Analysis the First Day

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Analysis: of The First Day by Edward P Jones. In the short story we hear about a girl who had her first day of school. The short story is a flashback and this quote supports my contention:” Long before I learned to be ashamed of my mother…” This shows that it’s an adult who’s having a flashback. We know it’s a girl because the mother is doing her hair and she’s wearing a dress, a boy wouldn’t have worn a dress. She’s filled with nervousness and she’s desperate being perfectly good looking. I found a quote which supports my contention:”I wearing a checkeredilke blue and green cotton dress, and scattered about these colors are bits of yellow and white and brown.” In this quote we see that she’s really marking all the details about her looking. It also indicates that she wants to make a good impression at the school. Her mother is determined to get her into a good school, and shows that she’s a loving mom and she cares about her child. Her mother is also not well educated. In the short story her mother has to fill out a paper so that her daughter can admit to the school. She can’t fill it out, because she can’t read or write. So she asks for help from the woman who stands beside her, to help her fill out the paper so her child can join the school. The mom says:” I don’t know how to read or write, and I’m askin you to help me.” The woman then begins to smile, she feels good about herself because she’s superior and the mom is inferior. It shows that the mom is a loving and caring mom whose only intention is a better education for her daughter. This also means less humiliation and a brighter and happier future for her daughter. The narrator is 1st person and it’s showed by this quote:” I am also wearing yellow socks…” Here we clearly see the using of 1st person with the”I”. It’s also a limited point of view because we have limited knowledge about what’s happening in
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