JGB's ENG 104

No lie. Let’s get this right.

Don’t lay low; lie low. Say: “Today, I’m just going to lie low.”
That way, tomorrow you can say, “Yesterday, I lay low.”

Today, you lay your cup on the bedside table and lie down for your nap.
Tomorrow, you say, “Yesterday, I laid my cup on the table and lay down for a nap.”

Go here; learn the rules; take the quiz.

“Strange day. Well, true enough. That was something they could all be sure of.” – pg. 247

When in mourning, the body seems to go into another version of shock. Not the one type that makes you have to lay down with elevated feet and an unbuttoned shirt, but a version that leaves you a floating shell of what you were before the incident. A type that sucks all emotions out once one finishes crying, if it doesn’t prevent you from crying in the first place. It makes you feel strange and hollow and heavy, leaving you in a sort of autopilot that just rolls with the punches of whatever comes until the trauma wears off and you’re able to regain control of your emotions.

In the story, we as readers can assume that Francie is going through the emotional shock that prevents her from crying after receiving word that her mother died. We hear the repeated phrase “strange day” multiple times in the story and it only intensifies the justification of emotional shock. Once she receives the news, her shock settles in and wipes everything out, leaving her with this strange feeling that lasts throughout the entirety of the story. It’s an important line that shows that even though Francie has been abused by her mother, she still mourns for her in her own way.

    In Deborah Eisenberg’s ” The Girl Who Left Her Sock On The Floor,” the story is told in the third person, leading the reader to see the actions of the main and supportive characters through the eyes of a spectator. By reading a story from this point of view, the reader is able to perceive the main character in a very different light than a reader would have if Francie was telling the story.

    In the third person, Francie, at the beginning of the story, is perceived as a troublemaker who can’t even get along with her teachers. Francie repeatedly calls her teacher a “Sex Machine” behind his back. Francie seems unconcerned about the possible impending trouble this nickname for her teacher may cause.  Her roommate, whom she lives with at a snobby boarding school, seems to hold more fear of what will happen to her once the teacher finds out what she has been saying than Francie. Another instance of her being a troublemaker is seen early in the story:  “She lived out her days as a checkout girl, choking on the toxic vapors of household cleaners and rotting back goods–” (2). From this, we have more of an understanding of the habits that she expresses.

    As well to being a troublemaker, she does not keep her room clean even after constant remarks from her roommate.She shrugs off the comments of her roommate by saying “I will get to that stuff, please Jessica-”(1).

    At the beginning part of the story, Francie is considered unclean and a troublemaker. As we continue to read we are given a look at what occurred to her mother. Her mother had broken her hip and tragically unheard of embolism occurred causing her a great deal of pain until eventually causing her to pass away. After finding out of her mother’s death Francis rushes to her childhood home where she goes to her kitchen and begins to have these vivid memories of her and her mother.Then once obtaining her mother’s ashes at the morgue she finds out her father who she believed her whole life was dead, signed away on her mother’s cremation. Without a second thought, she rushes off to find him.Where she eventually lives with him.

     These actions are seen from the third person leave the reader to be skeptical of the type of person that this girl is and how she thinks.  Since we are not able to determine her exact thoughts due to our point of view.While on the other hand if the point of view was in the eyes of Francie, we would have gotten a complete bias view of the story.

“Anything  can happen at any moment,” Jessica kept exclaiming. “Anything can just happen.” (pg. 247)

Deborah’s story, “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor,” addresses themes of death, acceptance, and the future. It follows a girl Francie after an argument with her roommate, Jessica, about a sock on the floor as she deals with what to do after the loss of her mother.

As Francie is coming to terms with the loss of her mother, she often asks those around her what she does next. All answers were next step solutions for the immediate future. Francie was looking for what she should do with her life. While leaving the financial office of her school she thought about how pointless this school was, while leaving the hospital she questioned what would happen to her since she had no family left, to finally wrapping around to the lat conversation with her mother, questioning who her father was. Once on the way to meet her father she comes to accept the state her life has become.

