Thinking about "the get-go"

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Thinking about "the get-go"

11/24/2021

What does the author want us to think about? What themes, ideas, issues, emotions, etc does the author want us to think about?

It's fine to say you don't understand the text, but then identify what it is that is confusing you. Write about what you think it could be about

27 Comments

Tyler Solomon

11/24/2021 07:25:45 am

Writing about Writing: The Get Go Journal Entry
After reading the first paragraph of The Get Go by Elizabeth McCracken, it was a sad and extremely engaging tale. It starts with descriptions of Sadie’s mother, father, and herself. Then after describing the mother’s hair, becomes a bit confusing because it starts elaborating on an atomic clock. That was a bit estranged because this story does not provide any details on the clock beforehand. What makes this opening paragraph extremely sad is the fact that Sadie loses her dad at the age of nine. Whenever a character loses her parent or a paternal figure it makes it easy for the audience to relate to these characters. One of the key takeaways though is the last sentence describing how odd it is that Sadie and her mother are different sizes. It’s interesting having a story focused on the looks rather than the loss of the father.
Another thing a reader can notice is the fact that a few of the words are misspelled. Not sure if the author accidentally misspelled these words or if they did so on purpose.
Another interesting aspect of this story is the fact that Sadie and her mother did not stay close. There was a time jump and it does not indicate that the mother and daughter were really close in the second and third paragraphs of the story. It’s interesting though that the daughter is bringing Jack to meet the mother. Ahat I find most interesting is hearing how Jack has been ignored through most of life, the story states that he felt that he was invisible for most of his life. Yet when Sadie’s mother was ignoring Jack it felt different to him because the mother purposely ignoring the man in front of her. This was interesting that Jack was impressed by his presence and noticed how his presence was enough to make the mother feel uncomfortable.
Another aspect this story has is the mysterious mother. This is a character that is shrouded by mystery.
Another thing that this story has is grief. Since Sadie lost her own father she is a bit upset. At first it didn’t seem like a big deal to or important of the story since they go over how Sadie originally thought that her Father’s passing was a joke of some kind. Yet the emotion that Sadie has is one that can no be explained. It is a very interesting way to show how Sadie handled death of a loved one.
This is an extremely interesting short story that focuses on a small group of characters. It was able to describe how a death in the family is able to change the way individual can live the rest of their life. It showed how Sadie and her had a relationship and what his last moments were before his passing. It also interesting that Sadie had a job that related to the field of writing. Then there is Linda who was quiet and also was not a fan of her own surroundings, she was a character that the reader could easily learn more about.

Madeline Gosselin

11/24/2021 07:25:59 am

The author of this short story is trying to spread awareness about how trauma or grief can present itself in different ways among different people. She is also trying to say that people who have barriers up because of trauma may be difficult to connect with but they still crave that human connection that we all innately possess. In Linda’s case, she develops a codependent relationship with her daughter and hoarding tendencies, and in Sadie’s case she appears to have a fear of commitment and an inability to be vulnerable. Although both Sadie and Linda are not made to be extremely likeable characters in the story, they are still worthy of love, just as anyone damaged by trauma or grief is.

Grace MacDonald

11/24/2021 07:30:13 am

In this story the author looks at the way trauma manifests in different ways through the characters. The author shows that the expression of trauma is not linear and looks different for every person and how these expressions may be traumatizing for those around the character as well as result in troubles with interpersonal relationships as a whole. The author does not glamorize or romanticize these expressions but pushes the reader to empathize despite it.

Kaylie St. Ours

11/24/2021 07:34:35 am

Grace, I liked that you mentioned that healing from trauma is not a linear process because I feel like this is greatly exemplified in the conclusion with Sadie. When Sadie finally reveals to Jack, after what seems to be a long time of dating, her feelings and thought processes of when she saw her father die really shows how trauma can be harbored in some until a boiling point so-to-say. While in Linda's case, the effects of her trauma are much more evident than Sadie, but that is not to say that Sadie doesn't feel the same effects of her fathers death. You brought some great things to light here in your post.

11/24/2021 07:34:47 am

It's really interesting to me how you both (Maddy and Grace M) see this as a kind of teaching moment. I would never have said that because I don't think fiction actively tries to teach lessons, but I also totally agree that this is a story of people marked by trauma. Even Jack, who somehow has never felt connected to anyone or seen by anyone, but now finds himself in this relationship with a woman who will not commit to him (seemingly), who, in her own way, refuses to see him for who he is.

Tyler Solomon

11/24/2021 07:32:39 am

That is an extremely interesting way of interpreting the work. Since the main character did lose someone their dad and we as readers understood how it affected everyone within the family.

Julia Sullivan link

11/24/2021 07:34:57 am

I didn't previously think about this story as trying to spread awareness about how trauma and grief can present itself in different ways, but that is a really good analysis of the text and I completely see that now.

Spencer

11/24/2021 07:35:12 am

I enjoyed reading your thoughts regarding get-go. It added proper emotional depth I may have completely ignored my first go around reading it. The part where you spoke about everyone in the story being deserving of love really sank in. I also like how you quickly described all the aspects of everyones relationship to each other. Your insights made me think about the story a little deeper, nice work!

