AHWOSG-4

"Dressed fine? Goddamn it, you were not dressed fine. Open the window more. You looked like a retard. A little more. That's good. You cannot dress like that to an open house. This is what people wear. This is special occasion rules, my man. This is like, give me a break, you know? This is obvious stuff. This is just common sense."

Eggers characterizes himself in this passage. He uses that parent-to-child scolding tone, and this only makes him look bad because Toph is not his child, and his dressing improperly was not that big a deal. The syntactical structure of the sentences are short and simple. This is fitting for his curt reprimanding and impatient state. Eggers also uses anaphora and begins the last four lines with the the words, "This is." This is condescending to Toph. Eggers is overdoing the parent part, belittling Toph by insincerely simplifying his sentences, and rubbing it in his face by repeating it four times.

Eggers also throws in references to Toph's lowering the windows. These lines are so inappropriate that they are humorous. They disrupt the angry mood, and deconstruct Eggers' authoritative persona. Because Eggers is a character, the narrator, and the author of this book, the reader questions why he would include lines that make the reader unable to take him seriously. Why would he not represent himself in the best light? The reader realizes that Eggers' is not so concerned with preserving his image that with accurately representing himself. The "Open the window" lines are his way acknowledging his being an ass, and poking fun at himself. This perspective is of the all-grown-up Eggers looking back. There is a difference.

AHWOSG-3

"Should I lighten my hair? Does that whitening toothpaste really work?  Toph needs health insurance.  I need health insurance  Maybe I'm already sick.  It's already growing inside me.  Something, anything.  A tapeworm.  AIDS.  I have to get started, have to get started soon because I will die before thirty.  It will be random, my death, even more random than theirs.  I will fall somehow, will fall like she fell, when I found her."

After the death of his mother, Eggers adopts an ostentatious playful tone. He speaks lightly of his orphanage, plays well with Toph, and seems not to mourn at all.  Superficially, Eggers' appears disturbingly undisturbed, and unintentionally the reader finds herself questioning the character's integrity.  

However, through the tactful use of stream of consciousness as his writing style and the integration of juxtapositions in content, mood, and syntax, Eggers discreetly reveals to the reader his actual troubled state.

The greatest advantage of stream of consciousness is that it cannot lie.  These are the character's true thoughts however simple or however complex.  Though Eggers begins with and idiotic and trivial contemplation of hair color and toothpaste appropriate for his superficially pleasant tone, his thoughts ultimately gravitate towards horrid hypochondriac-esque visions of death.  That he [Eggers the character] inadvertently does this makes clear the true effect of the death of both his parents.  The impact was so powerful it left him stunned and unaware that he was in fact in pain, that he was truly perturbed. Eggers, the writer, in order for the reader to pick up on the emotions of his self as a character, utilizes juxtaposition. First, the rapid procession from light and fluffy content to a more heavy and serious topic signals to the reader that something is up, and because of the nature of the content of the passage, two differing moods are created: one airy and the other panicky.  Besides content and mood, Eggers also juxtaposes syntax.  The airy part of the passage is made up of simple questions and simple sentences: "Should I lighten my hair?... I need health insurance."  Then as it quickly moves into the panicky mood, the sentences are short fragments: "Something, anything.  A tapeworm.  AIDS."  These fragments resemble quick breathing and they serve as a swift transition into more serious content.  Then Eggers lengthens the sentences and repeats phrases and words within these sentences: "I have to get started, have to get started soon...It will be random, my death, even more random... I will fall somehow, will fall like she fell..."  The syntactical structure of these lines works because the longer length is fitting for the gravity of the topic and the redundancy of the repetition are like hiccups in his thinking fitting for his panicked state.  These subtleties in his writing help the reader pick up on the character's true feelings.

In addition to juxtaposition, Eggers also uses ambiguous pronouns to display his scarred mind.  First Eggers uses the pronoun "theirs" without mentioning a possible antecedent, but because the reader is aware of only two people who have died, she knows Eggers is referring to his parents.  Then Eggers writes "she" followed by "her" again without first mentioning to whom he is referring, but again, the reader knows Eggers is referring to his mother.  Using ambiguous pronouns signifies that these characters, his mother and father, are so constantly on his mind that they need no introduction.  Though it may not seem so, Eggers is still very distressed by the deaths of his parents.