The title of the story connects and represents the old Francie. She would be worrying about little things she cant control, much like the out-of-the-blue death of her mother or the sock on the floor of her room. Now she begins to learn to let go of the small things go and focusing on the big picture, her life with out her mother, and meeting a father she knew nothing about in regards to her mother’s passing.

Carrie Browns’ “Miniature Man”  is told in first person by our narrator, Tomas.  Thanks to this point of view, we the readers are able empathize with Gregorio and understand that he is a very dedicated and determined person. However the point of view does affect the way we perceive the events of the short story because unlike most narrations Tomas lets us, the readers, come up with our own opinion of Gregorio. Rather than giving us a clean cut view, something that most narrations do. The passage below is an example of Tomas’ affect on us readers.

For there was Patrick freed from his carriage and tethered to Gregorio’s ankle by means of a long rope, happily crawling about or playing with the stones or the sand, filthy, of course, but completely occupied. I imagine no one had ever let him get so dirty or have so much self-determination. And there was Gregorio, paper on his knee, charcoal in his hand, drawling his baby nephew  in various attitudes, drawling the castle, drawling the clouds, drawling the rooftops of the village bellow.

This memory and the way it is described helps us see that Gregorio is a dedicated and determined person, who is truly misjudged as a fool. However Tomas never tells us this or his opinion, he never says that it is horrible and irresponsible, nor does he say that it is a sweet and loving scene. Actually in the paragraph before he denies that this scene is negative or positive, but Tomas has choose to put in words that make us perceive this memory as a positive. Words like happily, self-determination, and freed are words that are associated with a positive outlook. So, as we read, we perceive this memory as a loving one and therefor feel sorry for Gregorio when others treat him poorly.

Use one of the prompts below to write an essay no longer than two double-spaced pages on Carrie Brown’s story “Miniature Man.” Please make sure you carefully proofread your essay, then place it in the Essay 1 folder on Google Drive.

1. Identify the point-of-view in the story, and discuss how it affects our response to the action of the story.

2. Discus the central character in the story and how that character affects our perception of the events that unfold.

3. Identify an image that is used as a symbol in the story, and discuss how that symbol contributes to the story.

4. Identify the passage that contains the climax of the story, and discuss why that passage is the climax.
5. Identify and discuss the theme – or one of the themes — of the story.

Yesterday he had said, “Not possible,” but today he said nothing. (116)

In this story, Robert Olen Butler explores the role of patriarchy in religion, and more specifically, in the Vietnamese culture. The tone is not accusatory or satirical but a matter-of-fact manner that critiques how the grandfather speaks to his granddaughter. The grandfather approaches his granddaughter without respect, even though you see the love he feels for her. His love contradicts the disdain he has for her gender. He tells her that she cannot accomplish what she wants because she is a woman. The first time he says, “Not possible,” she knows he is wrong but feels powerless to make him proud.

The voice of her grandfather stays with her, even after he dies, through Mr. Green, his parrot. The parrot tells the narrator that it is “not possible.” It is only in the final moments of the story that the granddaughter regains her power by killing Mr. Green, a task she didn’t want to do but knows how to do because “a Vietnamese woman is experienced in these things.” Through her Christian beliefs, she can finally let go of the teachings of her grandfather. In the end, the love that she feels for her grandfather and even Mr. Green doesn’t matter because what matters most is the strength she has within herself.

Robert Olen Butler’s “Mr. Green” addresses the theme of masculinity vs. femininity in Vietnamese culture, a conflict which shapes the narrator’s outlook. This can first be seen in the following passage, where Mr. Green speaks to the narrator’s grandfather.

My grandfather bowed to the parrot and said, “Hello, kind sir,” and Mr. Green said, “Hello, kind sir,” and even though I loved the parrot, I would not speak to him that day because he was a boy and I wasn’t. (111)

To the narrator, not being male means that she can not save her grandfather’s soul, something that he personally told her only males can do. Even though it is childish, she still finds the difference in gender, even in a parrot,  hard to take. She begins to find herself repulsive because she starts to understand what the role of a woman is in Vietnamese culture, and thanks to her grandfather putting ideas in her head, she begins to resent being female. It is not until shes a grow women that she accepts her femininity.

