Rhetorical
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Figures of Speech
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Between the stages of birth and death, people
open their eyes, walk around, chit-chat, eat and then go back to sleep.
This routine is what we call life. However there are more layers to life
than just eating and sleeping. A prime example of what life throws at
you is Charlotte Emory, lead character in the novel, Earthly Possessions
by Anne Tyler. We witness this woman playing out two lifestyles in the novel.
Her first lifestyle can be construed as a “slow life” and the potential
end result is a “slow death.” The second can be interpreted as a “fast life”
or living wildly and ending perhaps in a “fast death.” Kidnapped by Jake
Simms, Charlotte Emory lived in the fast lane at the present time. However
her dull, woeful past comes back throughout the novel, telling Charlotte
and the readers that you can never run away from your problems.
In Charlotte’s past, she had married a person
named Saul Emory. Saul won Charlotte’s heart by promising to take her away
from her hometown of Clarion, Maryland and her nagging disabled mother,
Lacey Debney. These reasons for leaving were perhaps miniscule compared
to the bombshell news that Saul had dropped on Charlotte. The words that
threw their marriage off-track were when Saul simply stated, “I’ve been called
to preach” (88). Charlotte felt betrayed by Saul because their plans of
exploring the world together were now delayed. Saul’s profession of ministry
profoundly fueled Charlotte’s need to get away from her mother and the town
even more. His occupation irritated Charlotte because it gave a reason for
her to not trust God. Although Charlotte was never really a religious person,
she might have construed that God could never be on her side. All of the
events in Charlotte’s life so far has kept her contained in Clarion such as
when her father, Murray Ames, fell ill when she had just gotten into a distant
college and now must come back to Clarion to care for her mother as well
as her father. Through these tribulations, she will have questioned God on
why her life has gone in this path. She had long awaited for a day when she
couldn't herself from the sad routine of caring for a mother who she felt
did not want her and a town that had grown too stale for her taste. Saul’s
decision to stay in Clarion was the main reason why Charlotte let Jake Simms
easily take her away from everything.
Perhaps Charlotte should send Jake Simms a thank
you card for taking her away because she could now leave her old problems
behind. When Charlotte was kidnapped, she never really had shown a strong
emotion to be let go. For instance, Charlotte confided in Jake on her
little fetishes of her “lucky medal.” She stated, “I took it as a sign.
Not seriously of course. I just thought, what if this was trying to tell
me something? Like to get on the road, not sit around any longer, take
some action. I thought it was a sign to leave my husband” (24). By telling
Jake about her deepest thoughts, kidnapper and hostage were able to build
a relationship. Ironically, Charlotte was able to communicate with her kidnapper
better than with her family, particularly Saul. Also, their conversation
relieved Jake’s stress because now he felt that Charlotte wasn’t going to
run away because he needed a companion although he would not admit it. After
the conversation, Jake opened up to Charlotte even more and perhaps all the
while instigating a friendship albeit dysfunctional. For instance, when they
needed a means of transportation, Jake made Charlotte get the bundle of keys
from the gas station clerk. The clerk believed Charlotte’s intentions for
using the keys were for restroom purposes only but in this instance, she
had shown her wild side. Jake was able to get a hold of one key to start
a car thanks to Charlotte. Jake used Charlotte to do his criminal work and
she got a good chuckle out of it. “Was that it. Simple as that? Well. My
goodness, I never knew a life crime could be so easy” (43). In one instant,
Charlotte had become an accomplice to a major crime. She could have told
the gas station clerk that she was being held hostage but instead obliged
to Jake’s commands. By letting Jake become the authoritative figure, she
in turn let her past control her future. Although Charlotte desired having
an exciting life outside of Clarion, she never relished the way Jake was
constructing her path of life. If Charlotte wanted to be absolutely free
of all obligations, she would have fled Jake and start her new life by herself,
independently. Charlotte’s past dilemmas of Saul, her mother and the town
of Clarion in general have all been buried during her adventures with Jake
Simms. Nevertheless, Charlotte soon realized that now the problem lay within
her because she wasn’t having such a good time in her travels with Jake Simms.
In comparison to Jake, Amos Emory, the brother
of Saul emphasized the more eccentric characters in Charlotte’s life.
Amos and Jake gave Charlotte a sense that there was more to life than her
routines and debacles at home. The two exemplified life because they were
able to accomplish so many things outside of the norm. Jake was able to
escape from jail and rescue his girlfriend, Mindy. Amos, although coming
back to Clarion, was young, exuberantly full of life and was a successful
school teacher. This secondary character had an affair with Charlotte. Amos
wanted to take Charlotte away after the death of her mother and Charlotte
in her head thought that going away even during a time of crisis would be
splendid. But these were just thoughts that she never acted out as she returned
back to normalcy as Amos felt that she would never take that next step and
leave Saul. Jake and Amos were very influential in the outgoing lifestyle
that Charlotte had an infatuation for. Charlotte never made that risk of
losing everything. Instead, Charlotte was forced by Jake to leave and in
turn forced her to take a good look at herself.
In contrast to the outgoing characters, Saul,
and Charlotte’s mother, Lacey Debney were very much alike. At the same
time in their lives, the two really didn’t want to get out of their routines
of brooding and anti-adventurous tasks. Their lives were like a slow death
to Charlotte because she had ambition to be more than what they were. Charlotte
believed that her mother didn’t really want her because she remembered
Lacey telling her that she wasn’t her baby. This caused friction between
mother and daughter ever since. Nevertheless, on Lacey’s deathbed Lacey
affirmed to Charlotte that she was her real daughter. Charlotte finally
has peace of mind as she stated, “more gently than I’d ever done anything
in my life, I laid my cheek against my mother’s” (196). In realizing that
she is the daughter of Lacey Debney, Charlotte felt more in tune with life
as she now can let that bad childhood memory disappear.
The main reason why Charlotte came back was because
she finally saw how she and Jake were scarily similar to one another. They
both ran away from their problems. For Jake, it was prison and his girlfriend.
For Charlotte, her husband and all the responsibilities that came with
it. Jake, in the end, finally admitted that he couldn’t go on without Mindy,
his girlfriend. He stated, “I was fixing to leave her ... but I can’t ...
She’s right you know, I have some ties to her” (211). Charlotte, through
seeing another couple's dilemma, believed now that she could work it out
at home in Clarion, Maryland. This location is where her daughter, Salinda,
her adopted son, Jiggs and her husband, Saul would be waiting. This is her
family and she is ready to restart her adventures with her family again.
Life is what you make of it. Charlotte, as a
hostage of obligations to her old life, could never find peace of mind
but through her experience as a hostage of Jake Simms, she found the
true meaning of living. The kidnapping was a blessing for Charlotte because
it forced her to confront her problems head on. Walking away from Jake’s
way of life, Charlotte had a new found grasp of energy and courage to go
back to her old life.
Works Cited
Tyler, Anne. Earthly Possessions. New York, New York: Random
House Inc, 1993.
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