Author Question: How old do you think the narrator is? Explain. What will be an ideal ... (Read 870 times)

mckennatimberlake · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

How old do you think the narrator is? Explain.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Of what significance to Elisa is the sight of the contents of the flower potdiscarded in the road? Notice that, as her husbands car overtakes the covered wagon, Elisa averts her eyes; and then Steinbeck adds, In a moment it was over. The thing was done. She did not look back (paragraph 111). Explain this passage.

What will be an ideal response?

JCABRERA33 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Ask the class how old they think the narrator is, and why they think so; youll probably get a number of answers, but it will be interesting to see if anyone points out the narrators assumption, at the end of paragraph 5, that, like the children, her parents have to share a bedroom because the house is too small for them to have their own rooms. Also, when she says that the house on Mango Street is ours, and we dont have to pay rent to anybody, she seems to think that her parents have bought it outright, the way one would buy food or clothing; in all likelihood, if they have bought the house, they almost certainly have taken out a mortgage and may in fact be paying even more per month than they did on the rent.

Answer to Question 2

This is one of the saddest moments in the story. We already suspectalthough Elisa does notthat the traveling repairman assumed an interest in the chrysanthemums in order to make a sale. But now we, like Elisa, know this to be true when she sees the dark spot from a long distance away. It is even more hurtful when Eliza realizes that he has thrown her cherished seeds on the side of the road but kept the pot.

Perhaps her desire to not look back is a new-found determination to make the most of her life as it is, rather than dreaming about the way it could be. Perhaps this reveals a depth of pain so deep that she cannot bear to look at the destroyed seeds. Either way, in the sight of the flower pots contents discarded in the road, Elisa sees the end of her brief interlude of hopes, passions, and dreams.