“Look. We’re talking about five, six inches. I’ve taken this car through worse than that.”
The narrator’s father capitalizes on a self-referential appeal. Bringing up his familiarity with the car and grim scenarios is a persuasive strategy for inducing the trooper so that he can open the road. Also, the referencing of the car hints at the solidity of the car which can make it drive on ice without jeopardizing lives.
“I can’t let that happen.” He bent toward me. “I’ll tell you what I want. I want us all to be together again.”
The narrator’s father accentuates an Illusion of Control. He is positive than he has the muscle to incapacitate the stumbling block that could deter him and his son from being together , and the obstacles consist of the snow that is likely to block them from getting home in time.
“but Frank ate his way through half the cherry pie she'd brought him and barely mentioned the woman. He was in an exalted state over a sermon he'd heard that afternoon.”
Frank takes up an avoidance tactic when he elects not to mention the woman that caused him a heartbreak. By taking on avoidance, Frank is suppressing the woman’s memories and the memories of the torture he went through as a result of loving her. Also, “an exalted state” refers to sublimation whereby, the sermon transferences all the damaging thoughts stemming from Frank’s displeasure to positive recollections of the love of Jesus.
"My dear friends," he said, "you may have read in the paper not long ago of a man of our state, a parent like many of yourselves here today ... but a parent with a terrible choice to make. His name is Mike Boiling. He's a railroad man, Mike, a switchman, been with the railroad ever since he finished high school, same as his father and grandfather before him."
This quote is captivating due to the usage of an archetypal character in a religious allusion. The use of an archetypal character to transmit an argument about God’s love accentuates the cogent appeal of the sermon.
“In later years Frances tried to think of a moment when their lives might have turned by even a degree, turned and gone some other way, and she always came back to this instant when her father knew the wrong he had done, was shaken and open to rebuke. What might have happened if her mother had come flying out of her chair and stood over him and told him to stop, now and forever?”
The moment denotes to the time that Frank Senior assaulted Franky, but neither her nor her mother would come to Frank’s help. This moment is momentous because it marks Frances’ epiphany and inspires her resolution to guard her susceptible brother from mistreatment. As the older sister, Frances apprehends that she has the obligation of coming to the defense of her little brother as he has no one to defend him.
“Frances didn't mind a fight, and she especially didn't mind fighting for her brother. For her brother she'd fought neighborhood punks, snotty teachers and unappreciative coaches, loan sharks, landlords, bouncers. From the time she was a scabby-kneed girl she'd taken on her own father, and if push carne to shove she'd take on the Father of All, that incomprehensible bully.”
This quote can be located in the falling action stage of the narrative. It puts emphasis on Frances’ paramount unconscious aspiration in life. It is evident that even after taking note to a sermon concerning sacrifice, Frances cannot ransom her brother’s joy. She considers that she has a life-long duty to be her brother’s sentinel no matter how old he is.
