good quality. Through her own energy and excitement over the occasional product that meets her high standards, the speaker claims that she can actually make the item she praised seem intelligent.Avoiding torpid conformity (p. 78) and standing boldly in the face of opposition are the main themes of this essay. At times it almost seems as if the speakers mother goes overboard in her theory that one should always oppose mainstream society, as she regards conforming as stupidity itself (p. 78). The entire essay is filled with stories about how the mother rejects society in some way, or attempts to shock so-called normal people; from the instance of asking her surgeon if she would be able to play the piano to acting as if she had had a relationship with a young man who was with his girlfriend to rolling away into the ocean when a conversation bored her, she teaches the people around her to stay awake, and to look at the world in an unconventional way. This essay is extremely well written; without making the purpose evident in the beginning by using a clear thesis, the speaker still manages to tell the story of her mother and never lose the attention of the reader. In the conclusion, the speaker ends more definitively than she began, telling the audience the most valuable lesson she was taught by her mother, that if our [the speaker and her sisters] classmates came to crueltywe were expected to take, and would be each separately capable of taking, a stand (p. 79) By doing this, the speaker causes the audience to look back on the rest of the story to learn the mothers lessons, and it becomes clear that everything the speaker was taught, confidence in herself, fearlessness in the face of adversity, a respect and love for the abnormal, and a sense of protection for the needy have contributed to the lesson the speaker refers to. ...