Lexi

11/24/2021 07:27:37 am

I noticed the themes of family dynamics, generational conflicts, and connection in The Get-Go. These themes were present in different parts of the story, and serve as concepts that the author wants us to think about.

Emily Platt

11/24/2021 07:33:03 am

I agree, I noticed that the general conflict is between Jack and Linda and possibly even Sadie since she was aware of how her mother was treating Jack.

Kaylie St. Ours

11/24/2021 07:28:02 am

I think the author of The Get-Go is trying to have the reader consider how one's mental health can impact their personal relationships. With Linda being the individual whose suffering from mental illness, consequently, her relationship with Jack suffers in that she doesn't allow a certain closeness with him, and her relationship with Sadie suffers in that when Linda took the fall and needed help, she couldn't seem to humble herself and allow Sadie to see her in such a vulnerable state.

Madeline Gosselin

11/24/2021 07:36:42 am

Kaylie, I had some very similar thoughts about the story. One thing that I wonder, however, is if Linda chose not to contact Sadie when she fell because she felt too vulnerable, or if she was thinking of Sadie's trauma of seeing her father die and did not want to trigger those emotions for her again. I think that if Linda felt too vulnerable to call Sadie then she surly would have felt too vulnerable to call a non-family member like Jack. Either way, I think the moment shows how Linda really opened herself up to Jack in the end and trusted him.

Ashley Munoz

11/24/2021 07:28:11 am

believe that one of the things that the author is trying to get us to think about are the intricacies of relationships and the co-dependency that is created when families are “broken” by a trauma. Is say this, because Sadie’s father died tragically, and she experienced this in a way no person ever should, and while it seems she was able to become a functioning human, her mother, who experienced it in another way, was only every able to mask this. She more or less became a hermit. You see two ends of the spectrum between these women that hold so many similarities together as mother and daughter, i.e., Jack’s first meeting of Linda, where she and Sadie are wearing the same color red, that are working to live their lives with what the author describes as a tumor that could rupture. Yes, her mother finds a way to move along, and she is adored by many, however Jack is able to be this outside perspective of their differences and see where the pitfalls of this are, and how it can be negatively impactful on their lives, including his own now that he is Sadie’s partner.

Grace

11/24/2021 07:34:38 am

Exactly! Codependency seems to be a key issue the author wants the audience to think critically about specifically in terms of bonds formed or reconstructed due to trauma.

Emily Platt

11/24/2021 07:28:56 am

I believe that the author is trying to get us to think about why the mother may be so against the boyfriend at first. It is a mystery to us and to the boyfriend, however, it is later revealed and I feel that brings closure to both us as readers as well as Jack. I feel the author wants our emotions to be confused and maybe even anger towards the mother since Jack seems like he is a good boyfriend there is no real reason for the mother to dislike him. I feel like a theme could be there is always a reason for a person’s actions, this being since no one knew why she hated Jack until it was revealed at the end. It does not make it right how he was treated nor is it justified but there is now a reason for how she acted.

11/24/2021 07:36:52 am

I thoought this too at first, but then I started to think that it's actually Sadie that she is a bit afraid of--Sadie's sort of distancing of herself from her mother and from all people that might cause her hurt--and that Jack becomes a kind of link between two people that, because of this early tragedy, are not able to really connect.

Emily Daly

11/24/2021 07:38:02 am

I agree with your post. I think that Sadie's mother is harsh on Jack because it makes her think of her relationship with Sadie's father. Linda might not want Sadie to get her heartbroken if anything happens in her relationship to Jack which could be why she isn't interested in talking with him.

Julia Sullivan link

11/24/2021 07:29:27 am

The short story of Sadie and her mother Linda Brody. Linda is odd and doesn’t act the way most people do, she hadn’t since her husband’s death. “Everything that Sadie had told Jack about Linda, her height, her seriousness, her occasional unkindness, the way she fussed over Sadie’s weight, couldn’t carry a tune but sang, couldn’t remember the name of any of Sadie’s friends—none of it had prepared him for this truth. Sadie’s mother loved her unnervingly”(McCraken 6). I thought that this quote reveals a lot about Sadie and Linda’s relationship. The story is told from the perspective of Sadie’s boyfriend, Jack and the journey of their relationship. Jack developed a kind of business relationship with Linda and was never invited over.

He had so many questions for Sadie and Linda, about Timothy Brody, their late husband and father. Eventually later in the story Jack finds out that Sadie had watched her father die from an aneurysm. “That was the thing about her father’s death, what she never told anyone, that she had thought it was a joke. It was not the sort of secret that explained everything, or even anything, though she knew that was what Jack believed: a key for a lock. Something architecturally essential that couldn’t be disturbed without the help of professionals. A spell of the Snow-White variety that might awaken her to a different life. Better? Worse? Probably not worth the risk. Maybe the beast preferred being a beast, the swan brothers, the power of flight, the boy kidnapped by the Snow Queen, the ability not to care about the feelings of others and also the luminous cold”(McCracken 18).