There were women around Jesus when He died, the two Marys. They couldn’t do anything for Him. But neither could the men, who had all run away.

Through this short story, the main character continuously struggles with the stigmas against her gender. She is seen as inferior because of her anatomy. While she aspires to remain true to her Catholic upbringing, she also fights with the guilt of leaving her Buddhist grandfather’s soul to wander. Her grandfather expects her to only follow what he tells her is correct and, when she cannot do so, she is left with the belief that taking care of her grandfather’s parrot will amend all she thinks she has done wrong against him.

‘You are a girl’, he said. ‘So it’s not possible for you to do it alone. Only a son can oversee the worship of his ancestors’ (111).

Hearing this from her grandfather as a child, she internalizes that there is not much she can do as a woman. Going to look at birds in the store with him, she would see him coo and sing to certain birds. Only the ones who waited for his voice before they started singing received his affection while the ones content with themselves received his coldness. In this way, he is showing that women are only preferred by men when they are ones that wait for their every word. He believes a woman should value a man’s word over her own and she should be happy when he shows her attention and calls her pretty. Going past the mother hens, he has no problem with them either because they are taking care of children which, to him, is the job of a woman. I noticed he did not sing to them, however. He only sang to the ones that were beautiful.

Like the mother hens, the protagonist takes on the nurturing role expected of women in taking care of Mr. Green. He, like her grandfather’s words, follows her into adulthood. The parrot symbolizes the lingering of her grandfather’s soul in her life. As his health deteriorates, she is slowly being freed from the old ways that she grew up with. Like a bird with clipped wings, she lives her life in captivity of what is expected of a woman. She internalizes that men have the fun picking up the birds while the women break their necks and cook them.

‘How foolish they sound. Chattering and yammering. All the women sound like that. You don’t want to grow up sounding like all these foolish women, do you?’ (115)

In this question from her grandfather, the message that is conveyed is that being a woman is something to be ashamed of. In the end, she does what she feels is her job as a woman. As Mr. Green is taken over with a sickness, she takes him out of his misery as a Vietnamese woman must.

“This is the way it’s done,” and she fisted her other hand around the sparrow’s head and she twisted. (113)

There are two passages in Butler’s “Mr. Green” in which there is a change of events that cause the narrator, a young girl who battles with her role as woman, to view the world differently. The passage above is a turning point in the plot where the narrator does not expect her mother to kill a sparrow, much less, a sparrow from the bunch she and her grandfather have just recently bought, in such a brutal way. The narrator witnesses death for the first time, and as a result, she no longer feels excitement when going into Ham Nghi to see the birds with her grandfather. The narrator admires her mother greatly, so when she sees her mother kill the sparrow, she relates the act of killing to her mother, and to her role as a woman.

But I [must] have decided that it was all part of growing up, of becoming a woman like my mother, for it was she who killed them, after all. (114)

The climax of the story is when the narrator herself kills Mr. Green.

But a Vietnamese woman is experienced in these things and Mr. Green did not have a chance even to make a sound as I laid him on his side, pinned him with my knee, slid my hands up and wrung his neck. (116)

The narrator believes that the soul of her grandfather lives in Mr. Green, and by killing the parrot, she feels as though she has set her grandfather’s spirit free. She sees her act of killing the parrot as noble, and instead of thinking of death as a brutal way of exiting the world, much like the way she thinks of her mother killing the sparrow, she takes responsibility for killing of Mr. Green, and takes pride in that being her job as a woman.

There were women around Jesus when He died, the two Mary’s. The couldn’t do anything for Him. But neither could the men, who had all run away. (117)

But a Vietnamese woman is experienced in these things and Mr. Green did not have a chance even to make a sound as I laid him on his side, pinned him with my knee, slid my hands up and wrung his neck.

