House Lights, Week 2, Post A

VOCAB
ingénue (53)- an actress who plays an innocent girl or young woman

enigma (54)- a person of puzzling character

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
“I stirred the mixture on the stove; it spat at me” (47). Because the mixture is being characterized with the human characteristic of spitting, it is personification. The mixture isn’t alive so it can’t actually spit on Beatrice.

“She began to set pieces of chicken in the hot oil: a crescendo of fry noises” (52). This is imagery because it appeals to the sense of hearing. The detail given to the noise allows the reader to feel as though he is also listening to the sizzling of the chicken.

“Barely illuminated, the new small leaves on the trees shimmied like horses shaking out their manes” (58). This is an example of a simile because it compares two unlike things, the leaves waving on the trees to horses shaking their manes.

QUOTE
“I was a liar, too, long complicit by inaction, by keeping up their silence, our silence, our act” (62). Beatrice feels responsible for her parents’ actions, particularly her father’s. She feels guilty because she kept quiet and didn’t say anything about the complaints against her father. Also, she can’t figure out the reason for her inaction, whether it was out of fear of the truth, or fear of hurting her father.

THEME
A theme in this novel is that the surface characteristics of a person cannot explain the person’s true identity. Beatrice believes her father is a highly esteemed man, yet he is accused of five counts of sexual harassment.