Closed Reading: 'You'

Okay. I read this article, actually it was an essay, a long, long time ago. You know its a long time ago because I didn't even site the date or URL that I copied and pasted the post from, which is something I always do nowadays. Still, its a very moving article/written piece of work and I'd like to really break it apart. So I'll just quote it here. (its the last paragraphs of it since the entire piece is really long)

"Occasionally you imagine her fights and her arguments- catch yourself quarreling a point to the air as you read a newspaper, just in case she thinks badly of you. But then you remember that if she can read your thoughts she probably knows their justifications and talking to no one is probably a sign of old age anyway.


You want her to talk back to you, just to let you know that she's ok.

But you know that she is.

You've been there before.

Faith was rude, and obsessive, and difficult, and adored by… most people she met. But people don't fall in love with perfection, they fall in love with flaws, with humanity, because we're all egotistical enough to believe that we'll be the one to make them change.

Did she change? Perhaps.

Or perhaps you just adjusted around her; that charming, immovable force.

You've changed.

She came back to you once, after an argument on a street corner in some god-forsaken small town you'd been sent to. It was raining and you'd earlier tried to help her stay dry while she hadn't even noticed the rain. Later, of course, she didn't take kindly to being reminded of her earlier weakness.

But she'd sprinted back and stopped abruptly, as if coming to the realisation that what she had wanted to say was completely stupid. "Sorry, I- I just meant… that I really did appreciate it. I might not have at the time but I really did."

Is that a silly thing to remember?

Her presence dances among the roses- not the way she was but the way she should have been.

You leave her in the olive grove, unblemished, unscarred, whole- a happy sixteen-year-old.

Happy endings can be drastically different- who's to say what makes 'happiness'? This is a happy ending, as different and unconventional as it may be.

Faith fought while she was alive; against demons, against you, against herself.

Now she lies at rest, content. She might no longer be with you but it's selfish to think of that as bad. There's no more struggle. And though your heart aches and your eyes are all cried out, it'll be ok. There was no map, no plan of your lives together- it had never been your intention to love her. You just do. Yet even without the map you still found ways back to each other. No matter how far she slipped she always came home.

One day you will follow her, find your way back home."

________The Actual Close Reading_______

There comes a moment in all our lives that we've looked back at all we've lost, all the gain, success, sacrifices, all those moments of could haves, would haves, should haves, did and did nots, when we are able to stand like Scout on Boo Radley's doorstep and see all the world for what it is and realize the beauty of it all. In Roses Left Behind by Jessica Kellgren-Hayes, the obscure narrator describes her life after a great loss, dealing with it and eventually coming to peace. Kellgren-Hayes uses language, diction and syntax to show the reader the mental thought process going on inside the narrator's mind, show the reader the grief, the pain and eventual enlightenment of the narrator finding what true happiness is. 

The first and most noticeable element to Kellgren-Hayes' style of writing is the second person point of view that she uses, most likely to allow the reader to step into the shoes of the narrator through the use of this type of language. When the narrator states "You want her to talk back to you, just to let you know that she's ok.", Kellgren-Hayes wants the reader to be able to feel the feeling of lost, the lost of a life that will never exist again and does this by deliberately using the 'you' to direct it to both the narrator and the audience. Another technique of language that the author uses is the "stream of consciousness" where the narration shifts between 'you' directing to herself and 'we' as well as spruces of thoughts put in mid-sentence. This is made clear when the narrator questions "Did she change? Perhaps...You've changed". During that time, it was the thoughts of the narrator coming out, asking herself then answering herself as well. Kellgren-Hayes does this to show progress and continued pain that the narrator is going through. 


Futhermore, the lost, depression, adoration, frustration and hate is reinforced by the diction. The narrator describes Faith as a person who was "rude, obsessive and difficult, and adored by....most people she met." and then goes on to say that "people don't fall in love with perfection, they fall in love with flaws, with humanity...". The contrasting word choices and sudden change from negative to positive words shows the amount of feelings between the narrator and Faith, showing the struggle and love.  The diction works to reinforce the established mood of lost and loneliness, especially when Kellgren-Hayes chooses to describe the narrator "quarreling a point to the air", it shows how much the narrator is missing and grieving, even to argue with a person when they are already dead. 


Finally, the mood and tone established by the language and diction comes together in the last paragraphs. Here, the syntax is the technique of choice, the narrator first stating "There was no map, no plan of your lives together- it had never been your intention to love her. You just do." putting emphasis on the last part of the first sentence, defining the fact that things just came together, and the second sentence coming off almost as a command. This technique is used again to establish the meaning of the piece by saying "Happy endings can be drastically different- who's to say what makes 'happiness'?" by putting emphasis on the last part, we see the narrator come to an enlightenment, realizing what happiness can be and going even further by questioning the social connotation of happiness. Then, she answers her own question, saying that happiness is different for each person, and for her; "This is a happy ending.".


Happiness can be a long arduous road, filled with love, grief, hate, desperation, the Kellgren-Hayes shows it beautifully in her piece. The life of others and our own cross, separate, criss-cross, tangle, and through diction, language and syntax, shows that happiness is simply from a person's point of view. Its not the people, place, money, time, it comes from the peace that has to be established from within. There is a map, no compass, just you finding "your way back home."
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