In the beginning of the story, our main character is told that she is unable to worship the spirits of their ancestors due to the fact that she is female. Even after that passage, her grandfather makes a few negative comments about the chattiness of older women and Mr. Green even glares at her for being chatty. At one point, it even appeared that he was ignoring her or glaring at her simply because she is a woman talking to him or scolding him. It enforces the underlying theme that women are weak or below men.

Through the story, we see more and more that the bird, Mr. Green, is taking on “spirit” of her grandfather with his sayings, sad looks, and coughing later on. This line shows the reader that she is basically defying their beliefs in taking care of her grandfather’s spirit once and for all, and finally put him to rest.

I am a Catholic, the daughter of a Catholic mother and father, and I do not believe in the worship of my ancestors, especially in the form of a parrot.

In Robert Butler’s story “Mr. Green” the grandfather’s parrot is used to demonstrate the disconnect between two different lives, the life of a grandfather and the life of a young girl. As a child the speaker looked up to her grandfather and appeared to be interested in the life her passed family members. However, the struggle of the difference in religions caused conflict with herself and her relationship with her heritage when she learned the different roles of women and men when explained the Vietnamese spirt guarding. Her grandfather was disappointed in her religious up bringing, but never blamed her, he always told her the truth about anything she wanted to know.

Mr. Green was my grandfather’s parrot and I loved talking to him…

Parrots, in some religions, symbolize truths and are seen as a wise leader, similarly to how the speaker viewed her grandfather as a child. Once her grandfather passed she wished to keep Mr. Green as a way of staying close to her grandfather and possibly, subconsciously, she believed she could protect his spirit despite being a woman. As an adult she continues her Catholic life style with her children, while encompassing traditional values as her mother had done. When the parrot began to act hostile towards her and mimic the cough of her passed grandfather, she discovers the truth she had been blind to previously — women are more important than her grandfather lead her to believe. This was concluded with the snapping of Mr. Green’s neck the same way she admired her mother doing as a child.

Becoming a woman like my mother, for it was she who killed them, after all.

“Why aren’t they flying?” I asked

“Their wings are clipped,” my grandfather said.

That was alright with me. They clearly weren’t in any pain and they could still hop and they would never fly away from me.

Robert Olen Butler’s “Mr. Green” brings light to harmful aspects of a patriarchy through the growth of the narrator as she goes through life. In the passage above, Butler utilizes birds to express the narrator’s natural acceptance of misogynistic oppression, pointing out how this aspect of society has become normalized. Through the grandfather’s reaction to each species, we learn the characteristics misogyny favors in women: easily pleased and worshipful, doe-eyed and submissive, but a woman too clever or “content to only be with their own company” steps away from this path, and therefore should be scorned and disregarded.

After identifying the patriarchal theme, it’s clear that the birds are symbols for femininity. Colorful and vain, chatty and quiet. We experience the first moment the narrator realizes women are expected to be inferior to men, and while her reaction at first is powerful, described as  “… a recoiling, like I’d stepped barefoot on a slug, but how can you recoil from your own body?”- there isn’t an absolute rejection of her grandfather’s statement. As she grows, she continues on a path set by a patriarchal society, aware of these faults but unable- or unwilling- to change.

“I looked at its face and I knew it was a girl and my mother said, “This is the way it ‘s done,” and she fisted her other hand waited and I could hear the chattering of the sparrows from the box.”

In “Mr. Green”  by Robert Olen Butler the main theme of the story is the acceptance of death. In this passage, the narrator has her first unpleasant experience with death. She watches something she cared for die in the hands of her own mother. Also, the narrator deals with her grandfather’s death and her childhood fear of not being able to take care of his spirit. This seems to create an unhealthy obsession with death, making the narrator a little neurotic. At the end of the story the narrator actually ends up killing Mr. Green herself in a similar way to how her mother killed the sparrow. Throughout the story the narrator goes from fearing death to, aiding the act herself. Death if not properly explained can truly twist the human brain. Along with that if the value of life has not been explained or been encouraged to cherish, death can seem a lot more daunting.

