Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Taking siblings for granted
Ship's Brother tells a story of a boy, who not unlike many brothers initially dislikes his sister. However, his sister is not a normal human but a "Mind" that his mother gave birth to directly. A "Mind" lives longer than a human and is adapted to further explore and examine space. I liked how the story was told in the 2nd person with the mother being the speaker and the character being the reader. This 2nd person tone almost reminds me of my own mother talking to me. The boy vocally resents his sister and proceeds to run away from his home to board a hibernation ship. In the end, he admits to missing ALL of his family but his mother knows that he will see his sister again. Having 2 mean older sisters that loved to outshine me allowed me to understand where this boy was coming from. However, being separated from my sisters for years has allowed me to appreciate them more, like in this story. Did any of you feel a personal connection to the boy's relationship to his sister? Do you think most people take siblings for granted? What were your opinions on the 2nd person narration of this story? Did the narrator speaking to the reader remind you of your own mother?
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This was one of my favorite stories from this week's readings, although it was very sad. The mother's narration felt very similar to "Story of Your Life," and it was a change of pace that I really enjoyed. My brother and I are not very close, mostly due to the six year age gap between us, which helped me connect to the story quite a bit. Neither one of us resents the other (hopefully), but I can certainly relate to the distance between someone I wish I were closer with. I can call him up and we can talk for hours, but those conversations only happen two or three times a year at most. It's nice to know that he's always there though, which I guess means we take each other for granted just a little bit. We could work so much harder to stay in touch but we don't, simply because we know the other one is just a phone call away if something really were to happen.
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