LAHOF quotes, techniques and analysis

Quotes that express the wife's position in Flexion;

"Mrs Slovak"

"The quiet one"

"Frank's wife"

names are a symbol of identity, by stripping the narrator of her name, Kennedy reduces her to being inconsequential in comparison to the authoritative figure of her husband, Frank Slovak.

Imagery of Shattered glass in Flexion

"Shattered glass strewn around him like crushed ice"

Kennedy, through this imagery, discusses the fragility of human life and suggests to the reader that the mirage of life is broken, inferring that it must be remade in order to move forward.

Quote relating to Frank fracturing vertebrae in Flexion

"every emotion he's withheld from her...every flinch and grimace...is boiling and writhing across his face now"

"The man can't feel a thing

The biological structure that causes him to physically feel nothing ironically makes him emotionally receptive

Quotes characterising Frank in Flexion

"Temper like a rabid dog"

"never put himself out for any of these people" - selfish, self important

"liked his privacy to the point of glowering hostile secrecy."

"fights for breath even as he sleeps"

What message does the narrative point of 'Casseroles wrapped in foil' suggest to the reader

through the narrator's perspective, the action is viewed as feigned sympathy, "a gracious gesture come too late", Kennedy utilises this narrative point to highlight to the reader Frank's wife's repressed emotions.

Key moment of emotional flexion between characters in Flexion

"She places his hand wordlessly, determinedly, over his heart, and holds it there"

Ashes: Chris' relationship with his mother

"Staunch goodwill leaking away"

"Something had nevertheless turned a tap on inside him and his energy draining away"

"Talking to a brick wall"

Ashes: Chris' emotional repression and insecurities

"Lifetime habit of keeping his responses to himself"

"Obscure sense that he'd failed some test"

"I don't know what's bloody wrong with you" Father → Chris

Ashes: Chris' negative biased self perception

"Glimmer that there was something deeply dissatisfying about him, something that baffled his father and pinned a strained, mortified smile on his mother's face when they had visitors"

Ashes: Quotes directly relating to Chris' sexuality

"Had any idea how to name what the thing was"

"Flash of realisation that was sliched it was almost comical"

"You're not the first gay man whose parents didn't understand him"

"No point blaming them"

"Don't tell me it's going to be now"

"You've got to live the way you see fit"

Ashes: Quotes connected to internalised guilt linked to sexuality

"No need to... well... throw it in her face. It would kill her"

"It had killed him, not her"

"This, he thinks savagely, is the best she can summon"

"Soon so she won't camouflage her disappointment so well"

In Ashes what does the water imagery infer to the reader?

Chris' "staunch goodwill" as well as eventual resentment and biased perspectives of his parents, leaking away.

Simile in Ashes:

"Set like mousetraps ready to snap, like little buried landmines"

In Ashes what does the symbolsim of the Book Club Women suggest to the reader?

Kennedy uses capital letters to establish a sense of grandiosity and exaggerated importance when referencing "the Book Club Women".

They are perennial women, a symbol used by Kennedy to represent Chris' mother's desires and dreams, and to physically manifest the encapsulation of Chris' fears.

The reader infers that Chris' mother's obsession with the BCW stems from a desire to live vicariously through them.

In Ashes what do the photo frames symbolise?

"Lovely silver frame"

Locked in time

In Ashes what does the action of taking a photo of Chris' mum and the pier symbolise?

In comparison with the repeated imagery of photo frames in "Ashes", as well as the ongoing motif of photos throughout the anthology, Kennedy uses this narrative point to symbolise the action of locking a moment in time, creating a snapshot of past, present and future.

Quotes: Chris' perspective of his mother is at a turning point

"He wishes he'd told her she looked nice, when he'd arrived at her door"

"Why hadn't he answered with enthusiastic assent"

"New sense of purpose"

In Ashes what do the ashes on the lapel of Chris' mum's jacket represent?

"Absently, tenderly, without interrupting her, brushes it off"

acceptance of new life

Ridding her of the blemishes of their relationship

brushing away the past

imagery

Laminex & Mirrors quotes that characterise Mr. Moreton

"An old bloke, ex Army"

"He's like a different man with a cigarette in his hand"

"I've been to the front and survived once already"

"Weightless, completely weightless"

"They used to give us smokes in the army"

In Laminex & Mirrors explain the symbolism of the oxygen mask

The irony of the oxygen mask "Feel like that thing's choking me", is created by Kennedy as a stark juxtaposition between the intended relief of life, "oxygen" and the death and nicotine that he craves for relief.

In Laminex & Mirrors explain the symbolism of the clean mirror

He has an unwavered view of himself

He knows what life is → not looking through rose coloured glasses → not distorted

"I spray and wipe his perfectly clean mirror"

Laminex & Mirrors: Cleaning the hall, symbolism

Even when cleaning up your life, streaks will still be left behind

"Black rubber streaks left by the wheels of the surgical trolleys"

life isn't perfect

our actions will always define us in some way

Moment of Irony in Laminex and Mirrors

Irony → "I'm gasping for breath"

Characterisation of narrator in Laminex and Mirrors:

,

Laminex and Mirrors: Quotes relating to mirrors and reflections

"All reflective surfaces everywhere"

Tender: Symbolic reasoning behind the Princess and the pea analogy

In this analogy, Kennedy uses the pea as a representation of the tumour.