The next day he began to cough.

I knew the cough well. But I took Mr. Green to the veterinarian and he told me what I expected, the cough was not the bird’s. This was a sound he was imitating. “Did someone in your household recently have a cold or the flu?” the doctor said. 

“It is my grandfather,” I said. (116)

In this passage, the parrot Mr. Green symbolizes the narrator’s grandfather.  Throughout the story, the narrator is conscious of her grandfather’s presence. This begins when she prays The Lord’s Prayer to the photo of her grandfather’s father. She continues to be conscious of her grandfather through the parrot’s actions even after his death. The parrot says certain words and phrases the narrator’s grandfather said before passing away. When Mr. Green wanted to go to the community garden on the narrator’s shoulder, he would say “What then?” and when the narrator visits the parrot every morning, he said “Hello, kind sir” just as he would toward the narrator’s grandfather. It is also shown in how the parrot begins to cough just as her grandfather did before his passing. The narrator is the only person that Mr. Green will allow to touch him without lunging to draw blood from the person. This is similar to the beginning of the story when the narrator and her grandfather secretly go to pray the Lord’s Prayer.

His wings were pinned and he was bigger in my hands a than I had ever imagined. But a Vietnamese woman in experienced in these things and Mr. Green did not have a chance even to make a sound as I laid him on his side, pinned him with my knee, slid my hands up and wrung his neck.

Throughout the story, the woman’s grandfather constantly tells her that she can’t do something because she is a girl or that she doesn’t want to be like the old women. Since she was a child, she has always looked up to her mother and wanted to be like her when she was grown. The parrot symbolizes the grief that she had with her grandfather. When she was a little girl, she wanted to be able to do anything for him and she was told that she couldn’t because she was a woman. The bird takes the voice of her grandfather, so after the grandfather dies, he is still present in her life. At the end of the story, the woman can see that the bird is acting how her grandfather did before he died. She then takes the bird to the garden and does what her mother taught her to do with birds. She has taken the path she wanted and become the woman she wanted to be. In the last couple of sentences in the story, the woman talks about Jesus and how when he died, women were around to see it. She says, “They couldn’t do anything for Him. But neither could the men, who had all run away.” This shows the realization she made to herself; being a woman doesn’t mean that you can’t do certain things like her grandfather told her; it means that you can do as much as the men can.

“I knew the cough well. But I took Mr. Green to the veterinarian and he told me what I expected, the cough was not the bird’s.”

This story is told by a forty-one year old woman looking by back on her memories of her childhood, especially her memories of her grandfather. The story switches back-and-forth between her childhood and her most recent memories of Mr. Green. Her grandfather is connected to the parrot, Mr. Green. The parrot lets her feel connected to her grandfather, even though he died when she was twenty-four.

Up until then, I’d always thought it was only sensible to fall in love with tall men so I wouldn’t look like so much of a giantess. That way we could dance in public, in scale, no circus act. It didn’t matter though: I never had a date all through high school, couldn’t dance as step. I spent my time in movie houses, because most movie stars looked tall, even if it was only a trick of the camera, a crate under their feet in love scenes.

In the story, we receive subtle and not so subtle hints that Lois is insecure about her height. She states for a fact that she has been six feet tall sense she was in eighth grade and she hasn’t dated anyone through her entire high school career. She never once thought about dating anyone shorter than her simply because of how she would look in comparison to her until Tiny came around. Even before they got married, or even started dating, Tiny would make her feel more comfortable in her own skin. Once he started tattooing her, she got even more comfortable.

At the end of the story, Lois is covered in tattoos and incredibly happy with herself. Even when her mother attempts to make her feel the least bit worried about what possibilities await in the future, possibly a new husband, she takes pride in Tiny’s work and lets her mother see it all. She even stops wearing the clothes that hide her tattoos and allows the whole world to see them. She refers to the tattoos affectionately as her “widow’s weeds” and herself as “a love letter.”