AHWOSG-2

 "We shouldn't spend the last hours fighting it; no, we will know and let it go--turn the TV off right away, of course-- But would that be too dramatic?  Fuck, we can be dramatic here, we can-- Well, we'd ask her, of course, dumbshit, it'd be up to Mom of course, the TV, whether it was on or off--it's her show of course--that's a dumb way of putting it, 'her show,' so crass, such disrespect, you fucking dumbshit.  Fuck.  Okay, so we'd have some time, we could sit there, hang out, just sit there, it'd be nice--  Jesus, it's not going to be nice, not with the blood everywhere--"

The fact that this passage is written completely in stream of consciousness makes Eggers' mind absolutely and powerfully accessible to the reader.  The passage is honest and only crudely filtered, and the stream of consciousness style is the appropriate device to portray how the sensitivity and functionality necessitated by an expected death is awkward for Eggers.  Thoughts of death are ever present in his mind, and his self-consciousness in dealing with this matter is highlighted by the line, "it's her show of course--that's a dumb way of putting it, 'her show,' so crass, such disrespect, you fucking dumbshit;'' the first clause is his uninhibited thinking, and the second is his self-consciousness rebuking him for the insensitivity of his first thought.  The conflict between Eggers uninhibited and Eggers crudely filtered reveals his belief that sensitivity is always and constantly required with death; Eggers' is unable to think freely even away from the judgement of others.  In addition, Eggers seems to have convinced himself that his mother's imminent death requires him to take charge and run things kind of like when a person throws a party.  He writes, " Okay, so we'd have some time, we could sit there, hang out, just sit there, it'd be nice-- "  It's like he feels it is his job to be host, to accommodate people, even though the party would have run smoothly even without his presence.  Then the self-conscious self-doubting strikes and he thinks, "Jesus, it's not going to be nice, not with the blood everywhere--"  Once again two sides of him conflict: his duty-burdened side, and his self-conscious side.

To strengthen his use of stream of consciousness, Eggers uses obscene diction and a mindful syntactical arrangement.  Using profanity in this passage works well because it adds to the crudity of the passage and the reality of these being actual thoughts.  Plus, it accentuates his discomfort and self-consciousness.  As for syntax, Eggers uses a generous amount of dashes, and this makes the hiccupy nature of his thoughts more obvious and the conflicting nature of his thoughts more defined. 

AHWOSG-1

"...they had 'opened her up'--a phrase they used--and had looked inside, it was staring out at them, at the doctors, like a thousand writhing worms under a rock, swarming, shimmering, wet and oily--Good God!--or maybe not like worms but like a million little podules, each tiny city of cancer, each with an unruly, sprawling, environmentally careless citizenry with no zoning laws whatsoever.  When the doctor opened her up, and there was suddenly light thrown upon the world of cancer-podules, they were annoyed by the disturbance, and defiant.  Turn off.  The fucking.  Light."

That the doctor's had "opened up" mom, and that Eggers chose to phrase her surgery this way, allows reader's to see more than surgery.  The ambiguous phrase can be taken figuratively and we can see surgery as a sort of inspection of "mom's" character.  Egger's utilizes a nasty diction: "swarming, shimmering, wet...oily...unruly, sprawling."  Perhaps he does this to get the reader to associate bad things with the inside of "mom."

Egger's passage also characterizes the protagonist.  At this point, his mother is almost dead, yet he is able to joke and write metaphors that compare the tumor in her body to wriggling worms and podules.  These metaphors characterize the protagonist as a quirky and imaginative guy who either cannot express himself well, or has simply accepted the idea of his mother's sickness and is fine with it.  The last lines in italics suggest the latter or suggests anyway that the protagonist believes he is at the latter.  We know this because light is symbolic of knowledge and awakening, and the worms have a double significance as both cancer and the protagonist as he was once in his mother, in her womb.  As her child, when the light of knowledge was shed upon him he reacted crankily and angrily.  The italicized lines also suggests the protagonists assumes characters that are not his own and speaks through them.