Double-entry

Response Journal for:
In These Girls,
Hope Is A Muscle
by
Madeline Blais

Use of Figurative Language:

p. 61 - “In a small town it’s always a thrill to have athletes of the quality of Jamila or Jen but to have them on one team was a kind of miracle, like some new and rare hybrid discovered by the research scientists at the university creating a two-headed stalks of corn.”

This simile is used extremely well by the author, Madeline Blais, because she is helping to describe the team that these girls played on to her readers. This helps her to explain to the audience the type of team that their school had. It was constant conflict between the two stars for the spotlight, and they were fighting relentlessly to coexist. The use of a simile helps to explain the foreign and unknown phenomenon that it was to have two stars with such talent in the same color uniform. She describes it to be like an awkward scientific discovery or mutation. This simile helps the author to build the characters of the basketball team, and to further emphasize the conflict which engulfs it.

p. 127 - “As he put it, he had picked over the loss against Northampton ‘like the bones of a Thanksgiving turkey.”

This excerpt is talking about the start of a new season, the season after the heartbreaking defeat to Northampton. The author is a using a simile to describe the way the coach felt about the end to their last season, and the way that he had thought about the loss for the entire off-season. This helps to show the reader coach Moyer’s true feelings about the way they lost that game. This also helps to build the coach’s character of being relentless, and not stopping anything short of wining the championship. This is another beautifully used simile to help the reader further take a grasp on the book.


Use of Vocabulary:

p. 55 - “Jen liked to manufacture her own aphorisms.”

This short excerpt is just an example of the great vocabulary used in this biography of the girls basketball team. Although it is just one single word, that word makes the reader think. And if you can make the reader think while reading the novel, then they will enjoy the experience a great deal more. This also is a character building word to describe Jen’s character, and her little quirks that make her different.

p. 154 - “. . . that special store of energy that kicks your entire being into a kind of animalistic super sensory awareness.”

The vocabulary that Blais uses in this part of the book is truly descriptive language at its best. The detailed description of what she is describing brings the readers into the book so that they can see, and feel what she is talking about. In this excerpt she is describing where adrenaline comes from. This language greatly adds to the novels content, and helps the reader to become emotional connected with what they are reading.


Setting:

p. 23 - “In her neighborhood, built during the eighties in boom times, each dwelling was different, so that a Cape might be next door to a contemporary with a stucco exterior next to a Dutch Colonial with a gambrel roof alongside a neo-Victorian. The one feature that unites many of the houses, the common “quote,” as architects like to call characteristics that are shared or echoed, are the basketball hoops found in driveway after driveway, as a American flagpole, and like one in their tall rectitude.”

A book without a well set description of the setting is like a pool without water, you can not use it. The author telling the story of this girls basketball team sets the stage for the story in a extremely descriptive manner. As you can see from the excerpt it is easy to be able to visualize the town in which these girls live. As a reader I am able to see the variety shown in the different types of houses, but I also can see the unity of the basketball hoops. She use a simile here to further emphasize this certain continuity that exists in Amherst. It helps the reader to see the town, so that every time something happens in the book they can make the connection to what it must look like because of Blais’ description of the setting.

p. 25 - “A Volvo in every garage,’ ‘Where adolescence lasts forever,’ and his personal favorite, ‘Amherst: Where sexuality is an option and reality is an alternative.’ Townspeople often refer to Amherst, fondly as ‘Never-never land.’ The chamber of commerce ended up choosing as its motto “There’s no place like downtown Amherst.”

Setting descriptions do not always have to be about physical make-ups of places, but the mental make-up of certain places. This is exactly what this excerpt talks about, because it states the mental makeup of Amherst. It helps the reader to better understand the town, so that when things happen later in the book they can connect to the makeup of the town. as you can see Madeline Blais beautifully describes the setting of the book to her audience.


Characterization:

p. 21-22 - “In five years Jamila had never missed a game. In five years she’d never missed a practice. Tonight’s defeat was unacceptable.”

This is just one of many beautiful character building excerpts written by the author. It helps to build the character determination that Jamila possessed. These simple sentences are extremely effective for description, because they come across strong and powerful. The readers needed to know how Jamila felt about the team’s loss, and this does it great.

p. 17 - “Coach Ron Moyer arose from his traditional place in the first seat opposite the driver on the right-hand side. He unfolded his six-foot, six-inch frame as best he could, cramped from having stuffed himself into a seat intended for someone half his size. If he ever retired from coaching, it would be to escape this one torment.”Setting descriptions do not always have to be about physical make-ups of places, but the mental make-up of certain places. This is exactly what this excerpt talks about, because it states the mental makeup of Amherst. It helps the reader to better understand the town, so that when things happen later in the book they can connect to the makeup of the town. as you can see Madeline Blais beautifully describes the setting of the book to her audience.

For all main characters in any book there needs to be a physical description to go along with them. Since the coach is one of the main characters in this book the readers needed to be able to see him, and visualize him every time his name is mentioned. This is exactly what this quote does. It explains his physical stature in an easily picturable way. Without out a physical description the readers would be left to imagine the character on their own, which would not be the most effective way for the author to explain the book.


Theme:

p. 23 - “She used to love it. She joined the team in the eighth grade, a year after Jamila. But now; now, she had to wonder. Jen admitted to herself she’d been angry a lot of the preceding season. Coach acted as if only the only person on the team was Jamila. So did the media, for that matter. It was the as if in the eyes of the world they were Jamila’s team, not the Amherst Hurricanes.”

As in all books there are many different themes in this book, but one of the most predominant is conflict. Without conflict a book gets boring, thus there is always conflict in all books. In this paragraph the author is describing the conflict that exists between the two leaders of the team, Jen and Jamila. This is Jen’s belief of what it is to have Jamila as the star of the team, and how having a player of her stature is not as fun. She does not like the way how Jamila is getting all of the publicity, and that she feels she is being left in the dust.

p. 61 - “That summer, they all made an individual decision to improve, to excel, to push themselves to the limit, and beyond.”

This example of theme talks about the players on the Hurricanes. It talks about their need to win, and the thought that they never wanted to lose again like they had that year. They decided to push themselves so that they would never come up short again. So this excerpt describes their wanting to win, and their need for success. They never again wanted to take second place. Blais emphasizes this theme to help the readers see the character makeup of the team.


Use of Color:

p. 53 - “The bountiful blue balmy days at the end of summer in New England are tender because they are so short-lived.”

Female authors never seem to stop at a simple description. They always go beyond, like this quote. Blais does not only say the days are “blue,” but she goes much further. This is all to help the reader get more involved in the story, and to help them see what she wants them to see. This use of color helps to further describe the scene of Amherst.

p. 202 - “With her black hair laced with gray and unremitting blue eyes, Bernadette Jones surprised the other mothers with her occasional ferocity.”

This use of color by the author is meant to describe a character of the book. Using color helps the readers to visualize the person, and to help them see exactly what the author wants them to see. It is used her to describe the induction of a new character to the book. It is descriptions like these that has made this book great.