{Post A Week 3}

VOCABULARY:

coxcomb (59):a vain or conceited man
succumb (63):to give in, fail to resist pressure


FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

"In the hospital cafeteria, eating rubberized French fries and red Jell-O, I'd gland around from table to table..."(49)
This is an example of figurative language because Anna describes the texture and appearance of her food when she is at the hospital with her sister. This really gives the reader an excellent idea of what exactly Anna is eating.

"The last thing I see as I run out of the room is my mother pushing the nurse's call button over and over, as if it's the trigger to a bomb."(52)
The author uses a simile to help the reader visualize the way the mother is frantically pushing the nurse's call button because her daughter is coding and she just found out that she is being sued by her daughter so she is in an absolute state of panic.

"My throat closes like the shutter of a camera, so that any air or excuses must move through a tunnel as thin as a pin."(54)
Jackpot!! Here Jodi Picoult uses two similes to give insight into how Anna feels when her parents have just received the official paperwork saying that they are being sued by their daughter for medical emancipation. I know these are similes through the use of "like" and "as" to compare the size of her throat to a camera, and the tunnel to a pin.

SIGNIFICANT QUOTE:

"Suddenly, the curtain whips aside, leaving me totally bare. "That's what I wanted to talk about," Kate says. "If you don't want to be my sister, that's one thing. But I don't think I could stand to lose you as a friend."
This really sums up a lot about what I read this week. As Kate is in the hospital receiving a transfusion, the sheriff comes in, and gives Sara (the mother) the official notice that she is being sued by her own daughter to get medical emancipation. The family gets spun into an absolute frantic. The parental concern is blatantly obvious, but what Picoult hides until the end of the section, is how Kate, the one whose life support rests on Anna's shoulders, feels about her sister not wanting to give up her body anymore.

PROBABLE THEME:

I think that the theme comes down to how much of an obligation one has to their family, and where it begins and where it ends.