Same Words, Same Memories

   Hello everyone, welcome to part 2 of my signpost blogs. This signpost blog is going to be special because I am going to be writing about 2 signposts, memory moments and again & again. Like I said last time these signposts are going off from the book The Grimm Conclusion by Adam Gidwitz. Memory moments is when the author interrupts the action to tell a memory. Again and again is when a word, phrase, object, or situation is mentioned over and over again. You can kind of see why I'm putting these two signpost together. Let's start with again and again.

   Now the phrase that keeps repeating over and over is the terrible advice Jorinda and Joringel's mother gave them, or words of the wiser (signpost blog part 1 'good and bad words'). In the first blog I said that those words haunted those two throughout the book, always in the back of their heads. Well here is my evidence. On page 25, it says "Jorinda, kneeling beneath the tree, tried to choke back the tears that pressed at her eyes, just as her mother had told her to do." This quote proves that the words her mother said to Jorinda affected her, she thinks it the right thing when really it not. 

   In the book I marked every time the phrase is repeated, or parts of it and there are a lot of sticky notes in this book. But on page 170 and 175 it shows how it affects Jorinda and Joringel, and to me it was sticking out, more than the other times the phrase pops up into the children's heads. Page 170 says, "Don't feel it, Jorinda told herself. Smother it down, choke it back stamp it out." Also, in the next paragraph it says she frowned at people who waved, fighting the pain she had. On page 175, it shows what Joringel did, with his mother's words in his head. It says, "Choke it back, he thought. Just as he managed to wrestle the sickness in his stomach into submission...." Those two quotes are important because it also shows that the phrase keeps popping up in Jorinda and Joringel's mind, as the story continues. Now it's time for memory moments.

   Memory moments and again & again to me are similar. They both involve with going into the past, which is why I up them together in one blog. There are fewer memory moments in the book than again & again, but it's a decent amount. An example of a memory moment is when the children think about their home, and the things their mother did. The text says, "At night, thought of her mother's closed study door, and of a great iron stew pot, and of her brother standing and watching her ride away rose before her whenever she closed her eyes." This shows that she remembers her mother's closed study door, and it must have affected her a lot, which also causes her to remember the words her mother gave her, over and over again. 

   This happens again when Jorinda and Joringel meet the man who gave them good words of the wiser/advice. Before the man tells them the words, Jorinda and Joringel tells the man parts of what their mother told them (bad words of the wiser) and he is saying is that what you really need to do, to help ease the pain. Then the text says, "Memories pressed down upon the two children. Closed doors. Chests of apples. Birds and stepsister and princes on horseback. Their faces flushed. Jorinda's nostrils trembled. Joringel was holding hid reddening eyes open unnaturally wide." Clearly, this shows that all the past events that happened to the two of them, which includes trying not to cry or choking back the tears, came crashing down. They're realizing that is not how you deal with pain. And I agree with both of them.