I think that the author wants us to feel the truthfulness of the boyfriend and the mother's relationship and see why the characters are the way they are.

Ashley Munoz

11/24/2021 07:38:08 am

I like your word choice for the boyfriend and mother's relationship, to feel the truthfulness of it. We can see a bit of the evolution of it throughout the story and how, despite not necessarily liking each other, they found a common ground through their love of Sadie. Though they both have different perspectives of this. You also pointed out the fairytale like aspects of their trauma and how they live with them. This can be related to the co-dependency between the mother and the daughter that I had discussed, and how it could be healthy/unhealthy in different ways.

grace g

11/24/2021 07:29:52 am

What does the author want us to think about?

Here are a few things I think the author wanted the reader to think about when reading the story. Some themes were about loss and moving on. I found connection and reaching out to others for help and comfort to also be something important to the story. Finally the last few ideas I picked up on were unburdening oneself and what that can feel like.

I liked this short story but something about it seemed a bit sterile, like it was holding me at arms length and not really letting me in on what is happening.

Lexi

11/24/2021 07:35:04 am

I agree with this, but I think the story being "sterile" could have been intentional. Linda is hesitant to open up to Jack, and one could argue that it shows through the way the story is written

Spencer

11/24/2021 07:30:24 am

I know the story was about a boyfriend, Jack, who didn’t get along with his girlfriend's mother.
They don’t get along because the mother is extremely protective of saddie. Their relationship revolves around tolerance in regards to each other. They’re both extremely protective of Sadie. A lot of the themes are: innocence, love , loss, and protection. I found it pretty hard to write a lot about this story because by the end of the story Jack and Saddies mother come to an understanding regarding how to look over Saddie and the fact that she’ll be in good hands. I felt as if the whole plot was kind of predictable because in the end they come together in a crisis.

I also would like to add that I didn’t find the story that compelling or interesting. Guy doesn’t get along with his mother in law and he loves a girl but doesn’t know what happened to her father. In the end he gets along with his future mother in law, and completely understands his girlfriend's family dynamic and history. He also finds a deeper connection in his love with Sadie and wants to marry her. That’s all I really got emotionally from this story. I personally didn’t find the story compelling. I didn’t really find the descriptions all that interesting to read either. The only part I enjoyed was the moment where Linda slapped Jack's hand when he reached for the almonds. That was very funny and created a good sense of tension.

Nik Anninos

11/24/2021 07:34:53 am

Hey Spencer. I agree with you in the sense that the majority of my understanding with this story is that the clear theme throughout it is about loss and how one deals with that. I also agree that I didn't find the story all that fascinating with how similar a lot of the elements were. It would be great to read another story about loss and get another interpretation of it.

11/24/2021 07:30:37 am

I keep coming back to the last paragraph where we finally get Sadie's voice. We finally actually meet her through her. Prior to that, we get only Jack's perspective. In Jack's version of the story, it's Linda who is standoffish. We get the idea that she is protecting herself but mostly protecting Sadie after the tragedy of her father's death. But in Sadie's part of the story, when we actually here about how her father died and how she witnessed it as a 9 year old--which was, essentially, to not realize that her father is dying and to laugh at what she thought was a joke--we see, I would argue, how Sadie grew up distancing herself from her mother and that her being coddled was really about her mother's desire to connect and protect her and that Sadie is the one who is in some ways isolating herself. She says at the end that she knew in the moment of her father's death she would not let the tragedy and suffering of others touch her. She physically enacted this watching her father die, but you can read her relationshihp with her mother (it's her house she says before going in) and in her relationship to Jack--they are not married after 12 years of being together, that it is Sadie that has distanced herself from these people and not the other way around

Nik Anninos

11/24/2021 07:31:31 am

I'm not entirely sure what this story is about. It's intriguing to say the least. What I gathered the most from it in terms of my understanding is that this story seems to be about Sadie and her relationships with the people around her (ex: family) and the how she goes on about life. Her father's passing seems to be a big part of the story and how it's impacted her current being. Her relationship with her mother is an important element of this too when it comes to how they interact and connect with each other. It's not the best story to read in terms of mood and atmosphere. However, it could be relatable and timely for those who have or are dealing with loss. I didn't really care for the characters, but they are still compelling and relatable in terms of being human and how one goes about this type of situation.

Emily Daly

11/24/2021 07:34:05 am

The “Get-Go” from American Short Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken wants us to think about how Sadie and her mother are both grieving about the loss of Sadie’s father in different ways. After the loss of Sadie’s father, her mother and herself both had different grieving processes. This shows that the grieving process is different for everybody. Sadie’s mother doesn’t go out of her house, has a close relationship with her daughter, and doesn’t like Sadie’s friend Jack. Sadie seems like she’s afraid to commit to new relationships because she doesn’t anything bad to happen. Even though Sadie and her mother were both heartbroken by the loss of Sadie’s father, they still can have a happy life while honoring her father’s memory.

grace g

11/24/2021 07:40:53 am

I agree that the mentioning about Linda does not like to leave the house and let other people in. I think that it is a way of her protecting herself from further loss because of what she has experienced in the past.

Thinking about "the get-go"

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