SPOILER ALERT
I recently continued reading Sisterhood Everlasting (after taking a break to read Specials) by Ann Brashares. In the story, Carmen is extremely different from who she used to be. She lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment and describes her furniture a lot. I think her descriptions of the furniture may symbolize how everything in life changes.
In the book, it says,"The kitchen table at home was pine or cherry wood or something like that, with a million rings and scars on it. It was soft. This table, like everything else in their kitchen, was stainless steel. You could wipe of any marks, but it was hard and cold under her mug." I think this shows how nothing ever is here for a long time now. When Carmen lived at home, everything around her stayed the same throughout the years- her friends, her habits, an who she was. No one ever left her life forever. Now, everything around her is changing. Tibby is dead. She's (Carmen) is getting married. Her life doesn't stay in one place anymore. With the stainless steel, nothing is there forever. You can easily wipe away aspects of your life.
The book also says," Unlike the one [couch] in the old apartment where she'd lived with her mother, the old chenille chesterfield that kept a permanent record of every spill and every tear, nothing here stuck." This example can also show how no one in Carmen's life stays around for very long anymore. Bridget and Lena barely talk to Carmen only from time to time. Everyone in her life seems to come and go, like her father. Jones is really the only person who has been with Carmen throughout the course of the book.
personally think that for the first seventeen years of the Septembers' lives, life was kind to them. There were only one big change. I think Tibby's death totally shattered their past, which they found comfort in. Usually people don't look back because their past is too painful, but they had a wonderful past to look back on. Although you shouldn't spend your time in your memories, You always need to remember where you came from and who you were to make up who you are now. I think Carmen's furniture shows how she doesn't look at all that she's done, but she just focuses on what's around her to make up her personality.
Hey Sarah! This is so good! I really like how you found a metaphor in Carmen's furniture. When I look back on when I was little, I realize that everything was pretty stationary. I wasn't subject to any big changes. Now, my life is moving faster and changes, especially in friendships, happen faster. I'm not really friends with most of the people I was friends with when I was little, and now my friendships change and move rapidly. While when I was little, everything stayed mostly the same, now my life changes all the time and it's intimidating!
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! I loved your post! It was very interesting how you found a metaphor in Carmen's new furniture to her life moving forward. I guess your furniture does symbolism change. When you move and everything changes, your home also gets rearranged. I agree with Talia,that when you are little, everything is more or less the same everyday, and as you get older, you have to cope with bigger and bigger differences and problems.
ReplyDeleteI really like, like Talia and Emma said, the way you connected the metaphor of the furniture to Carmen. Furniture really does seem to be something that changes like us, but is always there. You talking about that makes me think of my old dresser, which is now in my brother's room, and how we both grew up with it, and even though we don't think about it every day of even necessarily care about it, it's been a rather large part of both of our childhoods.
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