Attention to detail

I’ve had some difficulty in figuring out the exact setting of the story from what I’ve read so far. The narrator has quite jumpy thoughts and I think the flashback conversations are somewhat hard to follow without a second reading. One thing I have really noticed is the vivid images that are being formed in my head from all the super detailed descriptions she gives us of her surroundings. At first her attention to detail made me think she was longing for something more in her life, or maybe even something she had once is a previous time in her life. It was as if the descriptions she was providing to the audience were familiar to her in some way. The first glimpse of a prior life we read about is on page 16 when the narrator recalls watching television in her mother’s room on Sunday mornings realizing that is where she has seen the commander’s wife. The connection provides some background information on knowing more about a “boss” (I’m not really sure what to call the commander’s wife yet.) than needs to be or should be known. It seems that already knowing about Serena Joy’s religious show is a bad thing and may make it difficult for the narrator to serve her properly.

Another thing that caught me about the descriptions the narrator gives was how many different colors have been brought up. She makes a couple of references to the red being similar to the shade of blood. The color red is symbolic of many things ranging from lust, love, and sex to suffering, hurting, and dying. Again, the attention to detail is interesting and makes me think there is some part of the narrator’s life that television, color, and perhaps religion were a significant part of her life.