https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd Use this padlet to prepare for discussion. Add one question and one answer with textual references. If someone else already wrote a question similar to what you were going to ask, lean away from that question and come up with another question. Don't forget to like someone's post and leave a comment. en-us 2022-04-20 03:11:56 UTC 2025-11-17 18:06:09 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f333.png https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153621037 The advice given by the sisters, Great-Aunt Eliza and Grandmother (Sophia Jane) is completely contradictory to their actions, developing a theme of hypocrisy. They "spoke to children always as if they knew  best about everything and children knew nothing," while also "bickering like two little girls at school" and "dipping snuff." Their actions actively contradict what they preach to the children, which is to be safe and calm and good (the opposite of how they behave). They set a bad example and expect the impressionable children to do what they tell them to do even though they of not follow the rules they set themselves. This develops the theme of hypocrisy because they display it throughout text and continually expect their demands to be blindly followed, despite their contradictory actions. 
- Hannah Lybrand]]> 2022-04-22 13:50:48 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153621037 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153880353 Throughout the duration of the excerpt, Miranda's youthful and observatory personality often lands her in harsh truths. Her grandma and Great Aunt typically "spoke to children always as if they knew best about everything." Yet, despite their seemingly mature personalities, the two seem to devolve into bickering like "two little school girls," whenever the slightest disagreements arises between the pair. Forcing her granddaughter to listen and follow her every instruction, she deftly pushes her away; informing the audience of their relationships dynamics as well as developing a melancholy tone. Trying to prevent her from focusing on her Great Aunt's smoking, Miranda's grandmother gifts her a gum drop, hoping that if she "gave [her] a gumdrop, [she'd] get out from underfoot." Leaving them be, Miranda retreats with her new, familial knowledge kept close.
- Ethan White]]> 2022-04-22 16:59:11 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153880353 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153918359 Throughout the excerpt, Miranda's grandmother and great aunt bicker like siblings do and Miranda compares them to herself and her sister, as if trying to connect herself to her elders. Miranda sees that her grandmother and great aunt act childishly "bickering like two little girls at school", and are hypocritical and condescending to children despite saying that they are "proud of being grandmothers" which is a childish way of acting, especially when its mentioned that "... they were always right and children never were except when they did anything they were told right away without a word." it shows that they're insecure about the authority that they have over people younger than them and believe that putting them down will give them more control over them, like some children do when they want people to pay attention to them to make them feel better about themselves. Which gives Miranda the impression that older people aren't much different from people her own age, or that they don't ever truly grow up. 
- Alexis]]> 2022-04-22 17:30:43 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153918359 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153929727 In the first Paragraph, Aunt Eliza talks about how Hinry does good work as long as he is following exactly what she is telling him to do. This exhibits control because the women clearly believe that the children are dumb, and need constant instruction in order to survive. Later in the passage, Miranda says that the women are "never wrong" and the children are "never right". This also displays control since the women will not accept any sort of opinion from the children, since they believe that they are simply drones that are able to be changed and molded since they are dumb and cannot think or act for themselves.

- Noah Perricelli]]> 2022-04-22 17:40:09 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2153929727 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2159306709 In the fourth paragraph, Miranda begins to describe her Grandmother and her Great Aunt. When describing her grandmother, "She was very thin and pale and had white hair", she didn't say very much and Miranda's words were overall neutral, they weren't negative words, but they weren't words that praised the grandmother's appearance either. When Miranda shifts over to describing her Aunt, "Great-Aunt Eliza loomed like a mountain with her grizzled iron-colored hair...", this diction is fairly negative in contrast to her description of her Grandmother. In fact, Miranda spends more time describing her Great-Aunt. This focus on appearance is something that an upper-class family would not only value heavily, but they would teach this to a young girl as impressionable as Miranda. Appearance was highly valued in the 1960s by the upper-class. Although by class, Great-Aunt Eliza is a 'lady'; Eliza's "smell of snuff" and the fact that "when she came through the door she quite filled it up", puts Eliza, at least in Miranda's and her grandmother's eyes, at the same level as the 'lower-class women'. 
- Haley Hix]]> 2022-04-26 21:52:31 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2159306709 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2176088458 Throughout the excerpt, Miranda is constantly degrading her Aunt Eliza in a derogatory tone when she uses certain adjectives to describe her, "Great Aunt Eliza loomed like a mountain with her grizzled iron-colored hair...." When Miranda quotes this, it makes the reader think "did a young girl truly use this grammar when describing a relative?" Earlier on in the passage when Miranda's grandmother is talking to her aunt, Miranda quotes that they were "bickering like two little girls at school", which relays back to the description that Miranda uses to quote her aunt. This allows the reader to catch a glimpse of what her grandmother says to her behind closed doors. This shows Miranda's pure innocence, and due to the way that her grandmother and aunt talk around her and to her, that's hypothetically where the harsh projector of Miranda's demeanor comes from.

- Larkin]]> 2022-05-09 16:56:54 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2176088458 https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2181613679 Miranda's grandmother and great aunt have very old-fashioned ideas about children, talking to them "as if they knew best about everything and that children know nothing", and that children should be seen and not heard. This is reflected in Miranda's behavior around them. Around her sister, she seems like a normal misbehaving child, "nagging and picking on each other", but around her elders she seems reluctant to be noticed at all, especially when she tries to sneak back to the house without being seen. Miranda is also heavily influenced by her grandmother in her ideals. When talking about her grandmother and great aunts appearances, she says that her grandmother "had always been the pretty one" and the great aunt "was not pretty now and never had been". This indicates that Miranda spent a great deal of time with her grandmother who told her about who the prettiest one was in their youth. It also steers Miranda away from habits that the grandmother thinks could be a bad influence. The great aunt climbs ladders and does snuff, which could be seen as 'not proper' enough for the grandmother. She could be telling Miranda bad things about her great aunt so she doesn't end up unladylike like her.
-Olivia]]> 2022-05-12 16:56:49 UTC https://padlet.com/ajwhaley/4841qw5fafggypwd/wish/2181613679