I had a lot of mixed emotions from this piece. When I began reading, I was intrigued by the subject matter and essay questions the narrator was reading. However, once I reached the second paragraph on page 155, the choice of words the author used began to annoy me. I think this is because I found her writing to be a little cheesy (hopefully that makes sense). For example, when the narrator thinks to herself, “yeah, yeah, cut the commercial and get back to the program,” it came off as cliché.
Another part that seemed to annoy me was the first few sentences of page 156. She judges another student in the class for turning in their exam before her and she thinks that this was done because the person does not know shit about the details. Perhaps I’m annoyed too easily. However, I found the narrator to be slightly rude and off-putting.
On pages 157 and 158, my emotions towards the choice of words and the narrator transformed a good bit. The description of her apartment and the one picture she chose to hang on her wall stood out to me. She thought to herself, “I kept the picture around because, oddly, putting away the idea of my folks would’ve been worse than losing the real them.” I’ve been struggling to understand this sentence since I first read this story. It might be because I have a hard time acknowledging the death of my loved ones. The narrator has obviously thought about the concept of loss and the images of loved ones, mental and physical, and what they mean to her. I tend to hide myself from these subjects and as a result, I do not understand my relationship with loss, grief, or healing. Pages 157 and 158 forced me to think about these topics and honestly, it made me uncomfortable. I can’t say that was a bad thing necessarily because it made me forget my initial reaction to the story and the narrator.
The narrator mentions that she was “ringing.” First she heard the ringing, then she felt the ringing. She said that it was coming from within her. At the end, the ringing stopped right before she began drinking tea. I’ve read this story a few times and I can’t quite figure out what the ringing is or what it means. When did the ringing start? Does it stop every time she begins to drink tea in her apartment? Why was she hearing the ringing in the beginning of the story but then begins to feel it? I am very confused by this, but also very intrigued.
To conclude, I am still very confused by this story. I thought it was good (mostly the second half), but what was the takeaway/main theme/point of the story? Was she in a stage of grief? If so, which stage (Kubler-Ross)? What was the ringing and what did it mean?