At the start of the memoir, in chapter 1, Dave and Toph's relationship isn't portrayed to be the main focus of the chapter, but significantly Dave is showing signs of taking the carer role early on. Dave uses the declarative sentence of "let's go" to showcase his verbal power over Toph - like a parent looking after a child. Also he shows some parental concern over Toph as he disagrees with Tophs claim that he can "stay alone" showing that he knows it's wrong to leave a young child alone in a house. Furthermore the use personal pronoun "you" and verb "can't" is effective as it portrays the iconic parent as it gives the audience the sense that Dave is enforcing his responsibility for Toph and taking control of the situation by getting Toph to listen to him.
At the end of Chapter 1, page 45, Dave expresses his sympathy for Toph's well being as he is experiencing his mothers death. Egger uses the metaphor to "take his hand (Toph).. and fly up and over the quickly sketched trees" to show this as it he may feel that the unfortunate loss of his mother is too hard to believe, as if it was just a bad dream. Also the imagery indicates that Dave understands that it's unbearable to watch his own mother die as he describes that he wants to escape the situation. Furthermore the adjective "sketched" supports the idea of escapism as the connotations of "sketched" reminds the audience of a fictional cartoon.
At the start of chapter 2, after the death of their mother, Eggers portrays Dave and Toph's brotherly banter with the singing scene. Eggers uses the interrogative form to illustrate Dave's challenging of Toph's independence of thought with a closed question " Can I sing or what?" in which Toph answers "no". This could be a method in which Dave uses in order to inject happiness into their unfortunate lives, but also to keep Toph from having to think about the death of their parents which helps with the mental recovery of losing a relative, On the other hand their banter can cross the line sometimes, in page 89, Eggers uses irony in the declarative of "always the best games having some kind of threatening injury, or near accident" to indicate that he is reflecting upon how stupid his past self (Dave) was. As the reaction of Toph supports this as he says "don't" along with the verbial phrase " backing away" indicating Toph's uncertainty upon Dave's seriousness or playful behaviour.
Good structure and some good close analysis. Ensure you establish that it is a memoir with Eggers reflecting on his younder self, Dave's, difficulties in raising Toph. Check which sentence mood "let's go" is. Look closely at paragrpah one - where did you need a possessive apostrophe? Paragraph 2? Don;t forget to deal with form, structure and context as well as language in each paragraph. Remember to use linking discourse markers rather than just moving chronologically through the memoir.
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