Section 4: Part 1

1) “No, I tell her, little Jason isn’t dead, he’s fine now, pulled out of his coma a week ago. And naturally I took away Toph’s gun privileges, and of course beat him within an inch of life, so zealously that something snapped in his leg somewhere , a tendon maybe, and he fell to the floor, squealing like a pig, couldn’t get up, had to be taken to the emergency room” (Dave Eggers, 138 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius).

To me this quote is something that reflects his desperate need for attention. Of course, none of this is true, but he tells these stories to women to get there attention. He wants to make the women feel bad for him and show sympathy for his situation. This quote is one of the confusing parts of the book because some of his stories that he tells could be realistic. Although this one is a little far fetched, sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s kidding or not.

2) “He is not dead. He will live. Everything is normal. Normal, normal, normal. Good. Good. Normal. Normal. Fine” (Dave Eggers, 164 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius).

In this quote, he is trying to convince himself that he brother has not been killed by the babysitter. Whenever he goes out he has these images and has to continue to convince himself that his brother has not been hurt. Although nothing ever happens, he always imagines that something is going to. I think that this is only foreshadowing to what is going to happen eventually. One day he is going to come home to exactly what he imagined.