Jeannette
Walls exaggerates when she quotes someone talking because she says certain words
that should not be recalled at an older age. For example, “Mom had no choice
but to pay for it. ‘Fourteen dollars for a child’s dress!’ she said as we left
the store. ‘It’s highway robbery!’” In this quote, she (the author) exaggerates
how her mother talked going out of the store. In a normal situation, I don’t
think her mother would say it’s a highway robbery because it wasn’t. She was
just paying for a dress because she was caught stealing it. I think the author
uses exaggeration because it helps you relate to their life and sometimes it
can make a serious situation happier. The authors life happened in a different time
period so when their writing to the readers (us) they sometimes have to
translate it into our words. Also the author talked about her traveling and
getting abused by her father because he drinks too much. In this case the
author uses words that sort of mean happy because then it makes something like alcohol
abuse or child abuse seem less horrible then it is. The advantage of using
exaggeration in a text is it makes the reading more believable when it comes
from someone and you know it is true about their life. The disadvantage would
be that sometimes when using exaggeration, you can use too much of it and it
makes your reading sound fake. In Walls' writing, she expresses herself in a way that makes your believe her every move and every word. Can't wait to keep reading!
I think you made a really good observation. It's pretty normal not to be able to remember certain things, such as what your mom said to you when you were 5. Unless someone were to have an insane superpower, it is very hard to remember everything in a memoir. People exaggerate to spice things up a bit, and make the memoir jump out at people.
ReplyDeleteI agree^^ it's hard to remember things that are said when you are young. I don't remember anything from before I was six years old. Sometimes the authors think of their parents personality and what hey would say in response to an action. Other than that you prove a good point.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you in that Jeanette probably often makes up parts of her memoir, and kind of fills in the blanks. I also think it's true that she exaggerates sometimes. However, in this case, based on her mother's personality, I don't think she is necessarily exaggerating in this part. Somewhat knowing her mother, she very easily could've said something like this, considering she was kind of a crazy person. But then again, any of our ideas and knowledge about Jeanette's mother's personality come from this book, based off Jeanette's ideas of her mother. So she very easily could've been exaggerating many of her mother's words and actions while writing this book. Overall, I think this was an intelligent observation, and this use of exaggeration is probably true for a lot of the characters and the things that happen in the book, and is a good writing skill to have as we begin to write our own memoirs.
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