She put one of the smaller pumpkins on Clark’s long lap.”Now nothing surreal,”she told me.”Carve just a regular face. These are for kids”.

Mary Robinson “Yours”, brings out a popular topic that has been debated throughout time, which is the debate over how a child should be raised.  The above quote first seems insignificant but it actually holds deep meaning. Clark and Allison are told not to carve anything “surreal”, because the pumpkins are to entertain children. Children are thought to be little fragile creatures that are too innocent to know of true sadness or anger. Causing most children to be brought up in a sheltered household so they won’t ever have to experience those feelings and only be happy. Parents and Guardians try to hide the fact that bad things occur in life in order to shield them from sadness but this ultimately causes most kids problems once they grow up.While  Clark and Allison’s actions may be inexcusable because, they did not listen to what they are told but Allison decision to make two happy and two sad pumpkins while Clark makes four angry pumpkins. To me did not seem like a big deal.

So I’d just run my finger over the tattoo, feeling the outline raised up like it always is when fresh. Then it’d peel by itself, and one day I’d put my finger down and not be able to tell the difference in skin: it’d really be a part of me. And that’s when I started wanting another one. (12)

In this passage, the narrator, Lois, talks about the healing process of the tattoos Tiny gave her and how they become a permanent part of her body. This passage strikes me as important because everyone we meet leaves a lasting impact on our lives, whether we realize it or not. Tiny, the narrator’s husband, leaves his impact in both a physical and an emotional way. Lois is covered in tattoos created by Tiny, which is his physical impact. The mental/emotional impact Tiny leaves on Lois can be seen in how much they love each other. Lois wanting more tattoos is similar to Lois wanting more of Tiny throughout their lives and after Tiny passes away.

“What’s going to happen to you now?” my mother asked me. “What if you want to get married again? What man will want you when someone else has been scribbling all over you?”… “I’m sorry,” I told her, “These are my widow’s weeds.”

Elizabeth McCracken’s “It’s Bad Luck To Die” not only demonstrated an atypical love story, but also the effect it had on the speaker’s family. The speaker opened with irony in sharing that she was Jewish and had multiple tattoos of Jesus. The Torah states that tattooing or cutting open ones flesh, is forbidden, alining to the views of her highly traditional mother. Lois’ relationship with Tiny grew, as did the distance with her mother. Due to the religious aspect of her family, Lois respected the views of her mother and covered all tattoos when visiting with her. Once Tiny dies, her mother criticizes her, claiming she had grown up a freak due to her height. This is used as an explanation for her fascination with tattooing. Her mother pays no mind to her daughter’s emotions regarding Tiny’s passing. The ending is powerful with Lois embracing that she was different with her tattoos by allowing them to be seen by everyone despite their opinions.

On the cot I tried, as a sleep trick, to remember my answer to Essay Question I– word for fucking word. (158)

This sentence expresses how the narrator, a twenty-one-year-old woman, keeps her time occupied with mind-engaging activities in order to advert from thinking about her parents’ death. As the girl tries to fall asleep, she is afraid of letting her mind wander freely into any thoughts about the loss of her parents. She keeps her mind busy and memorizes her answer to the essay question so that she can avoid thoughts that are outside of her control. The girl writes a “P” on her hand as a way to feel in control of her actions. The narrator shows the reader how she tries to control every aspect of her life, like eating. The reader can see how the narrator feels unsafe and nervous when she is out of control. It seems as though one diversion from her regime will cause her world to crumble. One is able to conclude that the narrator has unresolved sorrows that she continues to suppress, and is unable to find a healthy coping mechanism. The phrase, “word for fucking word” (158) reveals to the reader that the girl is doing everything she can to try and control her emotions and actions, because if she doesn’t, she may feel as though she is falling apart. It seems like the narrator is extremely depressed by the way her life has turned out. The language that the author uses in the last sentence stands out to the reader, catches him/her off guard, and makes them see the anguish that the girl has to live with every day.

