occur, Lecia becomes prevalently an adult figure to take care of Mary and herself when neither parents could." However Rebecca does forget to mention the book.
ReplyDeleteRebecca picks good images to represent her thesis and does a great job of choosing two vivid images that appropriately display the authority figure that Lecia becomes. Another quote that you could have used is on page (248) when Mary Karr describes the actions that Lecia took while Mother was pointing the gun at Hector.
I feel that you summarized a bit too much when you were explaining the whole gun incident and also when you were talking about the grandmothers quilt.
Rebecca's thesis is a good choice, she makes the argument very apparent. Lecia is also a kid in grade school just like Mary, so how can she possibly be the responsible parent figure. Lecia still possesses those childish qualities in the passage on page (265)when the Mother returned to Texas. "I would have reached her first, too, had not Lecia shoved me down in the flower bed crowded with English ivy.
There is a typo in your first direct quote where you meant to use the word both and not booth.
AJ,
ReplyDeleteYou can talk directly to R!
R, I'm interested in your assertions about Lecia. Can you let us know where the images come into play earlier?
Karr uses [this image] to show Lecia as an adult.
There are probably things that Lecia does that are older than her age. You're bringing them up. But think about the construction of the image, how Karr lets us know something in specific pictures.
Good stuff.