Quote Two
Setareh Gerashi Mr. Bowe Sunday 06th January, 2008. English
“The brightly lit shop windows attracted Sky‟s attention even more than they had during the day. Perhaps it was because she had lost all her own possessions that the displays of the rich dresses, glittering jewellery and highly polished furniture seemed to belong to a totally different world to the one in which she lived. She couldn‟t resist a wry smile when she read the price tag on one dress, a frothy confection of wild silk edged with silver. The money somebody would spend buying that would feed them all for at least a month!” (27)
This quote is from the beginning of the book where Sky, an abandoned girl, and her brother Chip have recently met Dig, another throwaway. Dig helps them run away from the Catchers so they don‟t get caught. Catchers are people who take throwaways to the cruel care camps or sell them off for slavery so that they are away from the posh city people. Then Sky, Chip and Dig went into the city that night to get some food when something bright caught Sky‟s eye: the bright expensive shop. This passage fits into the novel because this is probably how many poor people feel as soon as they stare into the shop at the beautiful expensive things. This really describes how depressed Sky had felt from the time her family became penniless till now. When she saw the furniture and the price she was became dejected. Because of how they looked magnificently beautiful, she got the idea of how poor and abandoned people like her don‟t get to ever earn such things. The wry smile explained everything. When she smiled after seeing the price tag really means that she was thinking why is she wasting time looking at the shop when she can never afford such expensive items after where her life is leading her. I think she was also thinking about the time when she had a pleasant wealthy life and she could‟ve afforded such things where now she is really pitiful about how her is leading to a bad direction. Another thing which depressed Sky was that the price of a dress that a normal well-off would buy can actually pay for food which can last them for at least a month. She had probably thought to herself how people can pay this much money for only a dress, while poor people would make a long lasting use of it.
This passage is important to the book because this is probably what most homeless people feel like when they see expensive things in the city shops, wishing they could have one. It could even probably be one of their dreams of having a thing they have seen one day while sneaking into the city. Sometimes you might see a throwaway just gazing and having their eyes fixed at their favourite item from outside the shop start fantasizing about having it. Over time they might even start believing such items are meant to not be for them. Since many cannot afford such expensive things, they get turned down and become dejected. When I read the quote, it was really saddening. From the passage, „rich dresses, glittering jewellery and highly polished furniture
seemed to belong to a totally different world to the one in which she lived‟ I found the author‟s use of language very strong and powerful. It
really gives the point that she strongly thinks such items as luxurious and expensive are not made for them or they aren‟t allowed to own such things. Since people in the poor live in poverty, they would rarely ever get to buy nice fresh food to eat and they only can afford looking for things in the rubbish Tip, and city people don‟t think about such things. They probably have many of these dresses in their wardrobes, and they don‟t to even care about other people less fortunate people and how the price of a single dress can be a fortune for them. I‟m glad that I‟m not in Sky‟s position, because life seems so hard for her not being to buy a single thing she might really like. Although I have days where I want to buy something which is expensive but my parents don‟t think they are worth the price, or it‟s just something useless so I don‟t get to buy it. I do get sad sometimes because I really wanted it, but then I do feel that it‟s not worth it later on. The author raises an interesting idea into the passage: that sometimes poor people feel that the items in the shop belong to different worlds that they were. Since poor people might not ever get a chance of owning things from the expensive stores, what my mum does is that when sometimes she buys things like jackets of jeans for us, and we rarely ever wear them, she decides to give them to the less fortunate than throwing it in the trash or filling up my wardrobe with clothes that we‟re never going to wear.