"The Loom" by R. L. Sasaki

The Loom by R. L. Sasaki

The extract taken from The Loom by R. L. Sasaki opens with a simple yet effective quote " "I give up" said Jo". From this short sentence we are able to deduce many things about the structure of the novel; firstly that it is a third person narrative and secondly that it is written in past tense. The quote itself - "I give up" - creates an immediate effect on the reader; the short sentence has a dramatic effect as it is ambiguous and intriguing - what is the character giving up on? It also brings into play a character, named Jo, who is this character? What is his/her purpose? All these questions are illustrated in the reader's mind generating a sense of curiosity, pushing the reader to read on.

This simple opening is followed by another quote "We seem to lose ground every time. We dig her out, then she crawls back in, only deeper".

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In this quote we can examine that there is a pronoun change from the first quote, the writer uses "we" instead of "I" - this establishes that there is more than one character involved which further fuels the interest of the reader. At first, the line "We dig her out, then she crawls back in, only deeper" seems to be a literal description, however, upon further examination of the following sentence "...in which her mother seemed to have taken refuge" we can see that it is actually a metaphor for the behavior of their mother.

The second paragraph

The second paragraph states "Linda loyally and staunchly defended the fortress in which her mother seemed to have taken refuge". The metaphor "defended the fortress" is consistent with a metaphor used in the previous sentence "lose ground", these both are battle metaphors which create a motif, emphasizing conflicting opinions between Jo and Linda. From the opening three, very short paragraphs we can easily establish the personalities of Jo and Linda. "Linda loyally and staunchly" is an effective alliteration which emphasizes the Linda's qualities. The soft sounding "L" is repeated which accentuates loyalty as a positive trait. While on the other hand, Jo is more aggressive and insensitive towards her mother. She is the one giving up, and wanting to "break through". She even suggests methods which are "like shock treatment" a simile which portrays Jo's insensitivity as "shock treatment" is an immoral torture method involving electric shocks as a negative stimulus. Sharon, the middle daughter, is introduced next using yet again, a simple, short sentence. "Sharon, the middle daughter, gave her mother a loom" this straightforward sentence involves an action - Sharon giving her mother an object - this acts as an agent for change. The other daughters have only discussed about what they should do, while Sharon actually took action. This sentence alone is enough to portray Sharon as the daughter who is caring and takes action.

The relationships between the daughters and the mother

After establishing the relationships between the daughters and the mother, Sasaki goes on to describe how the mother took up weaving. Sasaki describes the mother's hobby of weaving almost as an obsession. "Painstaking attention, threading the warp tirelessly, endlessly winding, threading, tying. The listing and repetition of gerund verbs and use of adverbs "tirelessly" and "endlessly" one after another conveys an image of a never-ending obsession, almost as if the mother could not stop weaving once she has started. Futhermore, Sasaki said "step by step" and "sampler after sampler" - the tones of these two actions portray an image of procedure, an image of the mother weaving one after another like a machine.

The tone of the speaker is particularly nostalgic; this relates to how the writer portrays the mother as a reminiscent character. The writer portrays how the mother uses weaving and textiles as a story of her life. The mother takes the loom "with new excitement, threading the warp with all the shades of her life". This is a powerful metaphor the writer uses to illustrate how the mother uses each shade to represent a different precious memory of her. The fabrics she weaves are the memoirs of her life. Weaving is also used as a symbol of the amalgamation of the past and the present. She wove usually "all in browns and neutral shades" which were the "colors she preferred". These colors represent her sorrow and monotonous life of the present, as brown and neutral shades connote dullness. However, the mother does also incorporate vibrant colors in her fabric which represent the more memorable moments of her life in the past.

This can be seen towards the end of the extract when "hidden colors leaped from the brown fabric" this metaphor emphasizes how precious memories can be easily forgotten and lost in the "brown fabric" unless "you looked real close" - implying that the mothers memories are hidden but can never be forgotten. The extract ends with a particularly long sentence, contrasting with the short sentence with began with. "...weaving the diverse threads of life into one miraculous, mystical fabric with timeless care". The adjective "timeless" relates back to how the mother used weaving as a memoir of her life, once the fabric has been woven with all the emotion the mother put into it, it can never be forgotten as it is now material thus, making it "timeless".

Conclusion

To conclude, Sasaki uses different literary devices such as sentence structure, a nostalgic tone and descriptive diction to highlight the difficulties and issues with the family throughout the years. Futhermore, the use of the loom helps represent the past memories of the mother contrasting with her present life.