The next day I was putting a T on his arm when Tiny said, “Do me a favor, Lois, huh? Don’t forget me?”

The professor began to giggle in bed and ended up laughing, hard. “Do you think she’d be able to, even if she wanted? Look at her – she’s a human memo board.”

In “It’s Bad Luck To Die” by Elizabeth McCrackan, this particular quote stuck out to me the most because it represents what the story is about: how people affect and change us. Tiny gives Lois many tattoos while they are together. While he is changing Lois on the outside, Tiny is also changing her on the inside. The people we meet have a life-long effect on us, and more often than not that change occurs slowly over time. In the story, Lois takes several years to accumulate all the tattoos from Tiny, and with some courage she is able to give one to him before his passing.  Lois will never be able to forget Tiny because of how he changed her as a person and the visible marks he left on her. We often do not realize how much the people we love are shaping who we are as people. You can look at things day by day and not really see a great amount a change, it usually takes a few years to truly see how greatly things have changed.  If you were to look back at the person you were five years ago, would you say that you are the same or diferent. Personally I can attribute all the change to certain people and experiences, it is funny how even the worst people in my life had the same large impact as all the amazing people in life. The people we surrond ourselves with can shape our lives but it is important to not make them our life.

I am not a museum, not yet, I’m a love letter, a love letter.

Elizabeth McCracken’s “It’s Bad Luck to Die” seems to be much deeper than a typical love story. It’s not a “girl meets boy” romance, but a story of self-love and peace with the main character’s husband, Tiny, as the catalyst. From the very beginning, the author sets up Lois’ journey: ascension, crucifixion, and eventually the ability to be proud. She lives careless of any disruption her presence has on others and more confident of her place in the world.

Lois leaves a conservative background for an older tattoo artist, and while she worries about how people perceive her, she becomes a stronger individual through her tattoos. Tiny permanently places his passion and love for her on her skin. Through the relationship, he creates confidence and worth in a woman who has previously lacked it. She becomes at ease in her own body, and even after Tiny’s death she wears her skin without regret.

‘Sweethearts carve their names on trees, not each other. Does it ever occur to you that you are not leading a normal life?’ (15)

Lois never thought twice about her and Tiny’s relationship. She knows that she loved him, so why would she jeopardize her happiness for everyone else’s? Lois knew what made Tiny happy, and that was tattooing her, so she let him do it. She let him do it until their was no more room for any more tattoos. Through those pieces on Lois, she is able to reimagine every memory that she made with Tiny.

When Tiny was having a heart attack, Lois told him that it was bad luck to die. I don’t think that saying is meant for Tiny; I feel like she was saying it to herself. With that being said, it’s not bad luck for the one dying; it’s bad luck for the loved ones. As far as I can tell, when someone loves another, they feel as if they’ve won the lottery; they got lucky. But when the one that they love dies, it feels as if all of that happiness and joy that the encountered in that relationship is gone.

The tattoos on Lois’ body represent the love that Tiny and her shared. If someone saw them in detail, up close, they would understand. However, not many do.

‘What if you want to get married again? What man will want you when someone else has been scribbling all over you?’ (22)

Her mother doesn’t understand the love that they had. Only a month after Tiny died, her mother started bringing “potential” boys to their lunches, I think hoping that Lois would find a new, “better” love. But Lois knows that she won’t. At the end of the story, she says that she is a love letter. She is etched with all the love lines that were created with her and Tiny’s relationship. She doesn’t need people to understand what the relationship was, as long as she knows what the relationship was and what it made, she can be happy.

While reading this story, I thought a lot about my parents and their relationship. While they are not 31 years apart in age like Lois and Tiny, they share the same kind of love they have. My mom was engaged to another man when my parents met. And every time I ask my mom about when they met, she said that when she looked at my father for the first time, she knew he was the one she was going to spend the rest of her life with. They got married six weeks later on December 31 and they are going to be celebrating their 23rd anniversary this year. And looking at my parents, I can see a lot of Lois and Tiny’s relationship.