CH4-Numbers Flashcards
What theme and poems are most relevant to Numbers?
-Disruption to the social order (The Laughter of Stafford Girls High)
-Lesbian writing as unreadable (White Writing)
What context is relevant to Numbers?
AIDS epidemic in time of writing- fear towards homosexuality
What methods are seen in Numbers?
-Jeanette’s Dreams
-fairytale allusion
-Presentation of men
-Presentation of women
-literary trope of knowledge
-Pink mac motif
-language of disease
-Innocence of consummation
What quotes support the method of: Jeanette’s dreams?
“somehow I had made it to the altar. The priest was very fat and kept getting fatter, like bubble gum you blew”
What quotes support the method of: presentation of men vs women?`
“rubbed his spiky chin against my face”
“the girls were always squashed against the wall”
What quotes support the method of: motif of pink mac?
“I was feeling trapped”
“It was bright pink”
“I couldn’t see very well because of the hood over my eyes”
What quotes support the method of: language of disease?
“wash his hands after every operation”
What quotes support the method of: innocence of consummation?
“it felt like drowning”
“I had an octopus inside of me”
What quotes support the method of: fairytale allusion?
“she had married a pig”
“ he was horrible and hairy”
“ and there are beasts”
What quotes support the method of: literary trope of knowledge?
“covered in soot”
“I now knew she had rewritten the ending”
What is the plot summary of Numbers?
- Jeanette has nightmares of marriage
- Jeanette starts to question heterosexual relationships and grows a distrust of men
- Louie’s cautionary tale about love vs a stomach ulcer
- J meets Melanie and they consummate their relationship
How does this chapter of Oranges link to the Biblical Numbers?
Numbers dictates the wandering of the Israelites through the desert to the Promised Land; Moses appears as a Prophet. Is Melanie J’s ‘Promised Land’?
