Quarter 2: Week 4, Post A

VOCAB:

allocation (207): a system of dividing expenses and incomes among the various branches or departments of a business.
striated (208): furrowed, striped, streaked.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

1. "Josie felt everyone's eyes on her--a hail of arrows" (211). This is an example of a metaphor. It compares the eyes accusing eyes of Josie's classmates to arrows being thrown at her.
2. "She curled over her desk like a midnight rose, letting her hair fall over her face" (211). This example of figurative language is a simile. The author uses the word "like" to make a comparison between Josie and a rose, as she hides her face from the class.
3. "Josie tried to breath, but someone had driven a stake through her chest...her own father thought she'd come here to blackmail him" (221). This sentence is another example of a metaphor. Picoult uses the image of a stake being driven through her chest to express Josie's extreme shock and hurt.

QUOTE:

"She [Alex] wondered why she'd never done this before with Josie: sat her down in the bathroom and played with eye shadow, painted her toenails, curled her hair. They were memories that every other mother of a daughter seemed to have; only now was Alex realizing that it had been up to her to create them" (213). This quote shows Alex's realization that Josie has grown up and become a complete stranger to her--and she takes the blame for their seperation. Being a working mother, Alex often did not have extra time to spend getting to know her daughter. Now Alex discovers that it's too late.

THEME:

The theme seems to be shifting focus to include the ups and downs in parent-child relationships and the consequences of waking up as a parent to discover your child is not who you thought they were.