Rose Hsu Jordan opens another segment by describing her nightmares as a child. She recalls a childhood name her sisters gave her, "I was Scaredy Eyes because I would squeeze shut my eyes so I wouldn't have to see the dark, which Janice and Ruth said was a dumb thing to do." This theme is repeated later in the chapter when Rose describes how she is dealing with her pending divorce. Sleeping for days, Rose ignores the rest of the world. In a way, she is squeezing her eyes shut so she doesn't have to face reality again. Rose's sisters bring up a valid point while saying that her method of escaping the dark is "dumb." Shutting your eyes obviously makes you see darkness, but in a way, I think that Rose sees it as a familiar darkness, a controlled darkness. In a similar way, Rose takes control of the "darkness" of her divorce and sinks into the controlled comfort of sleep.
We would all rather deal with the known than the unknown: the familiar rather than the "darkness."
I think the theme of your book is like the one from When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. In my book, the theme was about accepting reality and learning to move on.
ReplyDeleteBecca,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you talked about taking control of a familiar darkness. Your post shed some light onto how we as people prefer to deal with things we know than that which we do not.