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Interstellar By Rebecca Mcclanahan

Good Essays

Rebecca McClanahan’s essay, “Interstellar,” is a memoir explaining what it is like, “To be the sister of a sad and beautiful woman,” (354). This line is one of the many uses of repetition the narrator utilizes to speak on the relationships her sister and her endure, while also explaining their relationship with each other. These relationships are magnified by the narrator’s use of literary elements such as metaphors, allusion, repetition, second person voice and her diction. These elements help develop characters, as well as give us a deeper sense of the relationships between the characters themselves. In McClanahan’s, “Interstellar,” she builds her relationship with her sister and her sister’s character through the use of metaphors. In …show more content…

This metaphor of the stars goes from showing us the envy the narrator had to possibly just being her feeling left out, not necessarily a bitter feeling towards her sister. The metaphor continues by explaining that stars are corruptible, “Stars are not made of heavenly ether, but of the same corruptible elements that comprise earth” (357). This piece of the metaphor is in reference to the sister and how her beauty is waning and she isn’t treated as beautifully as she “should be” as we see the abuse she endured when she was raped, and from there she seems to cycle in and out of harmful relationships. In addition, the stars being corruptible show us the transformation of how the narrator from being childishly jealous of her sister to now her view of her sister is corrupted, she now feels bad and pities her sister. To conclude the essay the metaphor finalizes by stating, “You want to spin back light years from today, hold your sister on your lap, rock her luminous beauty in your arms until it stops hurting” (359). This metaphor brings the essay to a close and helps the reader realize that the author just cares for her sister, no longer envying her or wanting to be the star- but only wishing that all the wrongdoing she endured for being such a “luminous beauty” would dissipate. The family constellation was the sister as the star, always chased by men and other observers making them the tail. However, this transforms into the narrator being the tail, not

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