OR week 3

Natalie Lopatowski
Mrs. Baione-Doda
AP Lit
25 September 2008
She Waits, Seething, Blooming

“And now, waiting for her son and knowing how righteous will be her indignation, how richly justified will be anything she yells into his irresponsible face, she finds herself awaiting his arrival in the way the ravenous might await a meal.”
A single mother is waiting up for her 15 year old son to come home and this passage shows her angst and maybe somewhat irrational solutions that she comes up with to calm her feelings. By the end of the short story she is so hyped up and excited to basically rip her son into shreds that she exclaims, “This will be superb…she runs to the door. She can’t wait for it to begin.”
The author’s choice of title for this short story “She Waits, Seething, Blooming” sets a tone and mood for the short story through diction. The mother uses the word blooming to describe the amount of pain she will inflict on her son because he is not home yet. The word blooming is normally not a word you would compare those two actions with because blooming reminds me of flowers and sunny, happy days, or blooming into something beautiful like a caterpillar into a butterfly which obviously is not how the mother is using it. But because punishing her son is something that apparently makes her happy, fun and even like a game to her, she compares herself with something or somebody blooming.