One theme that is predominant in the book and is the violent nature of the story. There are a lot of harsh verbs used in non-violent sentences that give the story an overall feeling of suffering and pain. There is even abuse when the girls set up a fake church (page 24), so to me it just seem like violence and suffering infiltrate every aspect of these lives. And it's not as if they suffer because they are doing these things to themselves. From the brother's illness, to the girl's vision problems, and then the mother's clashing with her father (which lead to a brutal beating), there seems to be an unending flow of misfortune that befalls this small family. Also, whenever these things happen, the term "penance" pops up a lot (pages 24 and 27, that I could find). One woman at the dinner party in chapter 6 is said to "offer it as penance" (page 27) that she will not think ill of her husband because it goes against their vows and that's a sin (even though he is a cheater). There seems to be a lot of focus on suffering throughout these first 6 chapters, but more specifically on suffering these characters think they deserve because they have sinned (one of which I will get to later because I don't quite understand it still). Which leads to the other, and perhaps most obvious, theme of the book: religion. The constant references Jesus, or Mr. Christ, and how we should live to obey him relay to me as the reader the god-fearing traditions of the Irish we talked about previously in class. A fear of sinning and other blasphemies runs rampant through this first part of the book as the girl tries to discover the world. We aren't given any clear indication on what she thinks of it, but we know her mother and grandfather (and brother?) all live in this fear of the lord.
In talking about religion, I want to go back that allusion I made earlier that I still don't quite understand. On page 22, the paragraph that starts "On my own, I draw on his picture flesh..." The girl seems amused to imagine what Jesus' suffering was like, and to make it up in her imagination. In this passage, I noticed that she focuses on eyes when she wants to make people suffer. She drew blood in Jesus' eye, but she didn't have any red market left because her other one got smushed in Tiny Tears's eye (whatever that means). I also noticed here that she has a fascination with blood. When she was beaten by her mother, she felt "intrigued" with the blood pouring from her nose. Now she seems obsessed with making Jesus as bloody as possible as he is crucified. I have no idea if this passage is making fun of religious beliefs, expressing the girl's curiosity in her faith, or just a child's rambling in her own head. Another passage that doesn't make sense to me is the scene where the teachers publicly berate the "tinker" students on page 30. We learned that tinkers are essentially gypsies, but why are they the ones who had to have been eating chalk? Is this some sort of inter-class conflict that is translating into bigotry? I don't know what to think about it.
And finally, here is a list of questions that I have about these first 6 chapters:
What do banshees have to do with this story? And why is the girl so afraid of them? (pages 9 and 17).
What was the part about eating chalk about? (pages 29 and 30).
Why include the dream at the end? What does it mean?
Why, if the section of the book is called "Lambs," is there not even any imagery about lambs? Is it like a "lamb of god" kind of thing?
