Genre
Collection of short stories.
Setting and Context
The action described in the short stories takes place in the present time, in various cities in America.
Narrator and Point of View
The action is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood in the stories is a neutral one.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist in “Eight Bites” is the young girl who undergoes stomach stapling surgery and the antagonist is her sister.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in “Difficult at Parties” is between the need to be courageous and the insecurities the main character experiences.
Climax
The story “The Husband Stick” reaches its climax when the husband takes off the ribbon.
Foreshadowing
The murder described at the end of the story “Especially Heinous” is foreshadowed in the beginning when the narrator talks about various crime time TV shows.
Understatement
We have an understatement in the story “Mothers” in which the mother claims that the mother gave the narrator her baby. This is an understatement because later it is proven that the narrator stole the baby.
Allusions
The main allusion in the story “Eight Bites” is the idea that unless a person accepts who she or he really is, they will never find true happiness.
Imagery
The image of the faded women in “Real Women Have Bodies” is an important one because it has the purpose of transmitting the idea that women have no real power.
Paradox
We have a paradox in the story “Real Women Have Bodies”, a story in which the narrator describes how Petra goes to the room with the faded women even though she knows what will happen to her.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The party is used in “Difficult at Parties” as a general term to make reference to the insecurity of life.
Personification
We have a personification in “The Husband Stitch” in the sentence “the floors screamed with agony”.
