My+Sister's+Keeper+ECQ's

__**My Sister's Keeper**__  __**ECQ's**__

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__** ECQ #1 - **__

**Dominant theme**: People have control over their own lives. **Quote #1**: “They called her Freak, because she wasn’t one of us. One day Julia Romano arrived at school with short pink hair” (Picoult 120). **Explanation**: At this point in the novel we are realizing the story of Julia Romano, the guardian ad litem for Anna Fitzgerald who is sewing her parents for medical emancipation. An act so defiant and rebellious it is potentially ending the life of her sister. Anna is taking control of her own life by sewing her parents; ironically Julia is the perfect example of defiance. While in school Julia was an outcast or a “freak” in a school where you had to fit the mold. The author uses “pink” in this quote as more then just a description of the color of her hair. “Pink” was the color of defiance for Julia, it defines the main storyline of the book. Both Anna and Julia felt that everyone and thing around them was a dull gray, unbearable. So they felt that they needed to do something drastic, something everyone would notice. Breaking up the gray with “pink”. Julia took control of her own life by making a statement with her hair; Anna is making a statement with the lawsuit.


 * Dominant theme**: People have control over their own lives.
 * Quote #2**: “The thing is, I do have a choice. Which is exactly why I have to be the one to do this” (Picoult 54).
 * Explanation**: In this chapter, Anna is telling the story from her point of view. Her older sister, Kate, is suffering from leukemia, so the only reason Anna was born was to provide bone marrow and other necessities for Kate to survive. Although, Kate now needs a kidney, but Anna has a “choice” to either give her kidney up or not. Furthermore, Anna has decided to sue her parents for the rights to her own body because she has had enough. She is the “one” who is going to stand up for herself and not let Kate or her parents decide what she should do. When Kate is sick in the hospital, Anna always winds up there too. She does not like that because it means she does not have time to make friends. All in all, Anna has sacrificed most of her time and life to keep Kate alive, but Anna has the ability to choose if she wants to continue with that by giving up her kidney or if she wants to draw the final line no matter what the outcome may be.

__**ECQ #2**__


 * Dominant Theme**: Children strive for attention.
 * Quote #1**: "I notice the fork he is holding, and realize this is what he has used to pull off his braces. 'Now you never have to take me anymore,' he says" (Picoult 167).
 * Explanation**: Children are always trying to get the attention of their parents in different ways. There are some situations where parents pay more attention to one child than the other. In this part of the book, Jesse wanted to go to the orthodontist and then get his cleats. His mother was not doing anything, yet she still would not take him. So, it really hurt Jesse and it made him "realize" how much he felt invisible. When he "realized" that, he started to rebel because he was not going to be noticed either way. Even when Sara went upstairs and saw that Jesse had ripped his own braces off, she did not "realize" the damage she had done. She had started a never-ending rebel who was going to turn into a horrible child. If children do not get the attention they both want and need from their parents, they will take drastic measures just so they can get noticed.

**Dominant theme**: Children strive for attention. **Quote #2**: “Dad, I said, when are we going? But he was busy wadding up toilet paper, bunching it up Kate's nose. Dad? I repeated. My father looked right at me, but he didn't answer. And his eyes were dazed and staring through me, like I was made out of smoke. That was the first time I thought maybe I was” (Picoult 245). **Explanation**: Kids desperately strive for attention. In the novel, My Sister's Keeper, Jesse as a child was never noticed. He was always left behind due to the fact Kate and Anna were a higher priority. One day Jesse finally got what he wanted, to skateboarding out in public, but right as his parents returned, Kate was ill once more. Blood dripped down her skin and they immediately brought her to the bathroom to clean her up. Jesse asked when they would go out in the school to skateboarding and they never responded to him. Jesse says that he was made of “smoke”, and he finally thought he may have been. Children who don't get their attention begin to feel like “smoke” to their parents. Kids then start to feel like they aren't even a part of the family. If parents don't give their children attention, they will grow up and eventually be used to that and develop strange feelings.

