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"It commemorates the disaster that put our
town smack on the front page of the Boston and New York tabloids."
The technique of foreshadowing creates the effect of setting. At this part of the story the narrator is talking about the trapeze accident but we don't yet know what exactly happened.
"I sit sewing in the room of the rebuilt house in which I slept as a child, I hear the crackle, catch a whiff of smoke from
the stove downstairs"
The techniques Onomatopoeia and foreshadowing created the effect of setting in this quote because the narrator takes a "whiff" which is a very faint smell of smoke and this part foreshadows for when she starts tell the story about the time when she was caught in a fire and her mom saved her. This quote also foreshadows that the narrator lives in her childhood home with the part that says "the rebuilt house" all these parts are important because they help develop the setting.
"As he swept past her on the wrong side, she could have grasped his ankle, the toe-end of his tights, and gone down clutching him. Instead, she changed direction."
here the narrator is describing the incident with the trapeze accident. The author uses Visual imagery to help us the very important plot plot which is the decision that Anna makes to try and save her unborn baby.
+" I didn't see her leap through air, only heard the sudden thump and looked out my window. She was hanging by the backs of her heels from the new gutter we had put in that year, and she was smiling."
The speaker uses the onomatopoeia thump. this quote helps the plot because this is the second flashback and second time that Anna tries to save one of her children this part is very important to the story because we see yet again why the narrator owes her life to her mother.
"she loved the sagging farmhouse with its scrap of what was left of a vast acreage of woods and hidden hay fields that stretched to the game park."
Here the narrator is describe her childhood home which is the house that her her mom retries to after she decided to put her circus life behind her. The farmhouse I think represents the mother and how she was feeling at the time because she was no longer the same she was this broken down farmhouse and i think she loved so much because she saw herself in it.
" Her palms were burned so terribly that once healed they bore no lines, only the blank scar tissue of a quieter future."
The author uses this metaphor to tell us how after her mother's trapeze accident she decides to live a more relaxed and quiet life the narrator compares her mother's burned hands to a quieter future. Also the speaker is foreshadowing when her mom moves in with her dad and moves on to a farm which is the complete opposite of the crazy circus life she was living prior to the accident.
"Then I wrapped my hands around my mother's hands. I felt the brush of her lips and heard the beat of her heart in my ears, loud as thunder, long as the roll of drums."
Here the narrator is comparing her mother's heart beat to the sound of thunder and drums. The part of the story shows that even though the mom was scared of doing trapeze again she put that fear aside when her daughter needed which speaks levels and just shows that a mother's love in unconditional. This metaphor tells that Anna is a brave and loving mother that will do what it takes no matter want when it comes to her child.
"She was a girl, but I rarely thought of her as a sister or even as a separate person really. I suppose you could call it the egocentrism of a child, of all young children, but I considered her a less finished version of myself."
I think it is very Ironic that the narrator considers her half-sister a less finished version when the sister is dead. This quote contributes to the characterization of the narrator because this is a very childish way of thinking but we see that throughout the story the narrator is not a childish person so her charter matures over time to see the this child was there own person.
"I owe her my existence three times. "
This parts foreshadows the whole story and is going to happen next because the speaker starts giving us flashback from her and her mother's past to prove that statement. This quote Also has the word "I" in it showing that this story is written in first person.
"It is from those old newspapers, now historical records, that I get my information. Not from my mother, Anna of the Flying Avalons"
Time and time again we see the author use the leaps that Anna takes to timeline her life because really that is all that life it it is have the guts to do what you think is right which is what the leap in most of the story represents.
"one form of flying for another. For after that, and for as long as I can remember, my mother has never been without a book."
This metaphor is comparing the actual physical flying that Anna was doing as a trapeze to her learning to read. both of these are examples of leaps that Anna. When Anna learned to read it was a form of flying because when you are able to read you are sent to a complete new world through words and just like trapeze was a passion and love to Anna she learns to read and it becomes a love and passion. These are all representations of the leap as a Motif because we see it occur over and over.
"It was my mother who insisted upon it, after her child did not survive."
Another leap that Anna takes is deciding to put her trapeze and crazy circus life behind her to live a quiet and clam life on a farm away from all the drama that once surrounded her. This is an example of foreshadowing the change in Anna's personality and it really represent the impact that the death of her husband and baby had on her.
"It was while the two were in midair, their hands about to meet, that lightning struck the main pole and sizzled down the guy wires"
The imagery in this quote is very vivid and specific that it is impossible to imagine this tragic moment in your head. The imagery help create a man v.s. nature conflict. In this quote the lighting had just struck the pole that the Flying Avalon had been performing on which lead to the death of Anna's husband harry and her unborn baby.
"But I also think she meant that even in that awful doomed second one could think, for she certainly did."
This part is foreshadowing what Anna was going to do when she realized the little options she had when the pole was hit by the lighting. Anna is faced with the ultimate decision which was to either try and catch her husband Harry and maybe die trying or she would have to let her husband go and save herself to protect the unborn baby that was growing in her stomach. Anna makes the decision to sacrifice her husband and save her baby. This is a man v.s. self conflict because Anna ha to look deep within her self to realize what her priorities were..
"My mother is the surviving half of a blindfold trapeze act, not a fact I think about much even now that she is sightless, the result of encroaching and stubborn cataracts"
Here Irony is used both as an effect and technique. It is ironic that the mother of the narrator's mother was part of a blind trapeze act and now she is going blind because of a cataract.
"Anna was pregnant at the time, seven months..... I was seven the year the house caught fire, probably from standing ash. "
It is ironic that both of Anna's children were in some form of seven when they were put into a near death situation that Anna took risks to try and prevent
"I know from watching her go blind—is that my mother lives comfortably in extreme elements. She is one with the constant dark now, just as the air was her home, familiar to her, safe, before the storm that afternoon."
This foreshadowing really showcases the tone of the story we see just how much the narrator cares for her mother she is even willing to move back into her childhood home just to read to her mother because she is going blind. Not many kids would come back home once they had left but the relationship that this mother and daughter share is unconditional.
"I owe her my existence three times."
The mood of this story is loving, sincere and happy the narrator feels that in a way her mom was her hero not once but three time. We can feel the admiration oozing form the mood of the story.
The themes that are I see being conveyed in this story are very much love and family oriented.
"I owe her my existence three times. "
This foreshadowing is a great example of the theme "A mother's love trump's all." because the narrator's mom put her own safety aside for both of her children.
"She directed one of the men to lean the broken half of the extension ladder up against the trunk of the tree. In surprise, he complied. She ascended. She vanished"
This supports the theme "We take risks for people we love to keep them safe" the imagery helps clearly convey the mother doing what she has to do to protect her baby.