"I read all the sandwich signs, american cheese, chickenham-porkcoffeemilkbuttermilklettucetomatohotbeef....They looked like signs like lovehatejealousymarriage" (Le Sueur, 58).
Preceding this quote, Butch flirts with The Girl and tells her (again) about the service station he wants to own. Once he's made something of himself then they can get married, but for now can they just get a room? The Girl protests, which launches Butch on a loud, public rant about the difficulty of women, how The Girl has her eye on every man in the bar, and that they should end their relationship here and now.
The author's artistic choices allow the reader to have a greater connection with The Girl. Sometimes her character is quiet and seems agreeable, but this text shows that she is capable of producing original thoughts. This fictional character becomes a little more human, and perhaps a little more trustworthy. After all, she is the narrator, and how reliable could an agreeable narrator be?
Specifically, by combining all the menu items into one monstrous word, Le Sueur shows that The Girl's attention is wandering from what Butch is saying. The Girl already knows Butch desires her and that he wants to make something of his life. She's honestly not trying to be difficult, nor is she pursuing other men! She's crazy about him, but hesitant to love him. He's overreacting! Just as Le Sueur's words blur on the page, so too do The Girl's thoughts. She thinks in run-on sentences, mixing emotionally charged words (lovehatejealousymarriage) with inanimate objects (chickenhamporkcoffeemilkbuttermilklettucetomatohotbeef). She's just trying to kill time until Butch stops talking!
I read this quote and thought, "This is so EXACTLY what happens to me!" I get stuck listening to someone rant on a topic I've heard many times before, and this is how I deal with it: 1) Find a random object (anything, like a sandwich sign) to occupy my mind with. 2) Study it as if my life depends on it (because believe me, my life depends on surviving that monologue). 3) Let the person's words blur and mix with my astute observations of said object. 4) Continue this thought process until the rant is over, at which point I'm left with a mumble jumble of key words from their monologue, softened by pleasant thoughts of...sandwiches.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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I almost picked this quote too because it stood out from the other sentences. I am rarely intrigued by most literature and often times, the words on the pages start to cram together and lose any meaning that they would have had to a critical reader. I read this line and I was taken aback... I was like this is how reading usually feels to me!
ReplyDeleteAnyways, this also made me think of the "Working" article we were supposed to read for this week. The girl's life seems so scripted; she does the same thing nearly every day. She's constantly being told what to do, even when given options, any decision is ultimately made for her by somebody else. The author creatively shoved unique and strong emotions together, numbing it down to the likeness of a stupid list of food.
This quote really stuck out to me in the book too. When I was looking for a line to write about this one came to my mind right away. I found it to be very interesting how Le Seur put these words togeter like that to show that she was in another place when Butch was talking his service time. I've nevery seen anything like that in a book before. I think this is an excellent example of how the author uses sentences like this to reveal a lot of content.
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