Essay Questions

How does Lizet undermine human memory in chapter one?

Lizet records a story which supposedly ensued when she was three: “By my mother’s account, I stood on the sheer edge of the canal and blew these things up the way my father always did- bending forward as I pushed air into them, as if that motion helped- then licked them to slip them up my arms. By my father’s account, I went over there with the floaties already on, my arms hovering out from my sides so that from behind, I resembled a tiny body builder.( Sometimes they say I was barefoot, but that can’t be true. I would remember the sting of every step there)…By all accounts-even my sister’s, who you could argue was too young to have an account, but that’s not how stories work.” Lizet parallels her mother and father’s accounts to accentuate the unreliability of ‘human memory.’ The contrasting accounts are signs that the stories are embellished; hence, Lizet would not distinguish what transpired explicitly.

How does Lizet’s participation in the protests impact her self-respect?

Lizet remarks, “So a teacher, a weird one, thought I was a good student and wanted to work with me: Who the hell cared? It was garbage, a frivolous reason to miss summer at home, another selfish mistake…I wasn’t who she (Professor Kaufmann) thought I was, and I’d tried to blame a boy and let her believe that lie- and I’d just done it again with my mum's help, had tricked a whole new group of people into thinking I deserved to be outraged about the wrong thing. I didn’t deserve the spot.” Based on Lizet’s remarks, her self-respect diminishes astoundingly. She is conscious of her hypocrisy, which her mother endorses. Lizet is deeply mortified of giving a distorted impression of who she is.