Eccentric
Corliss was “very short, a few inches under five feet.” According to standards of female beauty depicted in magazines like Vogue, she was “maybe thirty pounds overweight, and plain-featured.” However, one could hardly call her unattractive, for Corliss’ skin was “clear and dark brown (like good coffee!),” and her “long black hair” hung down “past her waist.” She wore “red cowboy boots,” and her “breasts were large,” but the most important thing was that Corliss was smart and she knew it. The way she held herself indicated that she was self-assured and brave enough to fight for her place in the world. This imagery evokes a feeling of confidence.
The power of knowledge
“Back in Spokane, Washington,” Corliss had attended Spokane River High School, which had contained “a mirage-library.” The books had looked like “Dickens and Dickinson from a distance,” but they “turned into cookbooks and auto-repair manuals” when one picked them up. “As a poor kid, and a middle-class Indian,” she seemed destined for “a minimum-wage life of waiting tables or changing oil.” However, she had always wanted “a maximum life, an original aboriginal life,” so Corliss fought her way out of her “underfunded public high school into an underfunded public college.” This imagery evokes a feeling of eagerness. Corliss refuses to settle for too little and continues fighting for her dreams.
A mission
Corliss carried “the Auden and Atwater books” out of the library and into “the afternoon air.” She “sat on the bench” and “flipped through pages.” Unlike the Auden book that was “worn and battered, with pen and pencil notes scribbled all over the margins,” Atwater was “stiff and unmarked.” The book had not been exposed to “direct sunlight in three decades.” Corliss felt like she “had rescued Harlan Atwater.” And “who else should rescue the poems of a Spokane Indian but another Spokane?” She felt “the weight and heat of destiny.” God “had nearly dropped Atwater’s book on her head.” She had been “chosen.” This imagery evokes a smile, for the situation is absurd.
