Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Cadavers...
I kind of elaborated on this in class, but I found the use of "cadaver" on the first page and the last page really interesting. On the first page, the sentence is: "[The Rosenbergs] was like the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head--or what there was left of it--floated up behind my eggs...I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string." On the last page, she describes Miss Huey's face as "pocked, cadaverous." It seems that even after Esther has dropped to the lowest point of her depression and then rises up, she can't shake the cadaver from her life. Maybe the cadaver represents the death that constantly shadows her life.
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I agree that the cadaver can be the death that is following Esther around, and has been for a while starting with her dad's death. It is clear that both times she used the word she either wasn't depressed yet, or she was getting better (beginning and the end of the book). Like you said, it's almost like death will shadow with Esther no matter how much better she gets.
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