1/27/16
Story Problems
Questions
- What does the narrator feel when she starts a fire?
- Does smoking cigarettes ease her urge for fire?
- Did she set off the fire in the dressing room to get attention from her mother?
Data
- Xanax dulls the senses, fire sparks them.
- “There is fire in my heart. I do what I can” (pg 1)
- Mother keeps her so contained, that starting fires may be her only release of “herself”
- Mother is in control of the fire. Both metaphorically, as she is in control of the narrators life, and physically when she lights both of the cigarettes for her and Mr. Arnette (pg 6)
- Once she sees the mother and father in the motel, she then lights her one cigarette, taking control of her “fire” and not letting her mother tame it. She no longer has a need to let it run free.
- While attention may not be what she seeks from her mother, she is very aware of how her mother thinks of her
- “It is then she begins to look at me like a stranger” (pg 5)
Thesis
In Some Say the World, the narrator struggles to be able to express herself in all aspects of life. She believes she has a fire within her, but because her mother is firm on containing her, she brings the fire outwards. Fire to the narrator is a form of self-expression and relief, as well as defiance from her mother who keeps everything nice and tidy at the surface. Throughout the story the character progresses to see that she can control the fire within her, and she can take charge of her life.