Usually a memoir is full of happy memories of somebody’s life, but in the case of “What she gave me” by Anne Lamott the story is completely different. She starts by telling the audience all the bad memories she has of her cold pretending to be English mother and how she was with her during all her life. At the beginning of the story she talks about all the things her mother missed in her life and how she wouldn’t be like that with her son. But at the end she realizes that besides having many bad qualities her mother had little details that are the ones that make her miss her, no matter how many bad things she did to her.
This subject of this article is notoriously about a very bay relationship between a mother, who gives a lot of importance to appearances, and a girl, who is the writer, that is the completely the opposite to her mother and that has a very liberal life in contrast of how her mother taught her to be, that were a few things. The story is relevant to this time because back in time women had to follow a unique way of conduct in society all her life, no matter if they were happy or not, but in this case the girl rebels against her mother and becomes a person who does things to be happy and not to please the society in which she lives. The audience is the readers of the magazine and every person who identifies with this situation, and anyone who had a similar story like this. The point in this story is that no matter how bad a mother can be with her child, no matter how she behaves with her children, no matter how many bad memories the person has with her mother, because very deep inside every person, not only the writer, has fond memories, little and sometimes irrelevant, with mothers and fathers that are the ones that keep us attached to them.
In this article I liked a lot that the writer used very explicit and graphic images of the memories she had of her mother, like when she laid in the bed that was a mess and didn’t care at all, “Her bed was littered with wrappers and crumbs, because she did not know how to separate her pain from the great amount of food she ate, and I had to fight like mad to heal from eating disorders.” I liked to use that method in order that my audience has very graphic image of what I want to transmit to them and it is easier to make them understand what I would mean.