Tender: quote about appearance vs reality

a grand theory of sustainability modified to a more prosaic reality

Tender: Quote that encapsulates the stories that Kennedy writes

"it's still just so makeshift and unfinished"

Tender: affect of illness quote

"made with her own once trust-worthy body"

LAHOF metaphor of the nativity scene being shattered

'whole ceramic nativity scenes is shattered"

metaphor of destroying the dynamic/routine of the family

Narrator in LAHOF self pity as a result of injury and mentality

"the thing is I can't and he knows it"

LAHOF quote injury affecting self perception

"it feels like that's my entire identity...one single space between two injured segments of bone"

Five-dollar family: "The story of her life:

numb on the outside, and a burning ache on inside"

five dollar family: "The let

down reflex"

five dollar family: "the new

hint of steel there"

five dollar family: "she's got everything

this baby needs, now"

Cross country quote describing how kennedy writes

"It's the language that gets you."

Cross country: "the web like a

big stretched safety net"

Cross country use of second person narration

Kennedy's use of "you" and "your" intermittently throughout this story immerses the reader in the rising action of the narrative.

cross country: "I'll take any crumb, any

trail, any vague lead"

In Cross country Kennedy explores the effects of

one-sided dictation of emotions with the repetition of "I think" by the narrator's ex when addressing their relationship.

Cross country: "they should call

it drowning"

cross country: "I'm settling into this train

of thinking, hungry for its possibilities" Delusional tone

Cross country: connection to the ongoing motif of photos explored by kennedy

"A face blurry in the back of someone else's photo, reduced to nothing but pixels"

Throughout cross country Kennedy explores the...

delusions of the narrator, born out of rage and heart break.

Cross country metaphor for her current mental state:

"I have a hazy picture...slogging up muddy hillsides and crashing down"

Cross country moment of realisation by narrator : "It's amazing, isn't it,

the level to which we'll invent what we need"

Whirlpool: "father nowhere-

just a peripheral shadowy shape, stretched thin."

Whirlpool: "surrender

this lightness"

whirlpool: "you made yourself

smile, complicit"

whirlpool: "A sickly,

traitorous smile of concurrence."

Whirlpool: "her tenderness felt as

treacherous and irresistible as a tide."

whirlpool: "Almost breathless with

forced breeziness"

Whirlpool: "Camera's

indifferent shutter"

Cake: "Sets the

betrayal in motion"

Cake: "baby-brain,

head turned to mush"

cake: "constant, ridiculous

social smiling"

cake: "she

must try"

cake: "you've got your

own life- they can't be dictating it"

Cake: "Her expression has

been hammered flatter and flatter, growing flimsier by the second"

Cake: "She's too

needy and she knows it"

Cake: "twitching

with withdrawal"

Cake: "She's got to

try harder"

White spirit: "for the photo

documentation we need"

WS: "it's a multicultural

vision to be proud of"

WS: "nobody will graffiti anything

they feel a sense of ownership and inclusion about"

WS: "here's our vision alright,

sealed and impervious and safeguarded"

Little Plastic shipwreck: "Helpless in

the hands of strangers"

LPS: "his calm, loving

eye on Roley alone"

Waiting: "careful professional

detachment while they're gazing at the human map of you"

"they won't

find a heartbeat"

"this time

I spared him" (pete)

"felt the tide

ebbing away"

the soak of blood, that

wall caving, impossible to ever rebuild"

"it wears us thin,

marriage. It knocks the edges of us"

"ten steps to a new me.

Ten days to a flatter stomach"

"to open the gate into the pasture with

it's desiccated, knee-high wheat.

"Oh, Pete, I know what

you need and I can't give it to you"

Static: "asthmatic wheeze of

the leather chair" echoing the emotional tone of the room

"She [Anthony's mother] can get every secret weapon into those rays-

contempt, accusation, disdain, puzzled, faux-innocence, the works."

"the lounge chair

exhales a gust of weary depression"

Anthony and Marie's relationship...

appears to echo the relationship of his parents.

"It'll give my mother something to

correct me about. Make her happy"

"his mother writhes with

the discomfort of not interfering"

"back and forth the

shimmering image goes"

"how she sees

them and how they see her"

barren garden "they don't seem to have

grown an inch" symbolises the desolute lifelessness between Anthony and Marie

How does Kennedy describe Mrs Carlyle and Shane differently in Seventy-Two Derwents?

describes Mrs Carlyle using adjectives, colourful, emotive language

describes Shane in a blunt, disconnected, neutral way

"she kept asking-

isn't it? Answer me" mother wants validation, desperation infers a past of trauma shows low self esteem

animal imagery runs throughout the narrative...

highlights the youth of the narrator

Imagery of the Stone

"hard cold stone"

"makes the stones feeling come back to my stomach"

"I feel like I have a stone inside my stomach"

"makes the stone come up into my chest and neck"

"made the stones grind together"

Shane characterised as:

predatorial, grooming tyler

"I was thinking that I could have bought another pencil,

for the same price as my doughnut" She likes having things that last, a sign of how turbulent her home life is.

As tyler gets scared in the narrative..

her sentences become longer

"don't say anything

or he will hurt us"

"he just

started crying." A child like intrinsic response

"Someone had come along and put the white dots

into her eyes... bright as black glittering glass." this action of protecting her family empowers her, gives her the life she wants.

"the artist has drawn it so carefully

you can see how all those stones fit together" use of the stone metaphor to symbolise growth.