“This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room” (p 190)
I find this passage unusual because it starts out by saying this is where the story began but everything in the description is bleak and it does not remind the reader of the beginning of the story, hence why it is at the end of the story. The words used suggest positivity such as sun, stretch, world, moon and stars. All of these things are trapped though inside this room. The narrator can reach them all which means they are all within their grasp but for some reason he/she can not touch them. I found it very interesting the line, “the walls are exploding” because it truly depicts what the message is. Life is crumbling around and all of these important items are stuck here and can not be free, the narrator’s soul can not be free.
This passage shows the body as something that almost lacks power because the narrator seems to be stuck. He/she has everything here in this room but it is not enough. The word threadbare conveys the true message, that the things the narrator once had are wearing thin, the narrator is wearing thin because he/she has been worn down from this experience. To stretch your hand out and reach the world is different then saying touch. The narrator is using reach because it is within he/she grasp, but he/she does not actually have it. The feelings, the sensation, everything is gone and the room is a reminder of that. All of these thoughts and feelings are bouncing around the room and can not break free and now never will because the narrator has seen the corners of the world but does not have them. It is from these very windows that the narrator will look out and watch how others will find what he/she is now missing.