1) What's up w/ this title? The opening is obviously a metafictional approach. The story is about stories. We will not come back to umbrellas; it's a red herring.
2) This is when the story starts. She's the "coffin" for a dead baby. She wants it out. We move from the general to the specific. There's a "she," there's a "me."
3) This is an angry damn narrator. She is really pissed off at her mom. But there's some compassion there too, and something that is like familiarity too. She can also think of her own baby as waste. It's chilling b/c we sentimentalize motherhood in this country (not to the point of giving national maternity leave, but that's another story...). This mother is damaged.
4) I so want to think of this as a story about twins. However, wouldn't she write "on our un-birth day"? I think the story could be a little less ambiguous. I don't feel as strongly against it as Ruth, but I wish she hadn't been quite so obscure.
Yes Professor, In some ways I too agree with Ruth. I did not love this story. Very ambiguous sprinkled on the distracting and completely unnecessary umbrella fake out.
ReplyDeleteI believe in the "Twins theory"...
Maybe that's why the jabbing, biting sarcastic question about "being a victim" was asked?