Part 1 Discussion: The narrative of Everything I Never Told You relates the past and present of the Lee’s family life together and reveals the character, experiences, and secrets of each family member. The narrative threads expose both the silences among these characters — who don’t say what they should say to each other, either husband to wife, or parent to child or vice versa — and the betrayals, either overt, like James’s infidelity with Julia or more insidious and ongoing ones. Discuss these themes of what remains uspoken or what betrayals occur in this troubled family. Support your argument. Take any specific scene or action to discuss. What happens? Why? What is your analysis of the scene or action?
Read and reflect upon the posts of other students. Respond to one or two, making sure that your reply adds to the post. You won’t receive credit for a “stock” comment, such as “Great post” or “I agree.
Respond to this answer1.
In the narrative of Everything I Never Told You, honesty and trust remains unspoken. James and Marilyn continue with no communication between each other and their kids Lydia, Nath, and Hannah. In Chapter 5 it talks about Hannah going to the lake in the middle of the night without her parents knowing. Nobody was allowed to speak about Lydia, the lake, or as any questions at all. It did not stop Hannah from going to the lake to answer some of her unresolved questions about Lydia’s death. Hannah later then forgets to put the chain back on the door and Marilyn notices it in the morning and tells James “It was unlocked all night and you don’t even care.” The problem is that James and Marilyn pay no attention to Hannah and now she is even scared to tell them the truth. My analysis on this scene would be that Hannah being ignored results to her acting out with the thoughts in her mind and causing conflict between her whole family. Each person in the family has their own interpretation of what happened to Lydia, if only they all discussed amongst each other they would probably find out the truth.
Respond to this answer 2.
I chapter 6 of the book Nath takes a turn in his view of his relationship with his family, particularly his mother. Both of his parents seem to dote on his sister Lydia that at times makes Nath feel as if he is invisible. Once his mother comes back home he ask ” Can I have a hard-boiled egg?”, the response he receives from his mother is “All right”, but once Lydia enters the room he is forgotten. When he and Lydia sneaks out to the lake, Nath pictures his life being better without Lydia in it and pushes her into the lake knowing that she can’t swim. He saves Lydia after realizing that “It would change nothing……They would be pulled into the vacuum she left behind.” This is a sinister attempt on Naths behalf due to his parents seeming to favor one child over the other. Nath sees that Lydia is the center of the Universe of his family and saves her from drowning. The only person who knows of Naths mischief, of what he was thinking and how he felt is him, especially since Lydia sees Nath as saving her.
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