The juggler
The Juggler
”Here I thought I had done all the letting go, had prepared myself for it since the day Zoe took her first uncertain step away from me, but it never occurred to me that I would turn her over to someone who’d need her this much.” (ll. 30 – 33) This quote goes directly to the core of the story. The theme in this short is separation and letting go. The protagonist of the story is a middle-aged single mother who has difficulties letting go of her daughter, Zoe is in a relationship with a man who is turning blind. And the fear of losing the daughter ends of pushing the daughter away. The mother is a first person narrator. She is not omniscient, as we see throughout the text, because the mother only reveals her own thoughts, never Michael or Zoe.
She is not fond of her daughter, Zoe’s relationship with her blind boyfriend, Michael. Since the divorce she has dedicated all of herself in her and Zoe’s relationship instead of finding a new husband.
We hear about the time when Zoe was child. During the divorce she was spying on her mother; (ll.81-82) She kept an eye on her like if she was worried about losing her maybe that’s why she was very protective and caring for her mother and baking cookies and staying up while the mother was practicing cello. Their relationship is very unconventional and is kind of the backwards of a normal one. The mom mentions that it was like they changed roles; “Sometimes I felt Zoe and I were growing up together. Other times I felt though I was eleven and she thirty”(ll.90-92) Zoe acts as the most grown up of them. Maybe that is why she has found a person who will depend on her. Another unconventional thing is that when the mom wanted to be alone she climbed a tree, which is a kind of childish behavior.
The very first sentence in the story describes very well the way which the mother thinks of Michael and his handicap: “My daughter loves a man who is turning blind.” (l. 1.) There are many ways to describe a man, but the
”Here I thought I had done all the letting go, had prepared myself for it since the day Zoe took her first uncertain step away from me, but it never occurred to me that I would turn her over to someone who’d need her this much.” (ll. 30 – 33) This quote goes directly to the core of the story. The theme in this short is separation and letting go. The protagonist of the story is a middle-aged single mother who has difficulties letting go of her daughter, Zoe is in a relationship with a man who is turning blind. And the fear of losing the daughter ends of pushing the daughter away. The mother is a first person narrator. She is not omniscient, as we see throughout the text, because the mother only reveals her own thoughts, never Michael or Zoe.
She is not fond of her daughter, Zoe’s relationship with her blind boyfriend, Michael. Since the divorce she has dedicated all of herself in her and Zoe’s relationship instead of finding a new husband.
We hear about the time when Zoe was child. During the divorce she was spying on her mother; (ll.81-82) She kept an eye on her like if she was worried about losing her maybe that’s why she was very protective and caring for her mother and baking cookies and staying up while the mother was practicing cello. Their relationship is very unconventional and is kind of the backwards of a normal one. The mom mentions that it was like they changed roles; “Sometimes I felt Zoe and I were growing up together. Other times I felt though I was eleven and she thirty”(ll.90-92) Zoe acts as the most grown up of them. Maybe that is why she has found a person who will depend on her. Another unconventional thing is that when the mom wanted to be alone she climbed a tree, which is a kind of childish behavior.
The very first sentence in the story describes very well the way which the mother thinks of Michael and his handicap: “My daughter loves a man who is turning blind.” (l. 1.) There are many ways to describe a man, but the