Refer to the story that Lena recounts at the very start of the chapter titled "The Voice From the Wall." Why was she obsessed with the way the man died, even though it was decades before she was born? What have you been taught about life and what comes next? Do you believe what you've been taught, or do you have other ideas?
Kids can become fixated on ideas like Lena does here. For example, when I was in Kindergarten, there was a solar eclipse one day. We were told not to look directly at the sun, or we would go blind. None of us makes it a habit to look directly at the sun anyway, but I was completely paranoid all day that I would glance upward on accident and my retinas would shrivel up and fall out. For weeks, I would ask my teacher each morning if there was to be another eclipse that day, just in case.
Find another quote in this chapter that shows the way a child can take one idea and run with it, include it here along with your own commentary. You may choose to include your own fears or worries from childhood that no longer make sense to freak out about.
Be sure to note there are multiple parts of this question/response.
5 comments:
When i was a littel girl my mom & dad use to tell me if i didi not got to sleep la mano peluda the hari hand would come and pull my feet at night and take me away untill i was 10 i realise that was just a saying my family would tell evey child that so they would go to sleep.
Kids are naturally curious about everything. Lena just wanted to imagine the man's pain because thats what kids do they imagine. I remember my uncle told me if I fell asleep with my arm hanging out of the bed the devil would grab it and wont let me go until I seal some sort of deal with him. This story scared the @#$% out of me for years and still today I am a little hesistant to purposely sleep with my arm hanging.
Lena would listen to the family next door yelling and slamming doors. Lena said, "she heard scraping sounds, slamming, pushing and shouts and then whack! whack!. Someone was killing." She can here the daughter argueing with her mother and she starts to imagine what could be going on. This curiousity inspires her imagination to wonder what kind of terrible things the mother next door could be doing to her daughter. With that said just like Lena's mother I always rearrange my room countless time until everything feels comfortable for me. Unlike Lena's mother I abnormally do this bazaar behavior when I feel restless about something.
OMG I'm sorry I'm late.
I was out anyways......
"I was five and my mother tried to hide it from me.She barricaded the door with a wooden chair, secured it with a chain..of key locks.And it became so mysterious that I spent all my energied unraveling this door....."
When we are children parents constantly install fears in us as a way to keep us from doing things. If we wonder around at night then a monster migght get us or if we are not good then Santa won't bring us present. They shape us with our own fears.
I remember these tales about my elementary school restroom being haunted.It is completely harmless yet it was something we believed. My cousin and I called it the Haunted Restroom and were always scared to go in.Our childish tales were just for kicks and adrenaline rush. I understand why Lena was fixciated on the dead man. It's something that leaves our minds wondering.
Children tend to believe everything that is been told to them. They are at a stage where they want to learn just about anything and act like they are adults. When adults tell them not to do something they still do it to prove that they are strong to other children their age. When I was little my mom always used to tell me that if I sit to close to the television I will go blind. So I always sat a few feet away but even then I sometimes stared at the screen to c if something did happened. Now that I know that it’s partly not true. Now I have the habit to sit right in front of it the screen and I have been doing it for a while now and I haven’t gone blind.
“I had such fears inside, not in my head but in my stomach. I could no longer see what was so scary, but I could feel it. I could feel every little movement in out silent house.”(Amy Tan113) Lena has grown up with fears because of the false facts her mom always tells her. She is a curious girl who thinks deeply about what she hears and sees. As time passes by things change because you learn more about how the world works and the lies people talk about.
Post a Comment