Helen Nguyen
Mr. McLoskey
IB English SL1
9 August 2017
AHWOSG Chapter 1 Questions
Dave’s mother is diagnosed with stomach cancer at the beginning of the story. What else is wrong with Dave’s mother at the beginning of Chapter 1?
Eggers begins his story with a narration of his mother’s many symptoms and effects of her stomach cancer. Because of her illness and her lack of a functioning stomach, Dave’s mother tends to throw up and spit up a green mucus into a container. His mother also has the frequency of having nosebleeds which Dave usually has under control, except this time. “The blood which is coming through her nose is also coming through her mouth” (pg 20). Her condition worsens in the next few pages of the story, and Dave knows that she is deteriorating. “ . . . The last time she went upstairs was weeks ago. Now she is on the couch, not moving from the couch, reclining on the couch during the day and sleeping there at night, in …show more content…
At his father’s funeral, only one or two handfuls of people came since his father did not socialize much and not many knew him. However, they were all stricken with grief and surprise. All of them expected to be going to his mother’s funeral, not his father’s.
“ . . . They must have felt like they were at the funeral for the husband of ghost” (pg33). Dave describes the funeral as an event for “everyone to come and watch [them] in the middle of [their] disintegration” (pg 35). They all had to smile and greet all the guests at the funeral, trying to keep things breezy. Even though funerals tend to be filled with sorrow and sadness, Dave’s family, especially his mom, got to see many people they hadn’t seen in a long time. After the ceremony, they threw a party where Beth and Dave then end up talking to his father’s friends and see him from a new perspective. “Beth and I were eating it up. We had never heard anything about our father, knew nothing about him outside of what we’d seen ourselves” (pg
Mr. McLoskey
IB English SL1
9 August 2017
AHWOSG Chapter 1 Questions
Dave’s mother is diagnosed with stomach cancer at the beginning of the story. What else is wrong with Dave’s mother at the beginning of Chapter 1?
Eggers begins his story with a narration of his mother’s many symptoms and effects of her stomach cancer. Because of her illness and her lack of a functioning stomach, Dave’s mother tends to throw up and spit up a green mucus into a container. His mother also has the frequency of having nosebleeds which Dave usually has under control, except this time. “The blood which is coming through her nose is also coming through her mouth” (pg 20). Her condition worsens in the next few pages of the story, and Dave knows that she is deteriorating. “ . . . The last time she went upstairs was weeks ago. Now she is on the couch, not moving from the couch, reclining on the couch during the day and sleeping there at night, in …show more content…
At his father’s funeral, only one or two handfuls of people came since his father did not socialize much and not many knew him. However, they were all stricken with grief and surprise. All of them expected to be going to his mother’s funeral, not his father’s.
“ . . . They must have felt like they were at the funeral for the husband of ghost” (pg33). Dave describes the funeral as an event for “everyone to come and watch [them] in the middle of [their] disintegration” (pg 35). They all had to smile and greet all the guests at the funeral, trying to keep things breezy. Even though funerals tend to be filled with sorrow and sadness, Dave’s family, especially his mom, got to see many people they hadn’t seen in a long time. After the ceremony, they threw a party where Beth and Dave then end up talking to his father’s friends and see him from a new perspective. “Beth and I were eating it up. We had never heard anything about our father, knew nothing about him outside of what we’d seen ourselves” (pg