"The Stone Diaries" is a novel written by an interesting author by the name of
Carol Shields. It deals with a number of confusing
issues, and seems to have a
post-modern view of sorts, though I still don't completely understand the
concept.. I must have been
floating in my own sea of thought when my teacher went over that part.
Any way, it's quite
a neat book, it follows the life of a young girl,
Daisy, from birth to death, and she has quite the time indeed. A
widow in her twenties, and then wife again, but this time to the man who helped to
raise her. It's all very
complex and whatnot, and I couldn't provide an accurate
review now with out re-reading. However..
At the time we were studying this book, I had to
write an essay outlining one of the many
themes in the novel. I typed it up on the computer, but walked away for a break a
paragraph in.. when I came back, I discovered my older
brother had completely messed with it, and
I couldn't stop laughing.. so here it is, for your reading pleasure (tee-hee):
The use of certain types of
flowers to exemplify characteristics of both human and inanimate objects, has recurrently been a common practice among writers of contemporary literature. Carol Shields is no exception. Her novel,
The Stone Diaries, utilizes
a flower motif very effectively. In the novel, the various flower types are used in the description of
characters, more specifically the main player,
Daisy. The flowers also serve as a type of
symbol in the novel, pertaining to the theme of the disappearance of Daisy's
identity throughout the story. *** This is where he edited it. *** Not only that but the other character floosy mcboobington always had a rose in her nose. That may not seem
significant now, but as I will later prove, this "rose" is a strong indication of the
racial origins of the African Hugaben
tribe. Thise rose,
being red and not white, leads me to believe that floosy mcb's mothers friends cousins uncle was a member of the Hugaben tribe. What does a rose have to do with that? Well to put it simply,
the rose was red, in dim light the rose appears black or brown the Hugaben's are all light brown or black in dim light therefore it stands to reason that they are
red. Now Daisy, like her name is white and easy to pull apart. So it can be
infered from this that daisy is a woman of
loose morals and questionable lineage. Being white, like a daisy, she also has a yellow dot. This
yellow dot is never mentioned in the story, but it obviously means that Daisy has an
STD and it
burned when she urinated.
I personally kind of like that whole brown or black in dim light must mean it's red thing, but
I wonder where the heck he came up with the stuff.
Yeesh. :)