Growing Up and Growing Out
One of the elements covered in the book is the difficult of being a young girl growing into maturity. Tweens on the cusp developing bodies and developing interests are constantly under surveillance by males of pretty much any age over six. The use of imagery is effective because it’s so efficient and concise:
“We turned thirteen and it seemed wherever we were, there were hands and tongues. There were sloe-eyes and licked lips wherever our new breasts and lengthening thighs moved.”
Growing Up and Moving Out
By the end of her last year in Brooklyn, the support system of girlfriends August has grown so dependent upon has collapse almost entirely. Indeed, for all practical purposes, it has collapsed. Her isolation during those last few months is made abundantly clear through the imagery of what has replaced the circle of friends:
“It became the year of slipping into the pages of my textbooks and disappearing. It became the year of AP classes and PSAT review, of stretching toward something new, unfamiliar, a thing called the Ivy League. Because Bushwick had once been a forest and we had been called ghetto girls even though we were beautiful and our arms were locked together and our T-shirts blared our names and zodiac signs.”
Well, It’s Not Gwyneth Paltrow’s Head
The urn and the jar. August refers to a certain container by both terms, but they are one and the same. The question that is asked of each is the same: “What’s in that jar, Daddy?...What’s in the urn, Daddy?” Likewise, the answer is the same each time: “You know what’s in that jar…You know what’s in the urn.” The confrontation, persistent query and identical response are repeated almost verbatim to serve the purpose of casting the incidents as something more than mere description.
The repetition alone does not elevate it to the realm of imagery, however. That only happens at the point that it becomes crystal clear to the reader what actually is inside the urn. It is an answer that the author has purposely kept ambiguous though certainly has not purposely distracted the reader from figuring it out. Once the ambiguity is wiped away entirely, however, any remaining mystery falls neatly into place and the question of what’s inside the container is answered affirmatively if not necessarily explicitly.
“This Is memory”
The domain example of imagery by repetition, however, belongs to the mantra that August repeats in narration several times over the course of the novel. No less than a half dozen times, August writes the words “This is memory” in response to what has just come before. What has come before are moments frozen in time of the quality that tend to make an impact not forgotten. That is memory.