**__ECQ #3__** **Dominant Theme**: People have control over their life. **Quote**: “It doesn't work that way,” I say. “You started this lawsuit. You wanted to be someone other than the person your family's made you for the past thirteen years. And that means you have to pull back the curtain and show us who she is” (Picoult 348). -Campbell  **Explanation**: At this point in the novel, Campbell is trying to get Anna to testify on the stand, but she is refusing to. Anna is the one who “started this lawsuit”, so she should follow through with it. She needs “to pull back the curtain” and “show” everyone that she can stand up for herself. By standing up for herself, Anna would tell the court her reasoning behind why she does not want to give her kidney to Kate. Furthermore, if Anna still wants “to be someone other than the person” her family has made her, she will have to testify. If she does not testify, then people may think she has changed her mind. They will not believe Anna is capable of making her own decisions unless she speaks for herself and takes control. However, Anna does have the ability to control her own life, but she needs to prove that she can defend herself and state her point of view and opinion in court. **Dominant theme**: The relationship between a parent and a child is tenuous, yet momentous. **Quote**: “I realize I cannot remember exactly when he stopped asking. But I do remember feeling as if something had gone missing, as if the loss of a kid’s hero worship can ache like a phantom limb” (Picoult 332). **Explanation**: Brian explains that once, Jesse used to ask him question after question. The questions were about any number of things, but mainly hinged around one central idea. Jesse would most often ask Brian about being a firefighter, and about saving people. However, at one point, Jesse stopped asking. At the time, it wasn’t something Brian really noticed. The change was gradual enough that, although something may have seemed a bit off, as if “something had gone missing”, he could not discern exactly what it was. Looking back on it after, Brian is able to see what happened, and he realizes how much things this impacted him. Where once Jesse looked on him with respect and awe, now Jesse treats him with anger or apathy. Brian now sees this, and wishes he could change how things turned out. =

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= **__ECQ #4__** =
 * Theme**: Cherish the little things in life.


 * Quote**: “My mother let me have that picture of Anna. But I didn’t frame it; I put it into an envelope and sealed it and of a filing cabinet. It’s there, just in case one of these days I start to lose her” (Picoult 423).


 * Explanation**: After finishing the book, it is discovered Anna was killed and gave her kidney to save Kate. Now that she is gone, every mourns her loss. Kate feels that due to the whole incident, she thinks that it was her fault for letting Anna die. People should cherish the little things in life before they are gone, such as the relationship between Kate and Anna. The “picture of Anna” is one item Kate was able to keep to remind herself of her sister, the very one who is flowing through her body. Kate cherished the bond between them and was able to move on. Because of her cherishing all the moments they shared, she won't “lose” her due to her time spent cherishing her sister. When Kate “stuffed it far back into a corner drawer”, she was able to cherish the bond between her and her sister, which is main theme of the book, to cherish things. Without cherishing things in life, when they are lost you won't be able to move on in life.


 * Dominant theme**: Grief is only temporary although loss is forever


 * Quote**: “My mother let me have that picture of Anna. But I didn’t frame it; I put it into an envelope and sealed it and stuffed it far back into the drawer of a filing cabinet. It’s there, just in case one of these days I start to lose her” (Picoult 423).


 * Explanation**: This point in the novel is the most powerful because it is the very end. We now know that Anna did not make the decision to sue her parents for medical emancipation independently, and it was Kate influencing her decisions. From this we know that Anna loves her sister more then she loves her own reputation and the rest of the family. Of course this also brings up the idea that Kate doesn’t love Anna as much Anna loves Kate because Kate is willing to risk her own life, which Anna clearly cares so much about because she just cant handle it anymore. But now we see the other side of Kate’s story because at this point it is told from her perspective. The author uses this point to describe the feelings Kate has after Anna’s death, the “envelope” is Kate herself. And the picture symbolized Anna both literally and figuratively. Kate holds Anna within herself; “I put it onto an envelope and sealed it” the loss of her sister is something she will never forget. This display is much more personal and private to Kate. Putting the picture into a “frame” is to make it a normal occurrence in her life, something that when it is gone she wont notice. The “frame” represents what is expected of Kate, to forget Anna over time but display the pain she felt always. But Kate chooses to never “lose her” and keep her within herself always, not only with the kidney Anna gave her, but also with the emotions that will keep her alive within Kate forever. Instead of grieving about the loss she chooses to cling to the last physical piece of Anna and make it emotions that will last forever.