Storage for Minji's Thoughts

         Throughout chapters 20 and 21, the narrator experiences a whirlwind of different emotions, particularly regarding Clifton’s death. The ambiguity of the narrator’s emotions and processing of Clifton’s situation begins from the moment he runs into Clifton. When he first sees Clifton selling the Sambo dolls, he feels betrayed, yet somehow also a bit intrigued. Afterwards, when Clifton gets shot, the narrator seems like he isn’t even able to really process what happened. He is shocked and doesn’t know what to make of it. To add even further to his bewilderment, the narrator soon after has to organize and speak at Clifton’s funeral, without having any guidance from the Brotherhood. Throughout his speech, the narrator merely repeats the facts over and over, almost as if he’s in a trance.          I interpreted this reaction as the narrator feeling conflicted about how to present/frame this situation. Clifton’s death could very ea...

As we discussed in class, Chapter 11 seems to serve as a type of “rebirth” of the narrator in multiple ways. The doctors electrocute the narrator in an attempt to modify his behavior and “cure” him. They are trying to make him new; trying to rebirth him. As they wished, the narrator does experience a rebirth, but in a very different way from what they were expecting. Rather than erasing the rebellious nature of the narrator, this experience finalizes the process that has been in the works for the past ten chapters. The narrator is finally completely “awakened”. He has now completely thrown away his hope in relying on other people to succeed, and is now beginning a quest to understand himself and become his own father, as the vet urged him to do earlier. This chapter serves as an ending and a beginning of a new character.   An interesting aspect of this portion of the text is the repeated reference back to the first chapter, in which the narrator participates in the battle roya...