“this much is constant” – motif of fear
Within “this much is constant”, Galloway develops an extensive use of imagery and motif to describe the traumatic and frightening experiences of the daughter’s childhood as she recollects vivid memories of her mother and home. The daughter uses many ominous and violent words to describe an image of how her mother and home make her feel, illustrating a motif of fear. The girl stumbles through the story, recalling it in fragments portraying the way these recollections have haunted her through her childhood and adulthood.
As the girl begins her story of her disturbing childhood, the reader recognizes that her mother has been watching her on multiple occurrences. Wherever the child goes, she carries a …show more content…
She feels the most paranoid and cautious, even “in the corner of [her own] room”. She tells herself there is “a hairnet bunched in on itself like a dead spider and nothing in the far corner of the room, a brass fruit bowl with nothing but you can’t keep from looking at it forever”. This quote establishes a sense of paranoia and delusion that there is no monster in the corner and that the girl is not scared, by applying the use of a simile. She compares a hairnet, which is harmless, to a dead spider representing the death of fear or of the monster causing the fear, when in reality, the girl is convincing herself that nothing is watching and waiting to hurt her in the shadows.
This increase in her illusions and uncontrollable imagination exhibits how isolated she has become within her room. She continues to describe her home as “a room with no door. Just a curtain.” Galloway juxtaposes two big ideas as a cause of the mother constantly watching her daughter and the fear the child has of her home. This quote allows the reader to interpret that the girl is isolated from everyone but at the same time has no privacy, indicating the lack of social interaction she has in her childhood. She also has no option but to endure the constant fear and anxiety of living in a confining
Within “this much is constant”, Galloway develops an extensive use of imagery and motif to describe the traumatic and frightening experiences of the daughter’s childhood as she recollects vivid memories of her mother and home. The daughter uses many ominous and violent words to describe an image of how her mother and home make her feel, illustrating a motif of fear. The girl stumbles through the story, recalling it in fragments portraying the way these recollections have haunted her through her childhood and adulthood.
As the girl begins her story of her disturbing childhood, the reader recognizes that her mother has been watching her on multiple occurrences. Wherever the child goes, she carries a …show more content…
She feels the most paranoid and cautious, even “in the corner of [her own] room”. She tells herself there is “a hairnet bunched in on itself like a dead spider and nothing in the far corner of the room, a brass fruit bowl with nothing but you can’t keep from looking at it forever”. This quote establishes a sense of paranoia and delusion that there is no monster in the corner and that the girl is not scared, by applying the use of a simile. She compares a hairnet, which is harmless, to a dead spider representing the death of fear or of the monster causing the fear, when in reality, the girl is convincing herself that nothing is watching and waiting to hurt her in the shadows.
This increase in her illusions and uncontrollable imagination exhibits how isolated she has become within her room. She continues to describe her home as “a room with no door. Just a curtain.” Galloway juxtaposes two big ideas as a cause of the mother constantly watching her daughter and the fear the child has of her home. This quote allows the reader to interpret that the girl is isolated from everyone but at the same time has no privacy, indicating the lack of social interaction she has in her childhood. She also has no option but to endure the constant fear and anxiety of living in a confining